The Last Straw

Creation / Ordinary Life

The Last Straw I think it was the video of a plastic straw stuck up the nostril of a sea tortoise leaking blood and…

Our Planet (David Attenborough; 2019)

Creation / Movies

Wonder and stewardship Each episode of Our Planet (2019) opens with the same dazzling image. The camera is in space, hovering above the surface of…

Musing on the Physical

Creation / Ordinary Life

Reading the Word: Musing on the physical Some natural beauty is quiet and surprising, like the tiny flower with delicate white petals and bright yellow…

Graceful Social Justice: CreatureKind and the Ethics of Food

Creation / Maturity and Flourishing / Ordinary Life

Environmentalists come in different flavors. There are dirt environmentalists like Rachel Carson and Wendell Berry. There are ice environmentalists like Al Gore focusing on…

Can We End Well and Enjoy Coffee, Too?

Community / Creation / Ordinary Life / Safe Place

Dear Friends, Although I’m dedicating this letter to Katy B. who has begun a dangerous journey, please come along, all of you, for none…

Make Me Find Joy

Community / Creation / Ordinary Life / Safe Place

Drought – now there’s a word. Drought. Like California. Like now as I try to write. It’s been like trying to cough up fish…

Calm down!

Creation / Ordinary Life / Safe Place / Work and Rest

If it were up to me I’d be blasting judgment from my throne. I would wipe out – the Zika virus, the ex-president of…

What if Your Treasure Was Worth a Billion

Creation / Ordinary Life / Safe Place

Last month Harper’s Magazine (April 2016) published a fascinating report about a Jay Miscovich, who found what he claimed were hundreds of emeralds from…

Seeing beyond the traces

Creation / Faith / Spirituality

One of the things I love about winter in Minnesota is how tracks are left to tell a story in newly fallen snow. In…