intersect

The messes we leave tell a story about us.  Lego pieces and barbie dolls scattered across the family room floor are the happy remainders of a day well-spent in play. Pieces of Scotch Tape left stuck to the ceiling perhaps held balloons and streamers for a child's birthday party.  The baked-on crud left on the oven rack might have been the spillover from a casserole hastily thrown in the oven on a busy school night. The smudges on the wall and the stains randomly scattered in cupboards or on baseboards are proof of life. The thin layer of dust on the top of your cabinets is --well, never mind what it actually is , but this too is evidence that your home is a place humming with activity. Granted, most of us don't hold such a romanticized view of dirt, and grime, and grease. And neither should we. Left alone, a house or an office that is given a pass on cleaning day will grow, quite literally, into a place that is not just unattractive, but actually uninhabitable and even tox

Yesterday , I shared some of my observations that I've drawn over the last three months as I've been reading and reflection on the meaning of culture. I focused there mainly on how we as Christians should think about culture -- what is it, and how we ought to view view culture as faith-neutral, but fallen. Today, I want to summarize what we ought to do about that. If culture is our shared story of meaning, what role might a Christian have in the public realm? If culture is faith-neutral, but fallen, how can Christians play a meaningful role in telling and shaping this story? Christians Should Think in Terms of Influence Rather Than Transformation:  After describing four possible options for the relationship between Christ (read "Christians") and culture, Richard   Niebuhr moved on to his fifth option, "Christ Transforming culture." Although he himself did not formally tie himself to any one approach, most readers agree that this was his preferred option. C

"Culture is not only what we live by. It is also, in great measure, what we live for. Affection, relationship, memory, kinship, place, community, emotional fulfillment, intellectual enjoyment, a sense of ultimate meaning." -- Terry Eagleton Mission accomplished...sort of.  That's how I'm feeling as I wind down a three month Sabbatical. I had set out this three months wanting to learn more about how faith and culture come together in everyday life -- and to that end, this was a very fruitful summer. I read a lot, wrote some, observed different people in their everyday work, and had a lot of fun doing it. Yet I can't help but feeling that I've barely scratched the surface -- some thoughts and ideas have settled into my mind quite nicely, but there other topics under this umbrella where I feel I've barely scratched the surface (though I think that's the best possible place to be -- lots of room for new discovery and learning!). So what have I learned?

"You can see...they are hungry for fun." My friend shared this observation with me last week, as gave me a tour on the Indonesian island of Timor. I was on a two-week teaching trip that included time in both India and in Indonesia -- as well as short visits to numerous airports in other countries around Asia and Australia. Tapping the riches of any culture takes a lifetime, and so one short week in any one place is hardly enough time to begin scratching the surface of understanding a culture, but it is a valuable exercise nonetheless. I've made the case here that "culture" is essentially the shared story that we tell. It's the way that a group of people (however localized or expansive that group may be) expresses what matters, what has purpose, what is right, and what is wrong. If that's the case, then visiting another culture is a lot like listening to a story other than our own. If we pay attention to the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes

"We can at any rate say that beauty arouses a hunger and a longing which is never satisfied in this world." -- J.B. Phillips Our living room played host to an art show last week. It was a modest affair by the standards of the art world, but a worthwhile show nonetheless. Back in May, our youngest daughter -- a budding artist  herself-- sent out a call for artistic submissions to each of her family members, in anticipation of her first annual art show. Unfortunately, the timing was bad -- and this meant that her art show -- originally scheduled for June 1 -- had to be pushed back a few weeks, to just last week. That allowed time for each member of our family to create something -- a painting, a series of photographs, a drawing, or a collage. Kara opened the show with a short presentation on the importance of art: "Art is important because it is a way we can make something beautiful," she explained. Each participant then had the opportunity to share their piece, a

Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk, and True Flourishing:  Andy Crouch, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 2016.  192 pages, including charts, discussion guide, and notes. Not long ago, our family watched the well-loved 1993 movie,  The Sandlot . Judging by the way the audience echoed the script right along with the movie, this movie was indeed a familiar friend to many. It's described as a "coming-of-age" movie, one  in which 9 neighborhood boys grow together and grow up over the course of a summer spent at the neighborhood sandlot.  Early in the story, "Smalls" -- the new kid on the block-- is given the chance to play ball right along with the rest of the "in" kids. All well and good, except Smalls has never played much ball, and the first hit that flies his way is just that: a hit, right off his head and onto the ground. His marked inabilities leave the rest of the team quite literally rolling on the ground in laughter, and

The Good Neighbor Coffee House is situated on a side street, just south of downtown in Lacombe, Alberta. It's not just the name that communicates the virtues of neighborliness either -- inside the modern-looking building, the muted colors and the brass machinery convey a certain warmth; the baristas are friendly, the seating is arranged in such a way as to invite conversation, even with strangers. Rick Abma opened the place just a few weeks ago, and judging by the steady stream of business mid-afternoon on a Monday, word is getting around about the Good Neighbor Coffeehouse. Sure, there's a Tim Hortons or two within walking distance, but people come to the GNC for something they can't typically get at a chain coffee shop: neighboring. Rick is a pastor by trade, but he didn't start the GNC as a way to hoodwink unsuspecting people into coming to church. And neither did he do it with the goal of making money (though it should be noted that the GNC is a for-prof

Mike Boldt brings little girls with tiger tails to life. And stubborn frogs, and dinosaurs, and numbers and letters. Mike is an award-winning Canadian author & illustrator who has written or illustrated (or both) over 15 award-winning children's books, including "A Tiger Tail", "Letters vs. Numbers," "Colors vs. Shapes", and "I Don't Want to Be A Frog!" Leafing through the pages of his books, readers young and old are drawn into the narrative: characterized letters compete with characterized numbers to grab the spotlight of the story; Little Jack Horner rocks out, live from the corner; or little Anya tries to figure out what to do when she wakes up on the first day of school, having grown a tiger tail overnight. You can meet some of his characters, and buy some of his  books here . Visiting his studio in early July, Mike gave me a glimpse into the process of bringing an imagined character to life on the pages of a storybook. It&

"I just love flying." That was the response to my question -- "What do you like about your job?" -- that I asked my brother, who also happens to be a First Officer with Canadian North Airlines. Canadian North is an airline providing both passenger and cargo service to 19 of Canada's Arctic communities. They operate a fleet comprised of Boeing 737 & Dash-8 aircraft, flying to such places as Cambridge Bay, Yellowknife, and Iqaluit. They are, in many good ways, a vital thread that connects these otherwise-isolated communities together. Chris has been flying with Canadian North for over 9 years, most of those years behind the yoke of a Boeing 737. His love for flying dates back to when we were kids -- and he is one of fortunate ones who was able to turn his love for all things aviation into a career. Not long ago, he gave me a tour of the Canadian North base, at Edmonton International Airport, and walked me through a typical day as a pilot. The flight