A Place for Extravagant Beauty
Flowers serve a purpose, I know, evolutionarily. But I’ve been gazing at this arrangement of flowers leftover from Sunday’s party and thinking how absurd it is. How funny and winsome…
S5 E14 | The Beauty and Wounding of This Here Flesh with Cole Arthur Riley
The effects of trauma often surface in our embodied existence. What about hope? Cole Arthur Riley, author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies, talks with Amy Julia…
A Few of My Favorite Things: Week 7 | Words of Hope
I have both read and listened to so much thoughtful, wise, hopeful writing and conversation this week. I hope you’ll be able to enjoy some of these words of hope…
A Few of My Favorite Things: Week 4 | Braiding Sweetgrass
So yesterday, I spent the day cleaning out my parents’ basement after five feet of water rushed in and flooded all the Christmas decorations that Mom has collected over the…
How Love Is Like a Vaccine
What if love is like a vaccine against fear? Many of us approach this Inauguration Day with hope. Hope that we will turn a corner on this pandemic. Hope for…
AJB Recommends: All the Fascinating Ideas
I have so many fascinating ideas to share for you to consider! I took the whole week of Thanksgiving off. I shut down my laptop and didn’t reply to email…
Advent, Hope, and Canceled Parties
This year the calendar walks us through a season of Advent, hope, and canceled parties. The weird thing about being a practicing Christian in America in December is that the…
S3 E14 | The Astonishing Hope of a Mortal Life with J. Todd Billings
Mortality is often connected to fear, so how does embracing a mortal life provide hope to individuals and communities? Professor Todd Billings, author of “The End of the Christian Life:…
God Is Always Doing a New Thing
"There is nothing new under the sun." It’s such a depressing line from Ecclesiastes, and it reads as depressingly true right now. Futility of Life I’ve been reading through Ecclesiastes,…
AJB Recommends: The Sun Does Shine
I have gone to bed late every night this week because I stay up to read more of Anthony Ray Hinton’s new memoir, "The Sun Does Shine: How I Found…
