Gaining a heart of wisdom
According to commentators, the final syllable of the name Jerusalem suggests the words "peace" [shalom] and "prosperity" [shalvah]. We don't hear it in our English rendering, but try this instead: think "yer-u-sha-lay-im." (Hear it now?) At any rate, both peace and prosperity were in short supply during Nehemiah's tenure in Jerusalem, but he was a man… Continue reading Just One Thing: Peace
"May we so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal." This was my daily prayer during the years when my boys were tiny, and even though I'm not from a tradition that uses prayer books or puts the emphasis on the first syllable in the word "collect," I've recently started praying these words again. I'm… Continue reading Just One Thing: Inconvenience
One of the drawbacks of starting a family in your thirties is that your children will likely have a distinct shortage of grandparents. However, not because we deserve it, but because God is gracious, our children are blessed to have a team of onlookers who have been, well . . . looking on for their whole lives, cheering… Continue reading Just One Thing: Onlookers
Going through an old journal -- from the days of four kids under the age of nine, I found an entry based on my reading of Nehemiah 4:10. "The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot build the wall." "Wow," I thought, scanning the entry. "That must have… Continue reading Just One Thing: Rubble
Sometimes fictional theologians utter such delightful truths that I have to remind myself as I am reading, "He's not a real person. He doesn't exist outside this book." Jayber Crow is just such a man, stalwart resident and barber in Wendell Berry's fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. I love his thoughtful, meandering reflections on… Continue reading Just One Thing: Scorn
My family loves stories, and, together, we have read our way through everything from Laura Ingalls Wilder to J.R.R. Tolkien, either on the living room couch, at the dining room table, or in the car. For this reason, our brood is quite story-savvy, and it is not unusual to hear someone announce at some point in the… Continue reading Just One Thing: Foreshadowing
When I was a kid, the Pioneer Times used to publish just about anything. Our hometown post-mistress doubled as on-site reporter for the town's news, and there were weeks during the news-desert of mid-January when your second cousin's baby shower was ink-worthy, right down to the least-of-these who attended, " . . . and her… Continue reading Just One Thing: Heat
"They laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and bars. "* Not exactly the stuff of which a "life verse" or a New Year's Resolution is made, But five times in Nehemiah's counter-clockwise tour of the wall we are confronted: What's the point of a walled city if the gates are not… Continue reading Just One Thing: Gates
Maybe the abundance of "picture perfect" lives on social media has made me cynical. Maybe I've been tenderized by the fact that my family has grown to a point where everyone offers (brutally) honest feedback on just what it was like to grow up Morin. Whatever the reason, when I read Nehemiah 3, and its eighteen occurrences of "next to… Continue reading Just One Thing: Camaraderie
The way in which a person responds to opposition reveals the stuff he's made of. Nehemiah had barely unpacked his toothbrush in the ruined city of Jerusalem when his enemies started sharpening their swords -- and their tongues. Commentator Derek Kidner writes, "Sanballat and Tobiah throw a long shadow over the story." The truth is that without… Continue reading Just One Thing: Opposition
Living Our Days 