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Listening to God in prayer: My journey

Lynne Baab • Wednesday November 22 2017

I learned about contemplative prayer when I was around 40. It dovetailed perfectly with other things that were going on in my life.

I am an introvert. My mother is extremely extraverted. In recent years, she has developed some ability to pray alone and to appreciate quiet things, but in my childhood and early adult years, her values were totally and completely placed in the realm of activity and socializing. She has a very high energy level, she values action over being quiet, and she has always kept a social schedule that makes me feel exhausted just to hear about it.

In my...

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First post in a new series: Listening to God in prayer

Lynne Baab • Thursday November 16 2017

Throughout the centuries, Christians have valued quiet prayer, reflection on the Scriptures, and meditation on the character and purposes of God. In the twentieth century, these quiet prayer forms were largely eclipsed by an emphasis on more outwardly oriented expressions of faith. Christian spirituality of the twentieth century often emphasized service, evangelism, caring for people in need, fellowship and sharing, at the expense of quiet, reflective forms of prayer.

In recent years, more Christians are rediscovering the joys of meeting God in quiet prayer and reflection. Retreat centers offer quiet retreats. Congregations sponsor contemplative prayers events. More Christians visit monasteries to soak...

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Stories I ponder: My dad the pilot

Lynne Baab • Friday November 10 2017

My father was born on April 25, 1915, the day the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli in Turkey. The military action there over the next six months would be so inept and bloody that on my father’s first birthday, April 25th would be declared a national holiday in New Zealand. ANZAC Day is still celebrated passionately in New Zealand, and people with no religious affiliation enthusiastically attend worship services commemorating New Zealand’s soldiers.

Of course, I had to move to New Zealand to learn the significance of my father’s birth date. It seems an appropriate day to be...

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Stories I ponder: What I learned in Sweden

Lynne Baab • Thursday November 2 2017

Back in the 1980s, when our sons were 3 and 5, my husband Dave got a fellowship to spend a year doing research in Sweden. He had met a visiting Swedish researcher at the University of Washington Dental School, where Dave was teaching, and that researcher invited Dave to come to Sweden to do research together. We were thrilled at this opportunity.

I was a part time student at Fuller Theological Seminary at the time, and I set up a couple of independent study projects to do in Sweden.

To our great surprise, after we arrived in Linkoping, a town two and a...

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