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Enough for Him, whom cherubim Worship night and day, A breastful of milk And a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel Which adore. –Christina Rosetti Last Christmas, in the middle of an eight month hiatus from church pastoring, my family attended “The Big Church” [...]
I have a six year old who is in the first grade a school that is demographically similar to Sandy Hook. Her class is filled with children with the same names as those of the babies who died at that school. It is incredibly easy for me to have compassion for those children, for their [...]
(When I posted on Calvin’s third use of the Law and Santa Claus, I really had no intention of another “use of the law post”; and certainly not for this reason…but, here we go) As I watch the Christian social media reactions to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I’m seeing some posts along [...]
We drove from San Carlos to Eugene, Oregon and back over the weekend. North on the California coast, and then back south through the middle of the state. (In between those drives was lovely time with Erik’s family. Really lovely. But this is about the drive. Also, Oregon is lovely. But we spent most of [...]
The process of unpacking and then re-organizing your home convicts you of the tyranny of your stuff. The hours I’ve spent this last week and a half in “home-making” are really hours spent in taking care of the ridiculous amount of material goods that we possess. Now that we’re in the new house and loads [...]
An amazing metaphor for prayer: I heard an interview on the radio this weekend, with a woman named Anita de Wit. She told the story of helping her daughter, Angelique, leave behind prostitution in Amsterdam’s red light district. At one point, Anita talked about how important it was, through the whole process, to leave open [...]
I got angry in church this Sunday while praying the pastoral prayer. I wrote a new one for this Sunday, addressing the Aurora shootings. And, to be honest, I felt a little guilty taking such significant note of this violence in a suburban Chicago congregation when, truth be told, we barely care that over 250 [...]
I love this little article by John Wilson from the Wall Street Journal. (Incidentally, I once got to drive John Wilson around Grand Rapids as a volunteer at a conference he was speaking at, and he was delightful, even when I screwed up the parking lot directions and Gerald Ford Airport and took him on [...]
Really, this is big news even to me: The Schemper-Vorhes family is moving to California! About this time last year, Erik and I were signing a lease for an apartment in Chicago and plotting the move from St. Charles to the city. We had a (flexible-ish) plan that didn’t involve leaving Chicago, at least for [...]
Running with another person once in awhile probably makes me less of a misanthrope. I usually run alone (or with Abram, who, to honest, I ignore for the bulk of the run: he’s in his stroller, I’m running, we’re each doing our own thing). I listen to sermons and music and podcasts. it’s ncie. But [...]