A Ridiculously Faithful God

By Tyler Dykstra

2.9 million. That’s how many people live in Chicago, according to the 2010 census, which apparently, didn’t count me. But that’s another story. After four years among the throngs of the urban corridors, I headed west with my newish (10 months) bride in a ’97 Camry. Fifteen hours of yawn inducing flat land later, we arrived among a more hilly country. The population of our town?  2.5 thousand.

We set up camp among a Native American reservation in the Western United States, to begin our lives of ministry. I can throw a stone in every direction and not hit a neighbor, a contrast to constantly closed blinds covering windows merely 10 feet from another apartment dweller’s home.

Caring for the Soul

By Kyle Tennant               

For the last week or so I’ve been thinking about transitions, about that inexorable movement from A to B, B to C, C to D… It’s been on my mind because I’ve just recently made one of the most important transitions in all of life: I graduated from college.

This transition was a little longer than the norm; though I walked the platform during Commencement exercises, it was not a moment of completion. I still had a three credit hour course hanging over my head, to be completed online. I did so within eight days. The purgatorial feeling of this transition, the never-ending-ness of it, was strange.

Summer Rest

By Danielle Germaine

Somewhere, buried deep in the snowy winter months of huddling over textbooks and furiously producing papers, was this beacon of hope that promised sunshine and empty agendas. Here, dreams could be dreamt and sandy beaches envisioned, but only for so long before the blast of the icy wind tunnel woke fantasies wide awake. Steamy Starbucks cups would be replaced with ice-cold glasses of lemonade and that five-hundred pager on Macroeconomics be exchanged for a softback novel.

Faith Questions

 by Tony Robledo

I want to pose some questions about faith. I think some of us think we know the basics of our salvation inside-and-out. I think others of us, in a false attempt to be humble, appeal to ‘mystery’ as soon as questions turn inconveniently difficult.

This is about asking good questions. It’s looking into those gaps in our theology glossed over by too much repetition, overlooked by too much leaping and bounding through the gospel. This is for those who crawl through the gospel. This is for those who, like blind beggars, must feel on their hands and knees every inch of the way. There, on our hands and knees, we stumble across questions as we crawl.

How would you answer these questions?

A Grain of Salt

by Danielle Germaine

Growing up, I had the sad reputation of being gullible—the one who found it harder than anything to believe that someone was ‘just kidding’ or telling a pretend story that seemed so real. Inevitably, I became the center of playful jokes, growing so accustomed to making people laugh at me in my stupidity. But I didn’t always find it funny. There were times when I just wanted people to take me seriously, to believe that I wasn’t as naive as they thought I was.

Confessions of a Self-Oppressing Artist

By Alexis Marie Berry

“The Lord has promised good to me. His word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures. Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, And mortal life shall cease, I shall possess within the veil, A life of joy and peace.” – John Newton

Some nights you might find me cross-legged in the center of my bedroom floor–my black tank again wearing through the red stitches it’s been mended twice with, my green scrub pants reminding me of the smell of bleach we wore together at the boarding home. Don’t try to approach me though; you might slip on the sea of glass I’ve tried to make for myself. My beads drown the carpet in deep, twisted hues while I add to and string them together–So walk lightly if you must, and take care to not find one stabbed into your heel.

Prayer and Presence

by Tony Robledo

Prayer is often conceived of as a private practice. And when prefaced with ‘public’ we immediately envision something like fifty high school students holding hands around a flagpole or the small town pastor’s contribution to a speech regarding a recent community tragedy or celebration. But there is more to prayer than this.

The presence of God is palpable in our world. Still, too often, we find our unfeeling hands and heads and hearts trembling, as it were, at his glaring absence.

And so we pray.

Self Care and Spiritual Formation

By Duane Sherman

One thing God keeps reminding me about  is the idea of self-care/nurture.  Over the years I’ve found that caring for one’s soul–making time to connect with God and to find refreshment–is foundational in spiritual formation. 

I was such an activist in college: student government, starting a business, aviation fraternity, and volunteering here and there–all good things, but they left me so worn out.  Then, after I graduated and began my first job at a large aerospace conglomerate, all I wanted to do was catch up on sleep and recover from college.  I even fell asleep in the bathroom at work one time (I know, that was bad)!