Author: Paul Nelson

Don’t Sing Songs to a Heavy Heart: How to Relate to those who are Suffering by Dr. Kenneth C. Haughk Suffering is part of life. We are broken people living in a world shattered by sin, and the shards grind together and nobody escapes without the scars to prove it. Dealing with suffering is a difficult enough thing when we’re the ones who are suffering. It can be just as painful or even more so to have a friend or loved one who is suffering. Our desire is instinctively to remove the hurt, to counteract the sorrow. Instinctively we...

Walk into any Lutheran sanctuary and you are likely to see symbols. For those of us familiar with Lutheran churches, these symbols are familiar and comforting. However it’s possible that we still not be familiar with all of them and their meanings. More likely still, visitors less familiar with historic Christian symbols may be confused by them. Signs and Mysteries: Revealing Ancient Christian Symbols is an easy read that provides some basic information on many of the symbols found in Christian sanctuaries. The book is written by a Catholic (and to a small extent for a Catholic audience) so...

I purchased Lauren K. Winner’s Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Disciplines because it enabled me to get free shipping on some other stuff that I needed to get.  But while the purchase might have been spontaneous, I’ve been fascinated with Orthodox Judaism since falling under the spell of Chaim Potok in high school.   I find that the almost total break modern Christianity has made with traditional Judaism seems at the least regrettable, if not outright problematic.  How do we understand almost 70% of Scripture if we have no functional link to our Jewish theological heritage?  And how do...