Our cat died a few years ago. No need to offer me any condolences—she lived a long and happy life once we rescued her from the side of a country road. We’ve lived in our current townhouse for almost twelve years now, and there’s still evidence of our cat here: carpet torn up on the […]
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“There’s got to be a logical way to explain this Christmas thing.”– Jack Skellington, from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Why did God even come? Why expose God’s very self to the wild elements of humanity: the discomfort, the sickness, the hurt, the sadness, and all that goes along with our soft and vulnerable flesh? At […]
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A young and sculpted lifeguard pulled up in his jeep, parking right between a group of us moms and our kids playing in the waves. It was a particularly gorgeous Thursday afternoon, and a bunch of boy-moms and I had taken advantage of the minimum school day to head to the nearest beach, boogie boards […]
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There’s something magical about losing yourself in a story, or finding just the right book at the right time, or falling in love with a character and rooting for them till the last page. I’ve always been an avid reader, and I love recommending books to people in my life. Every year, I round up […]
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“Mom, look! There’s a dead crow!” My ten-year-old pointed to the sidewalk across the way from the mailboxes in our condo complex. There was indeed a dead crow lying there, black feathers rustling in the breeze, looking like it had just tipped over for a nap. It must have just happened. I was wondering how […]
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I’m not a get-in-the-water type of person. I’d rather walk along the shoreline, getting my feet wet instead of swimming out into the open. Better yet, let me sit on a beach chair on the dampened sand with a novel in my hand and a fizzy water by my side. But when we headed out […]
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Every time we roll into town after nearly 40 hours in the car, I exhale in relief. It means we have survived another road trip from California to Michigan so that we can spend the summer months on the family farm, surrounded by grandparents, cousins, barn cats, pond frogs, fields, and woods. When we drive […]
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Sometimes, their questions impress me. Sometimes, their questions delight me. Sometimes, their questions are easily answered. Every once in a while, their questions challenge me—and that’s what happened last week. I never know quite what to expect on Sunday mornings when I teach a group of 4 to 11 year-olds about God through Bible stories. […]
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It didn’t occur to me to pair my love of reading to my job at church until my husband suggested I start a book club. It was not a suggestion that needed much deliberation beyond a gasp of instant excitement and a plunge forward into planning the details. I called it the “Faith and Fiction […]
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When journalist Bianca Bosker set out to understand the world of contemporary art, she took the opportunity to observe artist Julie Curtiss in her studio. She writes: “Seeing Julie paint offered clues for how to look at a painting like an artist. I needed to slow down, examine its physical form, and consider the artist’s […]
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Sarah K. Butterfield 