Friendship, Listening, and Empathy: A Prayer GuideDraw Near: A Lenten Devotional Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian LifeSabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond our AppetitesA 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 MidlifeFriendingAdvent Devotional

Journey and pilgrimage

Lynne Baab • Tuesday August 12 2025

Journey and pilgrimage

I’ve been pondering the relationship between five words: travel, trip, journey, vacation, and pilgrimage. I looked for synonyms for these words online, and the other words often appeared as synonyms, so the overlap between these words is substantial. To me, however, they don’t feel identical. I’ll give you definitions that I got from online dictionaries. Several of these words can be used as verbs or nouns, making their connections more complex. See what you think about how these words relate.

Travel - go from one place to another, typically over a distance of some length. Trip - an act of going to a...

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Journey in the Bible

Lynne Baab • Tuesday August 5 2025

Journey in the Bible

Human beings move around. A LOT. Archaeologists have recently begun to use DNA analysis to discover the vast extent of human migration long before historical records. The tower of Babel story, set in what is now southern Iraq, gives one early picture: “So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth” (Genesis 11:8; read the whole incident here).

An amazing number of stories in the Bible involve journeys. A small sampling includes:

God saying to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Joseph being forced to go to Egypt after being sold by...

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First post in a new series: Journey

Lynne Baab • Tuesday July 29 2025

First post in a new series: Journey

Pause for a moment and think about trips you've taken recently, or trips taken by people you know. I’m thinking about these:

Dave and I travelled to San Francisco to see a Mary Cassatt art exhibition. A friend of mine took a long drive and ferry voyage to attend a funeral in Campbell River, halfway up Vancouver Island in Canada. Another friend traveled halfway across the country for a family reunion. A friend and her husband spent two grueling weeks with his mother, who has advanced dementia and lives on the other side of the country. Two families at church who are dear to me travelled...

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Praying about the flow of time: Wind and water

Lynne Baab • Thursday July 10 2025

Praying about the flow of time: Wind and water

The summer I turned 13, my brother, Mark, and I took sailing lessons. We had just moved onto Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, located on a small arm of Chesapeake Bay. First, they introduced us to a lovely sailboat with two sails and a spinnaker, similar the ones in the illustration for this post. Then they put us on a Sailfish, which is basically a surfboard with a sail. As we learned to sail, we capsized a lot. That arm of Chesapeake Bay had lots of jellyfish. Ouch!

The summer I turned 17, friends of my parents asked Mark and me...

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