Blog

Blog articles offer practical advice, personal experiences, and responses to current events from the vantage point of life in academia.

By Sara Scheunemann

I like snowshoeing. But since I moved south of the Wisconsin border almost seven years ago, there has not been much opportunity to indulge in this winter pastime. A few hundred miles makes a difference in inches of snow received . . .

By Carmen Acevedo Butcher

The low, dull roar of an industrial fan in concert with the higher-pitched hum of the wet-dry vac in my office drew my heart’s easily preoccupied ear to God’s ever underlying, eloquent silence . . .

By Dorcas Cheng-Tozun

Dorcas Cheng-Tozun takes a close look at the gifts and challenges of her Asian-American upbringing and considers how it has impacted her understanding of God's character.

By Joanne Marshall

I was troubled this week by Buzzfeed’s reporting of the hate-filled Twitter responses of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when their chancellor, Phyllis Wise, announced that classes would be held, despite the cold . . .

By Halee Gray Scott

While I was getting my PhD, I worked as an adjunct professor at a Christian college, averaging over 60 working hours per week. Since those hours were spread over three departments, I wasn’t considered full-time and didn’t receive benefits. During one Christmas celebration . . .

By Sara Scheunemann

Over the last few days, while tucked safely inside as snow has fallen, I watched the final film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King. It has, arguably, my favorite scene . . .

By Carmen Acevedo Butcher

Carmen Acevedo Butcher explores the connections between a newborn baby and a fresh start to the calendar year.

By Sara Scheunemann

Sometimes life feels like a perpetual Advent. We are waiting, always waiting. The focus of longing shifts and varies in intensity and significance, but still we wait. Our posture swings from joyful anticipation, to frustrated demands for resolution . . . 

By Karen Hice Guzmán

I recently read that Advent is sort of a spiritual “waiting room.” Advent and its Scripture readings are characterized by an attentive attitude, a posture of waiting.  I am not good at waiting, never have been . . .

By Carmen Acevedo Butcher

My bottom was already numb, and my skinny shoulder blades ached against the hard wooden pew where weekly as a child I sat obediently a few rows back on the left-hand side of the church with my family. Mostly I spent a lot of time staring at the stack of big black hymn numbers . . .

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