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The God Box and How to Let Him Out
I imagine everyone has a box inside their minds in which their ideas of God fit nicely. I know that my God box existed, for the most part, completely unconsciously in an unexamined part of my soul. After all, trying to understand who God is a strenuous activity for most of us. I think that for myself, my earliest imaginings turned the idea that man is made in the image of God completely around. I believed, without recognizing that I thought this, that God was just like a man, only much, much larger. My box was designed to keep God safe and knowable. This is a childish view, of course, but…
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How Silence Affects Your Body, Soul, and Spirit
When I think of silence, the first thing that pops into my mind is the Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. The line that most impacted me in my childhood was Silence like a cancer grows… Our society apparently took the warning very seriously because now silence is disappearing altogether. I remember once reading that thirty seconds of silence can really make a classroom uncomfortable. I tested that theory frequently and found that my students could generally withstand twenty seconds before someone raised their hand to dispel the awkwardness. As for myself, I filled my solitude with music. That the music was usually worship or at least spiritual didn’t…
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How to Practice Your Salvation
For most of my life as a Christian, salvation was a one-time event. You went to the altar call or got yourself baptized and the deal was sealed. I learned in Sunday school and from countless sermons that salvation was through grace or sometimes through faith, depending on the denomination. The primary reason I could be saved was that Jesus died for my sins. I have since discovered that these are half-truths, really. Before you decide that I am a heretic for questioning the time-honored formulas for salvation, I have to first clarify that I firmly believe in all of the statements of the Nicene Creed. My issue is not…
Healing Through Art & Words
