life. faithful.

Tolerance. It seems to be something of a buzz word lately, with everybody demanding tolerance and accusing the opposition--whoever that happens to be at the time--of being intolerant. My original plan for this post was a call to tolerance for both sides, but as I've been looking into it more deeply I've come to a conclusion some people might find alarming: Christianity is and must be inherently intolerant. Now, hopefully you'll stick with me for a bit and hear me out--I know that probably sounds strange, but I promise I'm going somewhere with it. tolerate: allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference Society tells Christians (and so do some preachers and teachers in the church) to be tolerant, that we should respect the beliefs of others as being equally valid. Many today try to say that loving others--which is what Christ stressed above all commandments other than loving Go

*Today is a link-up (well, actually Thursday was supposed to be...this whole writing late thing is starting to become a habit it seems!) with the Faith Barista.   The question she asked for this week was, "Who in the Christmas story do you identify with most deeply?"  *****    Can you imagine what it would have been like? Put yourself there for a minute: out in the fields one night, everything business as usual. You're watching the sheep, probably half asleep. You're listening for anything out of the ordinary, but really not expecting anything to happen. Everything's peaceful out in the fields. I've sat out on the hills many times myself, at Pop and Mom's.   Day or night, the pasture is a good place to think. The herd I got to watch was a bit different than the flock the shepherds were watching, but I imagine the peacefulness would have been the same--    --away from the hustle and noise and general busy-ness of town, just t

I've stared at that title for a while now, trying to figure out what to write. It's part of a link up with the Faith Barista, so it is actually an assignment of sorts that was "due" Thursday...   For some reason, though, I just don't know what to write. What do I need to give myself permission to do, or to be? It really doesn't seem like it should be such a hard concept. Maybe the problem, then, comes from the fact that I don't really know what I want to be when I grow up. "Wait, what?" you may ask. "But you're in grad school and you're writing--not to mention you're almost 30! You're kind of already in that 'grown up' part of life, you know." I hear you, I promise. But you see, there's still this nagging feeling inside that I really don't know what to do with the rest of my life. I think it's an inheritable trait--I got it from Pop (that's my dad, for those of you who may not know).

I saw a welcome home sign this morning on my drive in to class, and I almost started crying. It's strange to me that even now, close to 10 years since I last saw my brother, little things can get to me. This morning it was the banner in a front yard welcoming home a Marine. A couple days ago it was a picture I found tucked away of Michael in Iraq--made even harder when Raiden walked in and saw it in my hands. She said, "Uncle Michael," then went on to say, "I'm really sorry for you, Mommy." Friday is Michael's birthday, when he would have turned 33. Sometimes, I'm overwhelmed by the thought of how young 23 really was and how much life he has missed out on. I know they say it isn't the years in someone's life that matters, but the life in someone's years. To be honest, though, sometimes I wish "they" would just keep quiet. I'll be 30 next summer, and I can't imagine anyone who would have teased me more about th