Tag Archives: Thoughts on Faith

Review of Doug Frank’s A Gentler God

Like most people, my understanding of God’s image and character has been transformed over time: in my case, from the bearded old white man of Sunday school lore, giving judgment from atop fluffy clouds, to a much more inclusive—and, to be honest, more ambiguous—deity,

A Visual Apologetic

Can God reveal himself through visual art?

This question often elicits conflicting emotions. Many Christians who are artists would intuitively answer the question with an unequivocal, “yes,” but defending this answer to those who are ambivalent or even hostile to visual explorations of God can be unnerving.

A Spiritual Wind & Parenting

“I haven’t read a single parenting book!” I laughed with my friends soon after having my first son. I guess I had a self-righteous moment where I thought the implications of reading a parenting book were legalism and too-high-expectations. But then that thought turned to logic, and I began a mental freak out.

News from the North

I’m 35. Not particularly old, not particularly young. I can run and jump. I feel it in my knees the next morning.

My son is five months. Such a tiny sliver of lifetime yet substantial enough that it’s hard to look past and remember anything without him. Those pre-Levin memories are there

Dangerous Margins

A relatively new show on cable called Portlandia is a sketch comedy series on the Independent Film Channel about “life in hipster enclaves and the self-consciousness that make hipsters desperately disavow the label” (Margaret Talbot, “Stumptown Girl,” The New Yorker, 2/2/2012).