Posts by John Blase

Dear John, Two questions for you – 1. What, if anything, keeps you awake at night? and 2. Do you ever wonder if you got the whole God thing wrong? Here’s a little elaboration on question 2. I’ve loved Jesus since I was a girl. Took it to heart in my teens. Studied apologetics in…

AND THEY SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.      While this gladly refers to the friction of our bodies on one another      it also points to a more magical union listed under the heading: Mystery.      Because we’re one we share everything, maybe not completely but in part.      Like if you’re happy, I am sort…

both of us waking early with feasting on our minds. You a cupful of kibble and   me a handful of words. I fill your bowl and you gorge like your kin in those   commercials. Then you preen yourself and its back to bed. I, on the other hand, often   turn to face…

Saints – that’s who we are. Sinners revised and edited. Don’t be ashamed at the power pulsing through that truth. I’m not. My longstanding affection for you compels me to say I fear you are making of the kindness of God a slight thing. It is not. Be very careful not to believe you’re better-than.…

Our Crock-Pot is the casualty of a church dinner, its three legs now reduced to two that one rubber appendage knocked away by some helpful Lutheran brother just not paying attention. We swept the house, as the parable says, looking for the lost leg. But no luck. These things happen. Yet long before we were…

Till my trophies at last I lay down was always the hardest line to sing in The Old Rugged Cross. If you only had one trophy to your name and especially if it was a smaller, humbler statue for a non-athletic type accomplishment it just seemed like a good Lord who had the whole world…

Me imprisoned, Epaphroditus restored, you holding fast, Timothy headed your way – in all this I find myself filled with such a deep satisfaction that I thank God. Live like Jesus. Take care of each other. Endure both the terrible and the beautiful. One way or another everything will resolve in Christ Jesus. Everything.  …

Contrary to the marital de rigueur, I’m willing to die for you. This adolescent culture shakes its fist at martyrdom while that bearded fool whispers from the ink-stained margins of time: Greater love hath no man…   The enduring loves do so because one chooses to dim so the other might shine. That I would…

It all got started because certain people told it to me over and over again. Then I learned to sing a song about it. I finally read it in a book for myself: Yes, Jesus loves me.   Now many would caution not to believe everything you read in books and I would have to…

Nine, no make that ten blackbirds in the top of the stark white Aspen tree each on his own branch in stair      step           fashion like something from the mind of Annie Dillard (the early years). Suddenly the ten burst black pressing hard into the ever beguiling western sky. Did the wind or their…