If Bob Goff and the Dos Equis man had a competition to see who the most interesting man in the world truly is, the judges would pull out the mercy rule (a rule often used in little kids’ baseball leagues to protect their young egos, by ending a game before a demoralizing score of 30-0 develops),...

  We’re inclined to think that life is like jazz: Random, but somehow, making strange and beautiful music. So much of life doesn’t jive like cool jazz riffs. The harmony is lacking and the beat is off. Maybe we imagine God somewhere up beyond outer space, holding the earth–and all things–in...

About once a month, I treat myself to a little something I like to call No-Hat Day.  No-Hat Day is when I temporarily cast off all the roles I try to fill in my life and do something that is purely me in the moment.  For a few hours, I’m neither doting mother nor dutiful daughter, boss nor subordinate,...

For most Christians, there is a clear disconnect between their faith and business. Their Christian beliefs and practices are channeled primarily within the family with the purpose of creating moral individuals and healthy relationships. When the Christian faith is applied to business, it often results...

Easter Sunday. Had it occurred in Depression-Era Mississippi, rather than 1st Century Roman-occupied Jerusalem (and it very well could have), when the women arrived at the tomb they would have beheld a man dressed in a long, white robe, whittlin’ away on a stick, who very likely would have said...

I don’t like 95% of Christian pop music. It’s mostly crap. Worship music is even worse. It’s crap because it’s regurgitated, copy cat, completely uninspired junk. I mostly fault the Christian music industry wanting to play it safe all the time, but I also fault artists who...

I’m a Pretend Guitar Hero. I confess that I’ve spent countless hours playing the popular video game, Guitar Hero. Fostering the illusion that I, too, can be a guitar legend, it is no wonder why I, along with countless others, gravitate to the game. The popular television show, South Park, even...

  “Dead man walking!” This is the phrase which echoed through the halls of death row, and later became the title of a movie. It made perfect sense when I heard that “The Walking Dead” creator named his comic book (turned television series) after the live, not zombie, characters. I never...

Mairi Morrison & Alasdair Roberts Urstan (Drag City) There is a bar called the Caledonia, on the far edge of College Street, in Toronto. It’s a new bar, and I had my first outdoor drink of the season there a couple of weeks ago. There, one of the bartenders chided me gently, because I ordered...

It wasn’t until college that I learned men don’t have empathy. I had just switched majors from pastoral studies to missions, and looked forward to a reading lineup that included an anthropology book on culture. Before we’d start, however,the man who was our teacher and the head of...