I have a few treasures from my grandmother’s kitchen: her metal measuring cups, a buttery yellow mixing bowl, and her famous pound-cake recipe. A few years ago, when I dropped one of the mixing bowls and it shattered splintered sunshine on my apartment floor, I cried. Sweeping it up felt like sweeping shards of her into the trash. But there’s something I treasure even more than her well-worn tools or secret recipes: her legacy of hospitality—passed down like a precious heirloom wrapped in crocheted lace.
 
My grandmother was no Martha Stewart and for this I’m grateful. I tried following Martha’s directions once to make pretty little chocolate bowls for Valentine’s Day. Let’s just say that the directions included dipping balloons in warm chocolate, and that the result looked a lot more like an abstract painting (read: flung chocolate on the walls) than the beautiful edible bowls graced with dainty raspberries on the magazine page I’d torn out.

My grandmother’s hospitality was not Martha’s kind. No ornamental paper lanterns hung from trees, no flouted phyllo-dough hors d’oeuvres, and certainly no edible chocolate bowls. Lois’ hospitality wasn’t the kind meant to impress well-to-do neighbors, or to barb another woman with a twinge of jealousy.Read more

A few months ago, Marva rang my doorbell. When I opened the door she introduced herself, and told me she was looking for some work to do. She explained that she had done some cleaning and outside work for other folks in my neighborhood, and wondered if I might have something for her. She was sick, she said, and needed money for medicine. She did not look well. She was very thin, and her face was scarred and drawn.

I couldn't think of anything at that moment that I needed, so I asked her what sorts of things she'd done for my neighbors. "I could clean your windows," she offered. And I thought, why not? I hadn't cleaned them in some time, and it couldn't hurt. So I walked outside and circled the house with her, counting the windows and agreeing on a price.Read more

I should be used to it by now, I know. But every time I go to a new place, meet new folks, I'm always a little ill-prepared for the sorts of questions that women typically ask one another.
"How many children do you have?" (None. Unless you count the cute one with fur. He turns four this month.)
"What does your husband do?" (This would be much easier to answer, I assume, if I were married. Which I'm not.) I've actually said -once- "I'm not sure." But I don't think the "asker" got my feeble attempt at humor.  
Then once these two awkward hurdles of social exchange are cleared, and I imagine I've escaped the getting-to-know-you-gauntlet relatively unscathed: "You mean you've never been married?" (This one is True or False, right? True. Final answer.)
Usually that's the last question in this particular line of inquiry, but occasionally, I'll get a fourth: "Really? Why not?"
When I was younger, I was prone to say with a smile, "I just haven't found a dress I like." A little later I employed "I haven't found anyone I want to ask." But then I realized a lot of women do ask or demand or set deadlines (!), and what I thought of as an absurdity might have actually been their experience. So I stopped that.
Now I just say that God hasn't seen fit yet to give me away. The question begs a longer answer, but really, this one is the essence of any further explanation I might give. My heart belongs to Him. It's His to give, and so far, if anyone's asked Him for it, He hasn't seen fit to say yes.
Do I have "the gift of singleness?" Every time I hear this phrase I think of a good friend (single well into his 40's) who likened it to the gift that no one wants--like a bad Christmas sweater or a pair of itchy pajamas. But actually, I do. Today. Because today I am single, and this day--all of it--is a gift from God. I don't know what gifts tomorrow will bring. But yes, today He's given me the "gift of singleness." And I hope to use it well.
I've never married. I've never had children. I'm not sure why. But if you asked me what part of my life so far I would have traded for the mystery behind "door number two" I'd have to say none of it. Because my Father's been very, very good to me in every season and every circumstance. And if you asked if I have any regrets, if there was "one I let slip away," I'd say I don't think so. (Although once I might have hesitated.)
I wrote a book about singleness because I was asked to, not because I wanted to. Good things came from it, but I never wanted to be just a "singles" author or a "singles" teacher, or "that girl who never married." My singleness is a present-tense fact of my life, just like the fact that I'm green eyed and Scotch-Irish, that I'm 5'7" and brown-haired, that I live in the city but dream of the country, that I love baseball and dogs and Scrabble and can't whistle or tan, and can make myself at home in five minutes with just about any book that's printed in English. It's only one fact about me. But it's not the one that defines me, any more than any of these others do.
Here's what defines me: I'm His. And I'll be His forever, no matter who else I might belong to in the meantime. That identity suits me. It fits. It's a role I'll spend a lifetime growing into. Until then, I am His to keep, and His to give away.

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A friend of mine, Will Hinton, endeavors to live out the ideal of listening to multiple points of view about subjects, particularly difficult subjects.  I notice other men and women working at this same ideal, but not many. While my perception may be incorrect, it seems to me that fewer people are doing this.

My ideal: assessing matters rationally, thinking through the implications, and adjusting myself to truth no matter the consequence.  If a belief or practice is not in accord with truth, I want to adjust my belief or practice to be in accord with the truth.  Adjusting myself to truth "no matter the consequence" has resulted in many painful deprivations over the years. Sometimes there is a real cost to abandoning a false belief or practice. But why would anyone who cares about truth want to hold on to falsehood in belief or practice? 

Will Hinton cares about truth. He runs a blog and leads a life that is about seeking out personal relationships with people from different points of view. If you read today's column by New York Times writer Nicholas Kristoff you will see that it's not enough to expose yourself to contrary points of view. For common ground to develop an embodied relationship, preferably occurring in part over a shared meal, is important.

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For at least a few more posts, I’m going to use this time and this space to reflect upon the early days of my pastoral ministry at Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Sandy Springs, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. I remain relieved that the process of writing my dissertation has come to an end as well as overjoyed that a local church has seen fit to grant me the privilege of preaching week in and week out. Sure, there are all sorts of difficulties involved in a move like this. My wife and I still miss our church from Louisville, Third Avenue—and that’s the way it should be. We cried when we left Capitol Hill Baptist for seminary in 2000, and we cried when we left Third in 2008. We made connections there, we served there, and we grew there.

I started preaching at Mount Vernon in June, 2008. In many ways I’d been preparing for this day for years. I served as a pastoral assistant and then an elder at Capitol Hill. Then, in Louisville, I helped transition the church to a plural elder model, became an elder, and preached regularly (especially during several times the past few years when we were without a full-time pastor). However, none of these experiences fully prepared me for what I’ve experienced in even three months of ministry at Mount Vernon. So, let me briefly share a lesson that I’m really just beginning to learn.Read more

Some years ago I read a book that I was sure every woman should read. Buying them in bulk, I distributed them to all my friends. (We joke that Campus Crusade staff members are evangelists for everything we love, whether it be bargains or books.) A few friends were also wooed by the book, and we began gathering yearly with the author to explore each other’s stories as we explored knowing Jesus more deeply.

The women in our office began meeting to talk about the book, too. That was four years and four books ago. We have had many women come through our office since then, joining our Tuesday book club. We close the doors to our conference room and unpack our lunches and our lives.

This has become a sacred time of friendship. In 2007 a Duke University researcher found that 50 percent of Americans have two or less people with whom they can have a meaningful conversation. (Obviously, your number of “friends” on Facebook belies your intimate confidants.) The results of this study are a fearful fact for Christians.Read more

For many years, I took my anthropology from Plato and Descartes more than from Jesus.  This is a fancy way of saying that I thought the mind was more important than the body. In a Gnostic sort of way, I thought the body was inferior and the mind, the spirit, and the psyche were where it was at.  It seemed noble, almost courageous, to champion the mind.  The indomitable spirit.  It sounds so American.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but, Ah-ha! words will never hurt me.  My body may wither away, but the real me, the one hidden inside this shell of flesh, presses on.

When I was younger, I was always fascinated with the stories of people who endured great bodily harm and yet kept their wits about them so as to survive.  John McCain is famous for his years of enduring torture in the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War.  He and his buddies weathered horrific conditions and managed to survive even when pushed to the breaking point.  Senator McCain wrote in an article after his release that the key to their survival was remaining in contact with one another even though they were in solitary confinement.  Oftentimes this involved tapping on the walls of their cells in Morse code.  Their captors new that if they could isolate their prisoners completely then they would succumb to the torture.  Maintaining contact with each other--essentially holding together as a community--served as a lifeline that kept the men going.
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I’m sitting in an Evil Franchise* that dispenses legal crack, trying to work. On the agenda: a manuscript to revise for hoped-for publication, clients to call, researchers to recruit and train, forty+ emails to reply to and a blog post for CGO to write. I worked in my office all morning and most of the afternoon, but my attention span started leaking, so I fled to the nearest coffeehouse for a fresh environment.

 The Evil Franchise* has a cushioned bench about seven feet long, and three small round tables positioned in front of the bench. I’m one of three guys using the tables for our computers. Both of the other guys appear to be in their mid-late twenties.

 The Evil Franchise* generates a fair amount of noise with its java paraphernalia and loud music, but two of us are laboring silently. The other quiet guy is perched over his laptop in a posture that suggests…intimacy. He appears to have a relationship with his laptop. He works his keys smoothly, lovingly and I wonder if this is what Zen looks like.

 The third guy? He’s a thumper. Amidst pauses and occasional light keystokes he thunks his keys. Thunk, Thunk…….Thunk…..ThunkThunkTHUNK. Over and over. And over. Thumper reminds me of a Christian concert pianist I once saw, who, afflicted with boundless narcissism, pounded the piano keys in a visual equivalent of a cacophony. (Is there a word for that? Maybe “one person melee”.)

 I’m hearing impaired in one ear (for real) but Thumper is on my better side, and his thunking penetrates the ambient noise of the Evil Franchise*. For ten minutes I try to soldier on, but I can barely focus with the thunking. I look at him a few times, wondering if subtle forms of non-verbal communication might trigger his awareness of the auditory pollution he’s generating.  No.

 Then commences the internal debate. Is his noisy clacking appropriate in a public setting? Am I being selfish? Is he being selfish? Are we both being selfish? Should I try another ten minutes of trying to get work done amidst the distraction? Should I leave? Does the fact that we arrived at the bench at precisely the same moment matter? Does Christian love mean I just leave the Evil Franchise* and find a different place to work? Does Christian forbearance require that I simply endure, and do the best I can where I am, even though ten minutes have shown little will be accomplished? Read more

Tennant, who writes for Christianity Today, nails it on the topic of those who use Facebook to self-promote. In the process, she nails some "Mover".  I feel badly for "Mover" because if he reads this, he'll likely need to change his Facebook profile...she quotes from it.Read more