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Draw near: Yearning, beseeching and beholding with Desmond Tutu

Lynne Baab • Tuesday September 13 2022

“Saint Julian of Norwich says prayer ‘is yearning, beseeching and beholding.’ We are made for God, we yearn to be filled with the fullness of God, and so we come asking the one who is always eager to give. We place ourselves in his hands as suppliants, in the attitude of those who know they have nothing that they have not received, before the One who is ever the gracious one, ready to give beyond our asking and our deserving. We are like parched land thirsty for the gift of rain – yearning, beseeching, waiting and asking and assured that we...

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Receptivity and Offering: Welcoming God's transformation in 2022

Lynne Baab • Friday December 31 2021

I first read the prophet Malachi in my early 20s. When I got to chapter 3, I was stunned by the parallels with some of the events of Jesus’ ministry: John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus, and Jesus enters the Temple and drives out the money-changers and the people selling animals.

The first two verses of Malachi 2 seem to foretell those events: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: Overview of the series

Lynne Baab • Thursday November 4 2021

For five decades, I have known that Jesus is present in my life through the Holy Spirit. During those same decades, I also have affirmed that God works in our lives through the Holy Spirit. But I had no idea how many examples I would see when I looked at my life through the lens of “Holy Spirit disruptions.” Here are all the weekly posts in this series that ended up running six months – because I kept finding new memories to write about:

Introduction to the series Embodiment Pride and ego We are God’s beloved What if something being hard shows we’re doing it right? Go/wait Wait Ignite...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: Sin as vandalism of shalom

Lynne Baab • Friday October 29 2021

I was emailing back and forth with a friend about Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., one of my favorite seminary professors. My friend said that Dr. Plantinga’s book, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, was very helpful to him. I asked why, and he said the definition of sin, “not the way it’s supposed to be,” clarified his thoughts. It helped him see that sin is anything that vandalizes shalom.

I loved the power of those words. “Vandalism” implies willful destruction or damage, which raises a question: If our damage to shalom – for ourselves or someone else –...

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