“This is an example of what we call ‘just-in-time’ inventory.” Maybe these are not the words you think of a new grandmother saying to her first newborn granddaughter, but if you know that both of my parents are CPAs and that there’s only so much a new mom can chit-chat, it makes more sense. I’d had my newborn home for…
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Driving on the highways of Texas and New Mexico, the neon crosses and stark billboards would loom in the distance for miles before you could read them: “Jesus Saves.” Or in the street, at a park, or at a public event, a stranger with a handful of tracts might ask, “Are you saved?” For most of my life, and especially…
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The first hymn I ever loved was “Fairest Lord Jesus,” in our hymnal as “Beautiful Savior” (ELW 838). Having not been raised in the church, then coming home from summer camp wanting to find out everything I could about God, I listened to the Christian radio station in Houston. Mixed in there with a lot of very bad theology and political…
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Because I’m a writing scholar, I see everywhere the writing of narratives. Of course I mean the literal writing of narratives, as when I tell a story here, in words. But I also see everywhere how we write and revise the narratives of our lives, of identities, of our memberships and intentions. This idea isn’t mine, nor is it new.…