Category Archives: Faith

Easter Sunday Refrain

Posted on March 31, 2024 by awtraughber

A song for Easter Sunday:  deep reminder of how big the day is and how utterly important is the One we celebrate it.

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Remembrance Part Six

Posted on March 29, 2024 by awtraughber

Throughout The Shattering of Loneliness, Erik Varden brings to attention a number of instances in the Biblical Story where remembrance is key.  He started with the Ash Wednesday reminder that we are dust.  From there he revisited call to remember … Continue reading →

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John’s Maundy Thursday

Posted on March 28, 2024 by awtraughber

Tonight I had the opportunity to attend a beautiful Tenebrae service at a local church where a dear friend serves on the worship team.  It was a service full of good music, poignant testimonies, and full readings from the Gospel … Continue reading →

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Remembrance Part Four

Posted on March 18, 2024 by awtraughber

In one of two chapters on the theological virtue of faith in Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis encourages his readers to see the battle of faith as being between “faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on … Continue reading →

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Spring Break Scramble

Posted on March 16, 2024 by awtraughber

This last week has gone by in a blur.  That’s to be expected, of course, at the end of a quarter or semester.  The week has been packed with classes and grading and meetings and trying to wrap things up … Continue reading →

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Remembrance Part Three

Posted on March 9, 2024 by awtraughber

Perhaps the most sobering of Erik Varden’s reflections on remembrance in The Shattering of Loneliness comes in the third chapter.  The chapter is centered on Jesus’s command in Luke 17 to “remember Lot’s wife.”   The command to remember Lot’s … Continue reading →

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Reading in Lent

Posted on March 5, 2024 by awtraughber

One of the practices I’m trying to hold to during the Lenten season is the reading of shorter books.  Small thing, I know, but it feels somehow fitting.  The season started as I finished up Zena Hitz’s Philosophers Look at … Continue reading →

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Remembrance Part Two.Five

Posted on March 4, 2024 by awtraughber

Last week as I was thinking the second thing to remember from Erik Varden (remember you were once a slave in Egypt), a song from long ago came to mind.  A bit of context from an odd source first, though. … Continue reading →

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Remembrance Part Two

Posted on March 2, 2024 by awtraughber

For me, most Lenten seasons start with the “bang” of Ash Wednesday but quickly fall into a slough of messy hopes and habits.  That’s a cost of being interested in the church calendar as a member of a church that … Continue reading →

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Wilderness Training

Posted on February 26, 2024 by awtraughber

The first (and perhaps primary) image of Lent is of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness.  It’s a moment in time that three of the four Gospels capture, a hinge moment between Jesus’ baptism by John and the beginning of His … Continue reading →

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