Category: God is Love

Let’s Get Organic: God, Sin, and Human Beings’ Ability to Change

Let’s Get Organic: God, Sin, and Human Beings’ Ability to Change

History offers many examples of technological and intellectual change (we can do more and we know more than we used to). But as far as humankind’s moral dimension, there is scant and/or confusing evidence of any real movement forward. Our weapons of war are more sophisticated and deadly than ever and we use them to great effect. Our ability to […]

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Who Loved Michal?

Who Loved Michal?

This is a story about a girl who loved a boy. The girl’s name was Michal. The boy’s name – we all know him – was David. David began as a shepherd boy, then a musician in Saul’s home there to soothe the King with his harp playing. Maybe the girl noticed him even then, we can’t be sure. But […]

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A Hunger for Their Ashes

A Hunger for Their Ashes

When my mother died and was cremated, we six took her ashes and in the back yard of the house we’d grown up in formed a circle. We took my father’s ashes, which had been saved for just this moment, and carefully opened both of the thick plastic bags. And then we took turns removing from each bag a portion […]

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Hatred Is…

Hatred Is…

Hatred is high-definition certainty. Hatred requires a very simple plot. Hatred’s purest dress comes only in extra-small; or to put it in astronomical terms, it is the big bang in reverse. Hatred as narrative requires victims and victimizers, the first playing the role of the second. Hatred’s first victim is the self-reflective intellect. Hatred and race are intimate for one […]

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How Far, Forgiveness? (by Corrie Ten Boom)

How Far, Forgiveness? (by Corrie Ten Boom)

Forgiveness? How far? Corrie Ten Boom, imprisoned in the concentration camps for hiding Jews from the Nazis, lost both her father and sister there and survived herself due to clerical error which allowed her release. After the war, when she had begun telling her stories of faith and suffering, she spoke also on forgiveness. And one day God took her […]

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Of Suffering and Love: Francois Mauriac’s Nobel Prize Speech

Of Suffering and Love: Francois Mauriac’s Nobel Prize Speech

For many years, I have held a little known French author as one of the most precious treasures literature ever produced. Francois Mauriac was either a Christian with an existentialist’s heart or an Existentialist with a Christian’s heart, though that description is also misleading. He was a diarist of human suffering. My dear late friend and mentor, Dawn Mortimer, introduced […]

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“Do You Pay for Love?” an excerpt from Calvin Miller’s The Singer

“Do You Pay for Love?” an excerpt from Calvin Miller’s The Singer

I am daring to post this excerpt because (a) this beautiful book has been largely forgotten, (b) this might help folks to rediscover it, and (c) the message of this particular passage cannot be over-emphasized. When this book — and two companion volumes — were published in the 1970s with Inter-Varsity Press, they were favorites in the JPUSA community and […]

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The Manger’s Complaint

The Manger’s Complaint

The Manger’s Complaint By Jon Trott (Dec. 2006) Your judgment seems flawed, your reasoning strange To want to live there in my smell and wet straw Your beauty, your wisdom, your heavenly power How can my wooden ugliness hold You without flaw? Your taste in surroundings leaves much unexplained The waste of the beasts, their bleats, brays, and moos How […]

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Water in the Desert of Love (Lyric)

Water in the Desert of Love (Lyric)

Water in the Desert of Love (c) 2011 Jon Trott There is sweet temptation that is pure There is a sensual touch that’s God-sure There is a thought, a breath, a word A name each heart beat said and heard Draw me to you in this laughter in these tears The personal mystery of our history ends fears You are… […]

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Poetry (lyric): To Change Things

Poetry (lyric): To Change Things

A lyric inspired by my daily reality living on a second floor next to an Uptown, Chicago alley….   To Change Things (Jon Trott) Every mornin’ the man stands on his fire escape Drops the trash down to the alley below Every evenin’ he wanders on down those metal stairs To puke delirium tremens from a bitter soul And every […]

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