Mark 12:1-12

Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watch-tower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share...

Mark 10:17-31

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not...

The Art of Making

There are few things more satisfying that making something – putting in time and effort and having something tangible, something you can hold in your hands, when you’re finished. Fewer and fewer of us find ourselves doing that kind of work. At the end of the day, there’s isn’t much many of us can hold on to. It doesn’t mean that what we’re doing isn’t worthwhile, important, or have significant consequences; just that the fruits of much of our labor is intangible. Which might explain why I liked the following video so much. In just over three minutes it shows 299 hours of labor – along with a lot of wood, sweat,...

God, Heretics, and Story: The Weekend Roundup May25

God, Heretics, and Story: The Weekend Roundup

Here are three pieces I enjoyed reading this week but haven’t had time to comment on (yet!) – perhaps they will supply you with some Memorial Day Weekend reading: 1) Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works and How We Decide and one of my favorite science writers, dives into recent research that thinking about God improves self-control. In fact, even when subjects in a psychological test weren’t either a) religious or b) consciously aware that they were thinking about God, they still exercised more self-control when their attention was turned to subjects usually connected with God. In addition to reporting on...

Mark 4:21-25

He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” And he said to them, “Pay...