Friendship, Listening, and Empathy: A Prayer GuideDraw Near: A Lenten Devotional Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian LifeAdvent DevotionalSabbath Keeping FastingA Renewed SpiritualityNurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care in the Twenty-First CenturyThe Power of ListeningJoy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your CongregationPrayers of the New TestamentPrayers of the Old TestamentPersonality Type in CongregationsSabbathA Garden of Living Water: Stories of Self-Discovery and Spiritual GrowthDead Sea: A NovelDeadly Murmurs: A NovelDeath in Dunedin: A NovelBeating Burnout in CongregationsReaching Out in a Networked WorldEmbracing MidlifeFriending

Praying about the flow of time: Preparing for a creative Lent

Lynne Baab • Tuesday February 25 2025

Praying about the flow of time: Preparing for a creative Lent

Lent begins next week on March 5. This year for Lent, I’m going to do something I haven’t done for about ten years. I normally wear gold earrings and colorful necklaces. For Lent, I’m going to wear only silver earrings, plus my silver cross necklace that I hardly ever wear. When I’ve done this in the past — maybe for six or eight Lents between 1990 and 2010 — the dullness of the silver (compared with gold) and the absence of color speaks to me of the sorrow of walking with Jesus to the cross. And of course the cross speaks...

Read full article »

Fasting matters in 2019

Lynne Baab • Saturday October 19 2019

Fasting matters in 2019

I am convinced that in 2019 and into the next decade we need to encourage creative ways of fasting, especially fasts from technology. Parents need to talk naturally to their kids about foregoing certain aspects of technology for finite periods of time. Parents need to model it, and children and teens need to be encouraged to try it.

I’ve been pondering what this might look like, and I was reminded of the interviews I did with Christians overseas for my book on fasting. Friends connected me with people they knew on just about every continent. All of my overseas interviewees talked about...

Read full article »

Fasting from words

Lynne Baab • Friday October 11 2019

Fasting from words

Last Friday morning was stressful. The stress originated Thursday afternoon, when for some unknown reason, I felt so tired I couldn’t make myself exercise as I normally do on Thursday afternoon. I took a long nap, something I almost never do, and I was so groggy the rest of the afternoon and evening that I couldn’t do anything productive.

By the time I got to my desk on Friday morning, I had an hour to get through a list of small tasks before I needed to get out on my bicycle, to make up for the lost exercise on Thursday. As I...

Read full article »

Fasting and our bodies

Lynne Baab • Thursday October 3 2019

Fasting and our bodies

My body and I have a checkered relationship. As a teenager I was quite athletic and physically active. As an adult, I have exercised three times a week, almost every week, for decades. Exercise calms my rioting thoughts and emotions, helps me sleep better, and gets me out in nature. Throughout my adult life and even now, in my 60s, I haven’t been super athletic, but neither am I completely sedentary. I’d love to exercise a bit more, but what I do works well for me.

My eating, however, is another story. In my teen years, my mother and I engaged in...

Read full article »
<< Newer | Older >>

Featured books

Featured articles

Meeting God in Grief and Gratitude

Lynne Baab • Wednesday January 22 2025

By Lynne M. Baab, author of Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life

Nurturing a contemplative stance for navigating challenging times

Lynne Baab • Friday August 11 2023

By Lynne M. Baab

Yes, Jesus Told Us to Pray in Secret. But He Also Prayed with His Friends.

Lynne Baab • Saturday October 9 2021

By Lynne M. Baab. Originally published in Christianity Today, July 8, 2021