Letter from the Editors
Dear Reader, In the midst of the tragedies of this past year, perhaps the greatest challenge was being forced to walk much of it alone. Many of us have faced illness and grief while physically separated from our friends and family, and isolation has not only amplified those challenges, but become a form of suffering…
“Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us”
I often stare into the flashing lights of my radio station control board wondering if anybody is actually listening. With the busy nature of everyone’s lives amidst a raging pandemic, I imagine the number is quite low. So you can imagine my delight when I received a letter from a self-proclaimed “long-time listener” personally addressed…
Student Stories: Solitude during the Pandemic
Joyce Huang (‘24) Before the pandemic, my faith was mostly based on what other people told me. I didn’t really read my Bible or do research online, I just assumed that what people told me was right. Then when everything shut down and in-person church activities stopped happening, I wasn’t able to see people as…
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Rewriting the Narrative of Shame
What is shame? A small voice whispers, “something is wrong with you; you should be better; you should have it all together.” Many of us have heard this whisper of insufficiency whether it concerns our appearance, emotions, or behavior. At the core of these whispers, there are lies that tell us we are unworthy of…
Busyness: Where Thoreau and the Bible Meet
American society extols the virtues of being busy. Busyness has now become a status symbol, to the extent that people grant higher status to those who use items such as bluetooth headsets (linked to multitasking) instead of headphones (associated with leisure).1 Whereas certain cultures and historical eras valued leisure time as a signal of wealth…
Portraits from the Past
Introduction “It is not good that the man should be alone.”1 These are among the first words in the entire Bible; it is on this basis that God created Eve – so that man would not live alone, but that he might be fruitful and multiply, creating society. But the past year has seen an…
Finding Wholeness in Loneliness
What is loneliness? “Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.”1 The pain of loneliness is something we all feel at some time. Most of us try to subdue it, masking over our hurt with pretenses of happiness and artificial satisfaction and crowding our lives with hundreds of distractions.…