The Ghosts on My Dining Room Wall: Learning to Listen to the Puritans Again

The figures on my dining room wall and the pencil marks of an unknown reader reminded me that history is not silent. The past still speaks, if we are willing to listen.
Faith • Grief • History • Hope
Faith • Grief • History • Hope

The figures on my dining room wall and the pencil marks of an unknown reader reminded me that history is not silent. The past still speaks, if we are willing to listen.

We spend so much time trying to smooth away the uneven places in our lives.
But perhaps the marks left behind by love, struggle, and time are not flaws at all.
Perhaps they are signs that life has been lived there. ☕

We stand on a threshold between those who entrusted this nation to us and those who will one day receive it from our hands. The question before us is not simply what kind of nation we have inherited. The deeper question is what kind of ancestors we are willing to become.

What if the debate over church and state is older—and richer—than our modern political arguments suggest? Before we settle into today's slogans, perhaps we should return to eighteenth-century New England, where faithful Christians wrestled with conscience, covenant, liberty, and the Gospel itself. The questions they asked may be exactly the questions we still need to ask today.

What if Genesis 22 isn't ultimately about Abraham's sacrifice...
What if it's about the God who stops the knife?
God's first response to our brokenness was not condemnation.
It was presence.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, I thought it might be worth reflecting not only on the events that shaped the nation’s birth but also on the ideas, convictions, and theological traditions that…

Behind every Father’s Day celebration is a story. A story of love received, love given, love lost, and sometimes love we wished we had known. Today we remember that every family carries both joy and brokenness, and God meets us in both.

Our ancestors in faith believed that God had created a moral universe in which actions had consequences and justice mattered. This created a framework in which tyranny was not merely a political problem; it was a moral and spiritual violation.

Grace always sees possibilities where others see failures. And perhaps that is something many of us need to hear.

Pride Month invites us to celebrate the sacred truth that every human being possesses inherent dignity. It reminds us that diversity is not something to tolerate. It is something to celebrate. Not because diversity itself saves us. Christ saves us. But because diversity reveals something beautiful about the God who created us.