Home & Blog | Lynne Baab

Praying about the flow of time: Earth Day

Lynne Baab • Tuesday April 22 2025

Earth Day is this week, April 20. I want to encourage prayers in honor of Earth Day, specifically prayers for those who influence others to care for the earth. To do that, I’ll describe two people at my church.

My good friend Janette Plunkett works as Energy and Sustainability Manager at Seattle Pacific University on policies that reduce campus energy use. She recently wrote to me in an email, “In our largest building we've reduced energy usage by 37% and more than $140,000 in avoided costs. That's also the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from 275 airline trips of 3,000 miles each. This...

Read full article »

Praying about the flow of time: Where was Jesus on Holy Saturday?

Lynne Baab • Thursday April 17 2025

Holy Saturday is the day of hushed stillness between Good Friday and Easter. The disciples mourn because this powerful and loving One, who promised to bring life, is dead. The angels weep that the beloved Son of God has been forcibly, but willingly, separated from his Father in the cruelest imaginable way.

Where was Jesus on Holy Saturday?

Was he lying quietly in the tomb, truly dead, while his Father planned the Resurrection?

Was he in hell? In the Apostle’s Creed we say that we believe in Jesus Christ, God’s “only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin...

Read full article »

Praying about the flow of time: Trees, Earth Day, and Easter

Lynne Baab • Tuesday April 8 2025

I have positioned my desk so I can look over the top of my laptop screen into our backyard. Close to my window, on the left, is a golden rain tree. Right now, in early spring, its new baby leaves are a vivid red. In the back right corner of our yard is a 100-foot-tall Western red cedar, so tall that I can’t see its top through my large window. To the right of the cedar, in other people’s yards, I can see numerous other trees, including three tall Douglas firs (not as tall as our cedar), some deciduous trees, and another...

Read full article »

Praying about the flow of time: Freedom from the fear of death

Lynne Baab • Tuesday April 1 2025

On Valentine’s Day, 1994, I got the flu. Two days later, I couldn’t breathe. A long diagnostic process followed. At some point, the lung specialist described to me the possible diagnoses, one of which was fatal. He had put me on a cute little oxygen tank, but my brain still wasn’t getting enough oxygen to think clearly. I misunderstood him. I thought he said the fatal lung disease was by far the most likely diagnosis.

It was a week before my next appointment with him, so I spent a week thinking I was going to die. It was an illuminating week as...

Read full article »

<< Newer | Older >>