Heart/Soul

A couple weeks ago, while walking around our new neighborhood my wife and I walked passed a little corner courtyard.  Behind the space's high metal fence, all locked up, was the statue of a man, seemingly very intent on proclaiming something to someone.  The empty rows of benches all facing the statue added more mystery.

It wasn't until last night at a Corktown neighborhood meeting about violence, homelessness, and gentrification that I learned who that caged man was.

This weekend I had the privilege to attend the "Love Tells The Story" tour with musicians Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Robbie Seay Band, and author Donald Miller.  In the midst of some great tunes Donald offered a short reflection on God, and how God loves creation.  In his message he reiterated a question that most people struggle with.  If God controls everything, why does God let good people get hurt?

In today's selection from CONSP!RE Dawn Noelle Smith Beutler gives testimony to the ways in which God fills the broken places in our lives with a kind of surprising artistry.  For the author of this article, God filled the hole left by divorce with a life deeply connected to new beauty and new communities set before her.  The depiction of her dream in which God fills the later pages of a journal with elaborate drawings struck me as a vivid reminder of just how close God's goodness can be to us.

Today's article by Mike Stavlund explores palliative medical care and how it informs our understanding of faithfulness in light of life's trials.  Are there, he asks, certain moments of faith whose only purpose is just to get us through?

Today's Consp!re article from Shauna Niequist lifts up the ongoing ways we are called to practice new life in the face of the deaths of this world. For Shauna death is a thing experienced not just one big time at the end, but rather is that seemingly ever-present reality of loss and grief that sometimes binds our lives.