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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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Holy Spirit disruptions: Care not cure

Lynne Baab • Saturday October 23 2021

“Care is being with, crying out with, suffering with, feeling with. Care is compassion. It is claiming the truth that the other person is my brother or sister, human, mortal, vulnerable, like I am. . . . Often we are not able to cure, but we are always able to care.” —Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

I have experienced two Holy Spirit disruptions related to Henri Nouwen’s idea that we can always care, even when we can’t cure. The first disruption happened slowly, over my midlife years, as I began to become aware of my deeply rooted desire to fix things –...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: Give less advice

Lynne Baab • Thursday October 14 2021

I never really understood or appreciated small talk until we lived in Dunedin, New Zealand, for ten years. The weather there often changes more than once each day. When chatting with the administrative people in my department at the university or with checkers at the grocery store, I could say, “Did you enjoy that sunny Sunday afternoon?” or “Wasn’t that windstorm amazing?” Weather was a fuel for communicating warmth, without taking the time to interact deeply. Weather talk, like all small talk at its best, says, “I care about you but I don’t have the time/energy/inclination for a deep conversation right...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: Other people’s decisions belong to them

Lynne Baab • Thursday October 7 2021

In early 2003, our older son called us from Tokyo to ask our advice about whether he should ask his girlfriend to marry him. They were both 22 years old, and they were living with his girlfriend’s parents in Tokyo. They met at age 20 in Seattle, when she came from Japan to do an AA degree at Seattle Central Community College. When they both graduated at 21, she with her AA and he with his BA from the University of Washington, they headed to Japan so he could experience her culture.

My husband Dave and I were very impressed with her,...

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