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Nancy Sleeth 4-22-2011
Here are 10 ways to make Earth Day a church day for your congregation, small group, or family.

Jeffrey Wilson 4-21-2011
Last year, I was deeply troubled by the Gulf Oil Spill, having been born and raised on the Florida Gulf Coast.
Taylor Johnson 4-21-2011

During my last year of college, my pastor lent me the book Living Gently in a Violent World, co-authored by Jean Vanier and Stanley Hauerwas. This book is an exploration on how followers of Christ ought to live in broken world.

The introduction of the book recounts the story of Jean Vanier teaching a course on pastoral care. During one class, Vanier asked the students to share some of their spiritual experiences. One of the students, Angela (who was deaf) began to share a dream she had where she met Jesus in heaven. She recalled talking with Jesus for some time and never experiencing so much joy and peace. "Jesus was everything I had hoped he would be," she said, "And his signing was amazing!" Vanier explains to the reader that "for Angela, heaven's perfection did not involve being 'healed' of her deafness. Rather, it was a place where the social, relational, and communication barriers that restricted her life in the present no longer existed."

Jim Wallis 4-20-2011

 

[Editors' note: During the season of Lent we will be posting excerpts from the Rediscovering Values Lenten Study Guide. We invite you to study God's word with us through these posts.]

Julie Clawson 4-15-2011
Today is the annual National Day of Silence, a day where students across America pledge to be silent for a day in order to bring attention
Lisa Sharon Harper 4-12-2011
I've been fasting for 15 days in solidarity with the hung
Anjali Cadambi 4-11-2011

Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah! has pulled it off again, this time in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Phil Haslanger 4-11-2011
It was on the shores of North Africa that one of the greatest Christian thinkers tried to work out the relationship between Jesus' teachings about loving even enemies and the impending invasion by
Troy Jackson 4-11-2011
Ten years ago, Timothy Thomas died from a gunshot fired by a police officer in Over-the-Rhine -- a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mimi Haddad 4-08-2011
I concluded my celebration of Women's History Month (March) with a sober realization that the abuse of females is inseparable from the study of women's history.

Mary Kay Henry 4-06-2011
On day three of my prayer fast, I woke up with the hymn, "I Am So Grateful," which the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ Children's Choir sang beautifully yesterday, running through m
Julie Clawson 4-05-2011
My daughter has had a difficult time understanding Lent this year.
Alex Awad 4-05-2011

People can take a certain amount of oppression. However, when it gets beyond their ability to tolerate, they rebel.

In a blog posted on God's Politics on September 14, 2010, I wrote that I rejoiced that Pastor Terry Jones had
Jeannie Choi 4-01-2011

Afghanistan. Geography Game. @jimwallis. Here's a little round up of links from around the Web you may have missed this week:

Hannah Lythe 4-01-2011
When I was younger, I played by the rules. Everything had to be fair. The quantity of animal crackers in my possession had to be equal, not greater or less than my brother's.
Kierra Jackson 4-01-2011

I started running because of my sister. Kim and I began when we were pre-teens. I believed running was the key to making me more like her -- 5 foot 9, lean, beautiful, and highly intelligent. There was one problem: I hated running. After forcing myself to do it for a while, I was disappointed. My dreams of who I would become were dashed, and all I got from trotting around was a lower resting heart rate and bulky thighs.

Years later, much has changed -- including my relationship with running. Following her multiple-sclerosis diagnosis in 2009, Kim, who was once a long-distance runner, has retired her running shoes. She hasn't hit the pavement in more than one year. I still run. Something in my spirit won't let me quit.

Last weekend, I completed my fourth half marathon in Washington, D.C. As I toed the start line, a story began to unfold. At 7 a.m., it was barely 35 degrees outside and still dark. I was surrounded by a sea of 16,000 people -- all of whom were present for one thing: to put their bodies to the ultimate test. This morning was all about endurance.

Sasha Adkins 3-31-2011

The April issue of Sojourners magazine takes on climate change denial. One challenge is that the truth is hard to face -- but, as scientist Sasha Adkins describes from personal experience, one strategy is to draw inspiration from the comforts of home.

The question that I am most often asked when I talk about my Ph.D. research on the impacts of pollution has nothing to do with my methodology or my data. It is, "How do you live with this knowledge? Where do you find your hope?" It's a good question. My research results on the impact of plastics on human health and the environment are often quite demoralizing to hear. More than once when I am presenting them, an audience member has literally started to cry.

I took a year off from my environmental studies program to search for the answer to that very question, to find hope -- but this time, instead of turning to peer-reviewed journals for answers, I turned to my cats. I asked them if they would be willing to try living without fossil-fuel heat for the winter.

John Cook 3-31-2011
The reasons for raising doubts about the human causes of global warming, explains Skeptical Science's John Cook, are often political rather than scientific.
Debra Dean Murphy 3-30-2011

At the end of Roland Joffé's exquisite film, The Mission, a brief exchange between a Portuguese ambassador and a papal emissary sums up the tension between globalization (the movie's subject matter) and a worldvi