Catch up on Season 13 episodes
[Listen to a recording of today’s article by clicking play below.] It’s a day with a lot of names—Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Fastnacht—but around our house it was always Pancake Day. Though the Bowler girls were not brought up to be great observers of the church calendar, we always knew when it was…
My upbringing wasn’t exactly traditional, especially come December. My Dad is (if I may say so) the expert on Christmas. He received his Ph.D. in History from King’s College, London, and is the author of Christmas in the Crosshairs, Santa Claus: A Biography, and The World Encyclopedia of Christmas. He has published works on topics ranging from Renaissance…
Christmas is all about togetherness and no one understands that more than the Hallmark Channel. As everyone who is also tracking the Countdown to Christmas with the Hallmark Christmas app knows (please don’t tell anyone), nothing complicated is ever supposed to happen. In a movie that could be called “Christmas, Christmas Back Again,” travelers may…
Zach helped me light the first candle of Advent on Sunday. The Advent Wreath is a tradition created by a German pastor in the 19th century as a way to teach kids about the coming of Christ. Candles are lit on the Sundays of Advent; three are purple for penitence, a fourth is pink for joy,…
Hello my dears, As it turns out, sharing your innermost feelings with millions of strangers in the form of a fancy book was an even more inside-out-feeling than I imagined. Who knew? When we last spoke, I had just wrapped a busy book tour and recording seven podcast episodes where I had the chance to…
It’s happened a million and one times. I’m getting my nails done, picking up take-out, or making small talk in the line at the post office. Someone will ask where I work, and I’ll get to tell them about all the brilliant people I know at Duke, the students I love, and the church people…
I cleaned out my work office yesterday. I rearranged the futon, moved my desk to face the window, hung new artwork, and covered the ugliest cabinets with stick-on wallpaper. I’m one floral arrangement away from a Martha Stewart sponsorship. The hardest challenge was releasing stacks of library books I’ve nestled around me for the past…
A poor carpenter from Nazareth was put to death this week, died, was buried, and rose from the dead. Even though Christians do a lot of thinking and talking about tombs on Easter weekend, the story does not end there. It might be the most dramatic element – on the other side, nothing will be…
Imagine this: you’re lying back in a dentist chair. Your dentist is descending on you with a flashy steel scalpel, about to cut out one of your front teeth. As the morphine begins to blink your eyes closed, your dentist says, “Now, there will be some tethering to compensate your lateral incisor. Make sure…
I recently had a dream that I almost drowned in the ocean shallows. I was floating when a massive whirlpool formed beneath me. I tried to get my bearings but I couldn’t swim against the current, pulling me down, down, down. I started to panic when I heard a splash behind me and felt a…
What’s the first thing to come to mind when you hear the words, “Kiss me”? Or how about, “popcorn”? Or what about “colorectal”? EXACTLY. Words have weight. Words are not neutral; they come with more baggage than an American family taking their first trip to Disneyworld. Some words, like “combine tractor” create elicit clouds of…
Lent has me thinking about the ubiquity of suffering. Sickness is part of the universal human experience, but we try so hard to disengage from it. You would think we all understand that we are all going to die (unless you are Walt Disney, who has probably come the closest to cultural immortality)! But it’s…
Explore our Advent devotionals designed for every journey—whether you’re reflecting on your own, gathering with a group, or diving deeper in a Bible study or Sunday school setting.
