When I think of resurrection, I think of a stone on my kitchen counter. I picked it up at the beach last year. It’s smooth and gray, like most of the rocks on the beach, with one difference: The holes. One hole pierces its middle. Two opened seashells lodge in another empty space like baby …
Am I ashamed of my privilege and wealth?
When my sister would come home from the children’s home on visits, the first thing we would do was show each other our stuff. I watch my children doing this with friends: a sort of inventory-as-friendship. After all, until you know what’s exciting and fresh and new, how can you decide what to play? So …
Strength out of trash: #wordmadeart
This week’s #wordmadeart prompt is to make some pages of your Bible smaller. It’s lifted straight out of one of Keri Smith’s book, Wreck This Journal. I thought the idea of pages of the Bible becoming bigger or smaller seemed particularly evocative. One reason: it’s the way we read scripture, right? Some pages, like the first …
When the Rain Does Not Come–for The Mudroom
I used to watch the summer monsoons as if they were a picture show. Our house was perched at the top of a hill overlooking Tucson. Every August, thunderheads would roll over the bluish hills and send their pencil-sketch lightning bolts down over the glittering city. I’d turn off all the lights, spin the barrel …
The land of the once-Christians
This is the third in a series of three posts about boundary-keeping in the church. Namely, how do we decide who is really “Christian”, and how do those dividing lines make people feel? I recognize that boundaries, theology, and creeds are essential for deciding what we believe, and who we are. But the practice of drawing lines is fraught. I’ve …
Using My Bible to Process Sexual Abuse at Church
(Trigger warning: rape and abuse) In my Bible-turned-art-installation, I decided to draw a map of the church I (sporadically) attend, the same one I’ve been attending for twenty-three years. I made my first public confession of faith there. I married there, baptized my kids there. I led worship and served as a small group leader. Most …
Better faith information will not save our lives
This is the second in a series of three posts about boundary-keeping in the church. Namely, how do we decide who is really “Christian”, and how do those dividing lines make people feel? I recognize that boundaries, theology, and creeds are essential for deciding what we believe, and who we are. But the practice of drawing lines is …
I didn’t know Jesus was with me because another Christian told me He wasn’t.
This is the first in a series of three posts about boundary-keeping in the church. Namely, how do we decide who is really “Christian”, and how do those dividing lines make people feel? I recognize that boundaries, theology, and creeds are essential for deciding what we believe, and who we are. But the practice of drawing lines …
I didn’t know Jesus was with me because another Christian told me He wasn’t.Read More
in your face love: #wordmadeart
Generally, as an artist, if the idea of creating something makes you want to weep, it is golden and you must immediately do it. This was one of those projects. The prompt was to use pop-up book techniques to transform one of the Bible pages. My parents brought back some old photos from my grandma’s house. Among …
Witnessing Pain Without Fixing It
Note: Birth is a fraught topic. My story is just one story—you might not have kids, not ever experience labor. Still: all of us go through pain. And learning to witness it instead of fight it or numb it is a powerful, powerful practice. In my prenatal class, the instructor handed us all ice cubes …
The privilege of being small and beloved
I spent my childhood hoping to make it big. I did pretty well. At age 12, I starred in a professional production of Annie in Phoenix, moving an hour away from my home in Tucson for the run of the show, and belting out Tomorrow in front of thousands of people. A year later, I came across the play’s …
Spiritual Abuse is Real. Here’s How to Recover
The moment I realized I’d been abused, I was staring at my computer screen. I’d been working on a book about reading the Bible without anxiety, and decided to include scenes from my high school youth group, at the church I still attend. There, I’d made amazing friends, had my first heady experiences of fellowship, …
Cutting a hiding place in scripture: #wordmadeart
So the project I was most eager to start with was making a hidey hole in my Bible. Why? I am a murder mystery aficionado. Nothing says “Hercule Poirot” like a secret compartment cut in a book. ROMANCE. Again, a hiding place in a book? It’s so any kind of old-timey literature. All those verses about …
Creativity is a Window Into Holiness
As a writer, I face a blank page each and every day. I have to come up with idea after idea and sit down, each time wondering if I’ll be able to pull it off. The problem is less acute now, because I’ve practiced. And practiced. But it wasn’t always like that. When I was …
upside down and backwards: Recovering the Bible
You ready to start The Word Made Art?? The first project is to recover the Bible. In both senses of the word. (Wheeeee!) So last week, I introduced you to my Bible. Here it is again: Here’s the inside. (A little busy. Also: How did I write that small?): I gathered materials: I crumpled up the grocery bag …
I’m going to wreck my Bible. Here’s why.
Meet my Bible from college. “Nice to meet you,” it says. I got this Bible when I attended Intervarsity’s missions conference in 1996.. It was compact, so when I left the next year for Argentina, I took this Bible with me. It was the first Bible I read all the way through. And it was …
The most crazy-subversive, life-changing, Kingdom-bringing, totally unintuitive thing you can say out loud
Sidle up to your best friend at church. Tell your husband when you have a minute alone. Admit it to your mom, to your small group, to your grown child. Or, if all else fails, look in the mirror and say it to yourself. I am not okay. Tell the people you love why you …
Four facts about the Bible that blew my mind
I used to think I was a terrible Christian. Why? I didn’t read the Bible regularly for fifteen years. I told myself I was recovering from legalism. Then I was caring for a newborn, a toddler, another newborn. But when I remembered studying the Word every day, I shriveled with shame. Didn’t good Christians read the …
Under the wings of devotion
“It’s been a lot harder to do my devos lately,” Samantha said. She and I were sitting on the scarlet couch in her living room, along with the other women in our small group. We had split up from our spouses for prayer requests, and Samantha was sharing hers. She shifted her newborn in her …
Why I don’t think every Christian has to read the Bible
The seed of this project about the Bible was planted by Preston Yancey, who talked about how important he felt reading the Bible regularly was for discussions of theology. Or something. I am having trouble finding the post. Thanks a lot, Internet. (And Preston, forgive me if I mischaracterize your words…when I read them I was …
Why I don’t think every Christian has to read the BibleRead More
Blessings in the midst of the dark
It had been a long, dispiriting day. Week. Month. Season. That night, the air in my bedroom was close and still, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic. I grabbed my Book of Common Prayer and went out onto the patio, even though there’s no furniture out there. I had to get out of the house. The …
A tale of two Bibles
When I need a Bible, I reach for my husband’s. It’s leather-bound with his name embossed on the front. His parents gave it to him. Tucked inside is a fabric cross his mom needle-pointed with a few spindly pink irises. Parts of the spine are cracked and peeling off glossy finish, and it has a …
when you make peace with emptiness, you are ready to be filled
I’m going to talk about writing for a minute, but bear with me. It’s not really about writing. It’s about God. And faith. And the Bible. So. In “The Getaway Car” Ann Patchett considers, with aplomb, every author’s biggest nightmare. “As far as I’m concerned, writer’s block is a myth,” she said. Here’s her prescription: …
when you make peace with emptiness, you are ready to be filledRead More
An Unlikely Hunger for God’s Word
I was a junior in college when my Bible study leader, Tina, recommended that I memorize Scripture. She pulled out a card from her pocket to show me. “I write my memory verse on this and carry it in my pocket,” she said. In her neat printing, it read, Blessed is the one …whose delight …