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Holy Spirit disruptions: Learning from Jesus about anger

Lynne Baab • Friday October 1 2021

About 30 years ago, I read a book that has given me food for thought ever since, Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion by Carol Tavris. Anger, Tavris argues, is essential for human flourishing because anger provides the energy to work for justice. All the great social justice movements in history – such as the abolition of slavery, women’s vote, and civil rights – were fueled by anger at injustice and its impact on human lives. After reading Tavris’s book, I began to identify symptoms of anger in my body, so I improved at noticing the early signs of anger (in my stomach...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: Free to be a little weird

Lynne Baab • Saturday September 25 2021

When I was a kid, being “nice” was super-important. The word “nice” covered so many areas of life: how you dressed, how you talked, how often you offered to help your parents or other adults, whether you were “seen and not heard” when parents were trying to talk to friends, and whether you played well enough with other children that you didn’t need parents to intervene in conflicts. Being “nice” involved going to church, but in my family we never talked about God at home, and we never read the Bible, so as a child I didn’t make a big connection...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: Unexpected friends

Lynne Baab • Friday September 3 2021

I am almost finished re-reading the alphabet mystery series by Sue Grafton. Actually, when I got to “V is for Vengeance,” I realized I had missed it, so that book was a read, not a re-read. Grafton’s sleuth, Kinsey Millhone, has become a friend over the years as I have read the series several times. She’s not a close friend, evidenced by the fact that the last time I re-read the early books was about a decade ago, but I enjoy her quirks and the details she observes that I would miss.

For other books, the main character, or one of the...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: “There was another in the fire”

Lynne Baab • Saturday August 28 2021

I’m going to revert to childhood here. Do any of you remember this song?

Nobody likes me Everybody hates me Guess I'll go eat worms Big fat juicy ones Long thin slimey ones Itsy bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms

It was fun to look up the lyrics. I’d forgotten everything except the first three lines. (For the remainder of the cute worm poetry, look here.)

That song may be a childhood favorite, but it also captures an adult mood that I find myself experiencing from time to time. Everything and everyone is against me! I’m suffering! No one understands my challenges! Sometimes we love to wallow, feel sorry for ourselves,...

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