Usually when we give thanks, we give thanks for the more pleasant blessings we receive from life. But today I’d like for us to think about those blessings life brings us that come wrapped in pain instead of pleasure. A couple of decades ago I was sitting in a group therapy session in Dallas, […]
Sabbathing Michael Jinkins “There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be.” (Abraham Heschel) He ran the nicest supermarket in town. In a time when most grocery stores were still mom and pop affairs. The long wide aisles of his store, the gleaming glass freezer […]
Awake Michael Jinkins A couple of years ago, a publication from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) featured an article decrying the teaching of Mindfulness in public schools. Although Debbie and I support the work of SPLC, I was very disappointed in the article because it completely grabbed the wrong end of the […]
Un-Domesticated Mysteries Michael Jinkins “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, […]
Thomas Hardy is remembered today mostly for his novels. In their narrative power and realism, they set the stage for the great novels of the twentieth century. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d’Ubervilles, and Jude the Obscure, in my view, mark the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of a century […]
Sanity, …. Within Reason Michael Jinkins Given the popularity of “The Onion,” the satirical newspaper that makes up some very funny stories (and some very rude ones too), a bunch of rowdy young Christians started publishing an online spoof newspaper with some hilarious fictional stories. One headline I read went like this: “Mountain […]
Ghost of Advent Present Michael Jinkins Why are Christmas stories such as Frank Capra’s movie It’s a Wonderful Life and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, so popular on television in this season while American culture seems so often to contradict their messages? We seem horrified by the prospect of a vulgar, self-serving […]
The Gift of Advent Michael Jinkins If someone forced me to choose whether I would declare myself to be an “Easter Christian” or “Christmas Christian,” without doubt I would come down on the side of Christmas. I love Christmas. And it’s not just because I love the whole joyful, sparkling, pagan-spangled, Bethlehem-bound discombobulation […]
“Together” in the Wilderness of Solitude: An Advent Exercise Michael Jinkins “When Jesus heard of it, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” Matthew 14:13 Anyone familiar with the gospels will be familiar with the pattern. From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, one finds the flow and ebb of […]
Can Christians Be Justified in Saying: “I Was Just Following Orders”? Bonhoeffer’s Germany, Part 5 Michael Jinkins In response to one of my blogs on “Bonhoeffer’s Germany”, someone asked that I comment on the relationship between St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Chapter 13, and the issues raised by Bonhoeffer’s resistance to Adolf Hitler’s […]