We want to live in an important story. We just don’t know what our important story is.
The Tree of Life, a Colossal Corn Stalk, and a Feral Foster Child
Jake came to live with Stacy when he was six. Born a fetal alcohol baby, he’d been abandoned as unmanageable by four different foster homes already. His bright brown eyes and mischievous grin signaled a child behind the almost feral face and spidery tangle of skinny...
A Big Welcome from Small Churches
Welcoming marginalized people is often seen as a challenging task beyond the resources of the ordinary congregation. But the smallest congregations often do an outstanding job of including the marginalized as part of the family of God. It’s six months since John died,...
Joyfully Chasing the Wind
I encountered Ecclesiastes long before I knew much about God. My honors English teacher forced our roomful of ambitious high school juniors to dig through the King James text to figure out what the word vanity means. “Vanity of vanities … all is vanity” (Eccl. 1:2,...
A Cake, the Klan, a Senator’s Stand
Once again, it was Winnie and me behind the bake sale table, while all the real excitement of the annual plant sale swirled through adjacent rooms. Winnie is a whiz at organizing the diverse, nearly random donations from friends of the land trust. Arrayed around us on...
CarleneByron
Carlene Hill Byron's writing has appeared in marketing materials on 5 continents, as well as in US newspapers and magazines. For a dozen years, she served Christian nonprofits, including as editor of New England Church Life and The New England Christian. She lives with bipolar disorder, which means people call her "persevering" and "inspiring" just because she shows up. Find her at Carlene Byron, My House has History, Church and Mental Illness
and Christian Purpose Blog.
