Jesus, Jubilee, and Joy

During the last year and a half of pandemic life, I found a new hobby. I started translating the Bible. I began intending to paraphrase it to make it accessible to my kids, to address some issues with traditional word choice for certain ideas, like ‘faith,’ that serve to distract from the intended meaning rather […]

What Hope?

When I think about fear and shame and their connections with the compulsion to self-protection and harming ourselves and each other (perhaps a word to summarize that might be ‘sin’), in some ways it softens me. It helps me have compassion even on those who are harming others. In my best moments, it helps me have compassion even on those who are harming me.

At the same time, it reinforces the overwhelming sense of helplessness and hopelessness that anything in life can actually be healed or improved. I might be able to fix something in my own life, but can life for all people everywhere ever get better? It seems unlikely.

New Has Come

I want to talk about something I have become more and more passionate about over the years. Even more recently, I’ve had conversations with different people where it was relevant and even necessary for their ability to recognize a way to move forward in their lives and find Jesus present with them. I could describe […]