Monthly Archives: October 2015
by Rachel Koehne | Oct 31, 2015
So how do we turn the Sabbath, this “day of rest,” into something we not only do out of habit, but something we long to do out of love for our Savior?
by Hannah Brenton | Oct 30, 2015
I’m afraid of a lot of things: Bears, snakes, transition, commitment, pain. I also love a lot of things: exploring the outdoors, visiting new places, and building relationships with intricate people.
by Anonymous | Oct 29, 2015
The honest, I’m no longer a fifteen-year-old church-attending, praying, mission trip going, small-group frequenting, loving kid. The real, I work on Sundays, pray with a quick “please,” “thanks,” “no thanks.”
by Bekah (Williamson) Medendorp | Oct 28, 2015
In a time and culture when being twenty-five, unmarried, and professional is a deeply respected symbol of detachedness, I cling to the strands of blood and body that tether me to this hallowed ground.
by Brad Zwiers | Oct 27, 2015
Moses stares at the bush. It’s burning—blazing, even—but it’s somehow not consumed. He takes his sandals off at that place, not ready to walk onto holy ground, not quite certain that he will not be consumed.
by Nick Meekhof | Oct 26, 2015
It was refreshing to be on this side of the political spectrum, supportive of marginalized groups and new ideas. Republicans just didn’t seem to make time for that.
by Ryan Struyk | Oct 25, 2015
How can you tell whether you’re looking at a good poll or a bad poll? Here is a layperson’s guide to a few of the building blocks of a good public opinion poll – and how to quickly and easily tell what kind you have on your hands.
by Lauren (Boersma) Harris | Oct 24, 2015
What’s the climax of my life? It seems to me that many people around me are pretty focused on figuring out whether or not they’re currently living the climax.
by Michael Kelly | Oct 23, 2015
There were whole virtual universes right in my very own living room. How could I think of leaving it? I guess I would go outside occasionally—when my thumbs cramped up from joysticks or my eyes dried up like craisins.
by Matt Medendorp | Oct 22, 2015
Food, I think, is more than a culinary experience. Memories of good meals carry the same aromatic nostalgia of campfire smoke and fondly remembered perfume.
by Andrew Orlebeke | Oct 21, 2015
What too often gets lost in the shuffle is that baseball is also a game, and amidst all the dollars and all the media and all the debates, we should never forget that games are supposed to be exciting and fun.
by Gabe Gunnink | Oct 20, 2015
What I do think I’m saying is that we all need time to wade into the scum of life, the crude wonder of being a breathing, embodied person. We need to strip down to just ourselves and swim out from there.
by Mary Margaret Healy | Oct 19, 2015
For that split second, I was out there, in nothingness. Nothing above me but air, nothing in front of me but endless expanse, nothing below me but mystery.
by Ben DeVries | Oct 18, 2015
Our theme for the month of October is “the elements.” When I say that my brother and I watched Avatar before Avatar was cool, I find the need to clarify two points: Yes, I am asserting my #hipstercred. No, I’m not referring to the 2009 Avatar—the one that...
by Geneva Langeland | Oct 17, 2015
By mindlessly pitching organic material into the garbage can, I’ve ever-so-slightly interrupted the cycle that sustains life on this planet: when one organism dies, its molecules get broken down and rebuilt into the next generation of organisms.
by Andrew Knot | Oct 16, 2015
Here, especially in the corporate world, my liberal arts background has more than once required an explanation (inevitably a defense) of the liberal arts. What can the liberal arts teach us today?
by Cassie Westrate | Oct 15, 2015
So often my mind races about circumstances I seem to have little control over that it’s nice to be able to fix something so easily. At the end of the day, it’s nice to be able to bow my head and dip my hands in soapy water and rinse away the dirt.
by Catherine Kramer | Oct 13, 2015
I’ve been married for two months, so I know pretty much everything there is to know about my husband. Everything except for, you know, what he’s like in the morning.
by Abby Zwart | Oct 12, 2015
The religious pretense and mumbo jumbo is kept to a minimum. But that’s hard to keep up when we get to communion. Because it is weird.
by Elaine Schnabel | Oct 11, 2015
The men and women writing and producing these shows are the missing element. They are giving us what we are hungry for: an intelligent and civil discussion.
by Katie Van Zanen | Oct 10, 2015
And I’m thinking about how much I feel like Frankenstein’s monster, some days—pieced together, a compilation of chemicals without the animation that makes a life.
by Bart Tocci | Oct 9, 2015
This girl really isn’t my type, but I’ve heard of people just being friends from Tinder stuff, so I think, Maybe we can have a let’s-be-friends conversation at some point.
by Paul Menn | Oct 8, 2015
I couldn’t see where the lake ended and land began. The white/grey of the snow and ice blended perfectly with the grey of the sky making it impossible to tell where the sky began.
by Caroline (Higgins) Nyczak | Oct 7, 2015
Tin: Do you remember when we ate Chef Boyardee ravioli cold, out of the can, at 1:00 a.m. on January first? You got out of bed and brought it from the kitchen triumphantly, with two forks.
by Josh deLacy | Oct 6, 2015
It’s not a pretty place. The hazy opium dens and the tobacco-smoke saloons disappeared from dusty California mining towns long ago, and they’ve since set up shop here. You want opium? You got it. How about Craigslist prostitutes? pirated textbooks? fake I.D.s or stolen credit cards?
by Alissa Anderson | Oct 5, 2015
Before New York, having an umbrella blow inside out was a fluke, something astonishing that might happen in really bad weather. Mainly something that happened in cartoons or Mary Poppins.
by Ben Rietema | Oct 4, 2015
We admire the people who adventure, who scale mountains, who travel to faraway places with nothing but optimism, peanut butter, and probably not enough experience.
by Sabrina Lee | Oct 3, 2015
So, a few weeks ago, while I was reading Shakespeare, my friend prepared a twenty-slide Powerpoint presentation on the basics of this facet of American culture about which I am completely illiterate.
by Jacob Schepers | Oct 2, 2015
So let’s celebrate the fiery element of those banned books which smoke out the assumptions and biases we hold. The catalyst they provide is a Pentecost of perceptions, the beauty of flaming tongues affixed to the mind.
by Katerina Parsons | Oct 1, 2015
Hector saw the storm coming before we did and he pulled the truck over and handed us a tarp. And suddenly it was raining in the way it does here: buckets of rain, sheets of rain,
