Shows
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastToday Reminded me of a SongOn New Year’s Eve, my parents and I decided to rent Wicked from Amazon. It had just been released on video that day so it cost $20 but we all agreed it was worth it, and that was still cheaper than all three of us going to the theater. When the price comes down, I am going to rent it again and watch it with audio description because there were a few places where I couldn’t quite follow what was going on and it was difficult for Mom to describe. But I got the gist of it, and enjo...2025-01-2113 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWe Were Made to Crave DramaWhen my siblings and I were growing up, we learned that the phrase which irritated our parents the most was “I’m bored.” Perhaps to parents—understandably—this phrase seems to imply ingratitude. We were very fortunate, and thus had more toys than we knew what to do with indoors, and outdoors, we had a two acre yard, complete with a swing set and basketball hoop. They would run through the list of all our entertainment options, and all of us learned at some point to figure out how to amuse ourselves and quit whining, or else they would give us ho...2025-01-0219 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastForgive ThemWell readers, all I can say is I guess I am naïve. I still genuinely believe everything I wrote last week. No election, not even this one, is of eternal spiritual significance. God is sovereign over everything, so ultimately, all things will work for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purposes (Romans 8:28). But I had a good feeling in my heart that Kamala Harris would win. Like all of us, she is a human who would not have been able to be completely faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness, but a...2024-11-1215 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastApproaching Election Day from a Proper Christian PerspectiveIn 2013, my parents and I awaited the week before Easter with eager anticipation. That was when The Bible, an epic dramatization of the whole biblical narrative produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett was set to release. Each evening that week, my parents and I tuned in for the next episode, and after each, we raved about how well-produced it was, how it could really help to reach a younger generation with the Good News. That was, until the episode when Jesus was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, and Mom gasped, appalled and told me that the...2024-11-0422 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWhat Walking with Peety Can Teach Us about Our Christian WalkIn his memoir, Walking with Peety, Eric O’Grey recounts how in 2010, he was in a very dark place. At 5 feet 10 inches and 340 pounds, he was morbidly obese. He had no social life, and because his obesity caused too much pain and exhaustion to take his laundry to the coin-operated machines in his apartment, the spare bedroom was piled high with dirty underwear. It was easier to just order new underwear every couple weeks on Amazon. He hated his job as an appliance salesman but had to work long hours to afford all the medications he needed for Type 2 Di...2024-10-0618 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastNo Political Theory Will End the Immigration DebatePerhaps the spirit of the back-to-school season has given me a feeling of nostalgia for my Political Science courses as an undergraduate at Carroll University because this week, I found myself contemplating philosopher John Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance. Basically, this is a thought experiment in which Rawls proposes we imagine ourselves behind a veil of ignorance where we draft principles for a fair and equitable society, not knowing what our own social position—gender, race, socioeconomic status or abilities—will be. This is an effort to curb the human tendency to think only of our self-interest. Of course, in rea...2024-09-2317 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastThere's Nothing Wrong with Being a Childless Cat LadyBack in March, I mentioned that I listen to Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur, and promised that I would take him to task someday on his extreme complementarian views. But then I put this post on the back burner. This is partly due to the fact that current events inspired other posts which I felt took priority, but if I am being honest, I also didn’t fully recognize and appreciate the overlap of Christian Nationalism with complementarianism. I am passionate about the mission I sense God has given me, to speak out against Christian Na...2024-09-0321 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastDonald Trump Survived by the Grace of GodLast Saturday, July 13, my brother and his wife came to visit, and we were finishing up a lovely dinner of mahi-mahi grilled to perfection when Mom got a text from my sister in Maryland. It simply read “Turn on the news.” That is how we found out that someone attempted to assassinate former President Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.Though I strive to keep this blog focused on Christ rather than partisan politics, I have been fully transparent regarding my rebuke of Donald Trump. Jesus was neither a democrat nor a republican, and all elected offi...2024-07-2317 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWhat's Wrong with The Ten Commandments in Public SchoolsBut more important than honoring the legacy of our founders, given the purpose of this blog, is that requiring posters of the Ten Commandments is a misrepresentation of true Christianity to the children of other religions. To be clear, I do believe that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16) including the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament. After all, Jesus did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). But like Tim Alberta, it never struck me as a coincidence that the vast majo...2024-07-1011 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWhat's Wrong with the Ten Commandments in Public Schools?I am the product of public schools where technically speaking, no one religion was promoted above others, but almost everyone was Christian, at least culturally. No one talked about church or God in the cafeteria, but everyone talked about celebrating Christmas and Easter, and several of my classmates I knew for sure were Christian because I saw them again at Tuesday or Thursday evening Catholic Formation class at Saint Dominics. Once I became aware that a few of my classmates did not celebrate these holidays, I felt sorry for them. I wondered what the few Jewish or Muslim or...2024-07-1015 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastJust War Theory is Not UnbiblicalAs I write this, it is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and last week, we observed Memorial Day. Thus I think it is fitting to reflect again on militarism and how it relates to Christian Nationalism. As I wrote about just a week after Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack, I was in sixth grade on 9/11, and even I got swept up in nationalistic fervor. As an adult, I found arguments for Christian Pacifism compelling. But then Hamas’s attack presented a conundrum. Does God really expect Christians to turn the other cheek when terrorists take women, children and elderly peop...2024-06-1320 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastThe Government is Not the ProblemIn 2016, I was “feeling the Bern” and in our 2016 Presidential Primary election, I voted for Bernie Sanders. I knew that Socialism, and its more extreme cousin Communism were vulnerable to corruption. I was aware of the oppression people experienced living in the Soviet Union. (I had always thought the Nazis advocated socialism, as Nazi translates into English as “National Socialist German Workers Party.” But in Kingdom of Rage, Elizabeth Neumann, a former counterterrorism official with the Department of Homeland Security, explains that this name was a misnomer, a political ploy to appeal to working class Germans in the 1920s. The Nazi...2024-05-1819 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastMisrepresenting JesusBefore I start my planned post, I want to make a quick public service announcement. I was under the impression that it would be several months before God and Country was released on video. But on a whim, I searched for it the afternoon of Easter, and it is available to buy or rent on AppleTV. So I encourage you to rent the movie and see it for yourself if you did not manage to see it in theaters. It is well worth your time.It just so happens that in God’s perfect timing, the day af...2024-04-1717 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastMisrepresenting JesusHello readers. Shortly after writing my last post, I started a new medication to treat migraines which for a couple weeks made me really sleepy and lacking in ambition. But I have not given up on my mission to speak out against Christian Nationalism. On February 17, my parents and I saw God and Country in the theater. I don’t generally like going to movie theaters because they crank up the volume unnecessarily loud, and you cannot pause the movie to go and get a drink or to comment on a scene. But Jemar Tisby, author of The Color of...2024-03-2611 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWhat Does Being a Citizen of Heaven Actually Mean?In 1897, eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon asked her father if Santa was real, as some of her little friends were telling her there is no Santa Claus. A loyal reader of the New York Sun, her father suggested she pose her question to the newspaper because “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” The editor of The Sun published her letter and replied that her little friends were wrong, affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. “They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or c...2024-02-1418 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastConfession TimeYou may have heard the story of how, in 1910, The Times posed a question to prominent writers, philosophers and religious leaders: “What’s wrong with the world?” The story goes that G. K. Chesterton, a theologian responded simply, “Dear Sirs, I am. Yours, G. K. Chesterton.” This story isn’t entirely accurate. G. K. Chesterton did write a letter to The Daily News in 1905 expressing this sentiment, though it was part of a much longer letter. I encourage you to read the full letter as it is very relevant to the times we are living in today. Though Chesterton’s statement is...2024-01-3014 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastDon't Trust Wobbly TowersThe late Stuart Briscoe, the first senior pastor of my home church, liked to tell the story of how, before becoming a pastor, he worked at a bank. One day, a phone call came in that the boss didn’t want to deal with, so he told Stuart, “tell them I’m not here.” Stuart refused to comply with this request, so the boss grudgingly took the call. When the boss expressed his displeasure to Stuart after the call, Stuart explained that his loyalty was to God, and the Bible explicitly forbids lying. Furthermore, earthly loyalty is fickle, and therefor...2024-01-2614 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastDaniel's Citizenship was Not For SaleOn January 6 while I was finishing my Christmas series, most of the blogs I follow, my co-conspirators in the fight against Christian Nationalism were reflecting on the third anniversary of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. These blogs discussed how Christian Nationalism played a significant role in this attack, and argued, correctly, that Christian Nationalism is a threat to democracy and the liberty we cherish. I completely support the efforts of these bloggers because while all forms of earthly government fall short, I think the values outlined in our constitution, when we live up to them—especially ou...2024-01-1913 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastLet Every Heart Sing Part 5For some people, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) strikes during the holiday season. Sometimes, this is due to the loss of a loved one, and at a time when everyone around them is in a festive mood, eagerly anticipating gathering with family, the absence of this loved one can feel more pronounced. The holiday season also comes at a time when the days are at their shortest and the weather is getting colder, and for some people, this absence of sunlight darkens their mood. While I have empathy for these people, I started noticing even around third or fourth grade...2024-01-0614 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastLet Every Heart Sing Part 4My favorite speaker at the 2023 Evolving Faith Conference which I attended virtually in October was a Native American author and activist, Dr. Randy Woodley. He remarked that when the Puritans and Pilgrims came to America, they encountered a people who were more Christ-like than them, despite never officially hearing the name of Jesus. But because of the way Christian Nationalism—the merging of American and Christian identities—has distorted Christianity, European Christians, and eventually their descendants would not appreciate God’s incredible general revelation of himself to these indigenous people. Over the summer, I read The Birchbark House by Louise...2023-12-2509 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastLet Every Heart Sing Part 3Most likely, you have heard Handel’s Messiah—or at least parts of it—as choirs and symphonies all over the Western world perform it around Christmas or Easter. The Hallelujah Chorus is from Handel’s Messiah and is so thrilling that even people who aren’t into classical music love it.I have performed it three times with my choir, and I think I have seen it five times as an audience member, but it never gets old. I don’t think it ever will get old for me. In fact each time I see it or perform i...2023-12-1708 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastLet Every Heart Sing Part 2Last Friday’s episode of Washington Week on PBS featured a discussion of evangelical leaders who continue to support Donald Trump. They showed a clip of Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, proclaiming that eight years ago, this country was in a death spiral, straying away from the truth of God’s word, and then came Donald Trump down that escalator to turn this country around. When Tim Alberta, a writer for The Atlantic asked him about the contradiction between Donald Trump’s behavior and the teachings of Jesus, Jeffress said we are not electing a Sunday...2023-12-0909 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastLet Every Heart Sing Part 1I hope everyone reading this had a blessed Thanksgiving. I love the week after Thanksgiving, partly because our family enjoys eating turkey leftovers just as much as the Thanksgiving feast itself, and because after Thanksgiving, the rest of the family finally deems it socially acceptable to sing Christmas songs with me. Did I mention I love Christmas music?Now I will concede there are a lot of bad Christmas songs, or at least songs that are overplayed—Moriah Carrie’s All I Want for Christmas is you—and if it were up to me Santa Baby would be ban...2023-12-0106 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastThe Truth about ThanksgivingThis really is the most wonderful time of the year. I don’t agree with all of the commercialism around this time of year, but nevertheless, I cannot help but smile at the cute Christmas commercials, and there is just a joyful spirit in the air as people anticipate cooking turkey, baking pies and spending time with family. I especially love Christmas music. I am one of the few people who is thrilled to turn on the radio November 1 and hear Christmas music, possibly because I sing in choir where we start rehearsing Christmas songs in October so I am...2023-11-2210 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWhat Christian Nationalists Ought to Learn from Malcolm XWhen I was a child, I was a very picky eater. It was a battle for my parents to get me to eat any fruits and vegetables. Gradually as I matured, more and more fruits and vegetables were at least palatable for me. (There are still a few things I cannot stand like razzberries and grapefruit, but I actually enjoy eating most fruits and vegetables now.) I love oranges now, but oranges were one of the later fruits to join my repertoire. I think Mom was surprised by how long it took me to be willing to eat oranges...2023-11-1215 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWhat Christian Nationalists Ought to Learn from Malcolm XAs promised, this week I want to reflect on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This book was one of several books recommended by Scott Hall on his podcast White People Work, but I must confess I embarked on reading it with some hesitation. All that I knew about Malcolm X up to that point was that he was militant, condoning violence if necessary to improve the condition of Black Americans. Though the marginalization I have sometimes felt as a blind person is different in many important ways from the marginalization experienced by people of color, it is similar enough...2023-10-2913 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastA Mature Christian Perspective on the War in IsraelHello readers. First I want to say I have not forgotten about you and this blog. I have just been consumed with work which was really busy in September, and another exciting personal project which I will talk about later. I also want to extend a warm welcome to two new subscribers who joined while I was away. I have no interest in metrics, in “going viral” as I feel these worldly goals have been a distraction to too many writers, as they censor their writing to appeal to the widest audience rather than writing from the heart or as t...2023-10-1611 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastAttention Fellow White PeopleOnce or twice a year in the context of a sermon warning against pride or idolatry, a former pastor at my home church would pause his sermon and ask the congregation to repeat after him, “There is a god, and it is not me.” Then he would ask us to turn to the person sitting next to us and tell them, “there is a god, and it is not you.” This second part of the exercise always elicited some chuckling, as the pastor acknowledged it is satisfying every now and then to be given permission from the pastor to say that...2023-09-0509 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastThe Toxic Water of RacismHi, my name is Allison, and I am a racist. I read somewhere recently that the key to the success of 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous is that they start by requiring individuals to acknowledge they have a problem, because the road to healing cannot begin without this vulnerability. In my last post, I alluded to the fact that if you are a white American, it is virtually impossible not to drink some of the Kool-Aid of the counterfeit religion called Christian Nationalism. But if one of my high school English teachers had graded that essay, they would have...2023-08-3013 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastBuyer Beware!A couple years ago, there was a story in our local news about a single mother who did not have a lot of money but really wanted to take her children to a Packer game. She found tickets online for a really reasonable price, and paid the seller cash for them. But when she and her kids arrived at Lambeau Field, they could not get in because she had been scammed. The tickets were counterfeit.I like to do my daily walk on the treadmill around 10:00 at night. (Don’t judge me. I am a night owl wh...2023-08-1411 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWe Have Nothing to FearI will never forget the evening of November 11, 2016. I was still in shock that our country was capable of electing someone as amoral as Donald Trump as our president. Of course I knew that both political parties fall far short of Christ’s standards. I was eight years old when the Monica Lewinsky scandal dominated the news, and Mom actually told me she quit watching the news until 9/11, partly because she was so appalled and disillusioned by Clinton’s behavior and how the media was covering it, and partly because I had big ears and was asking questions that ther...2023-08-0712 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastThe Intersection of Ableism and Christian NationalismIn my first post to this blog, I quoted Martin Niemoller’s poem of regret at not speaking out when he was not effected by, and in fact even agreed with the persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazis. I argued that we must speak out against injustice, even when it does not directly impact us because those who thirst for power will eventually come for us. And actually, even if persecution will never effect us, Christians should speak out because it is the right thing to do. Whether Christian or not, any decent person would rush to th...2023-07-3010 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastI am on a MissionHello readers, I have an exciting update for you, and perhaps one I should have shared sooner. Part of my procrastination is due to the fact that I have a one-track mind, and my thoughts on climate change were so close to the surface that I felt I had to strike while the iron is hot, as they say. But to be honest, part of the procrastination was due to the fact that as much as I had been eagerly anticipating this event, I was in a weird emotional state afterward that I didn’t expect, and therefore wasn’t su...2023-07-2718 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastHistory RhymesIn The Drama of Scripture, Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew don’t use the term “nationalism” when discussing Genesis 11, the story of the Tower of Babel, but I believe this is exactly what they are describing. God commanded them to spread out over the face of the whole earth, but “instead of a God-given unity and identity, they seek a false, autonomous collectivism and a reputation of their own devising” (page 51). Bartholomew and Goheen insightfully observe that while the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden was a rejection of God on the individual level, the Tower of B...2023-07-2207 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastClimate Change Part 2So how do we live in harmony with one another, and the orchestra of Creation, over whom God is the Conductor? It is true that we cannot continue business as usual. I remember a teacher in high school citing a statistic that if everyone lived as decadently as we do in the West, we would need something like 4.5 planets. And yet, people in developing countries, understandably aspire to live as comfortably as us, and their resentment of policies that penalize their carbon emissions when the West had free reign to develop unrestricted for hundreds of years is understandable too...2023-07-1924 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastWelcome All!Welcome everyone. The About section of Substack doesn’t have a way to insert an audio voiceover, but I wanted to offer the option to listen to my introduction, so I am posting it separately as a podcast here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lostsheepofthechurch.com2023-07-1510 min
Lost Sheep in the Church PodcastChristian Nationalism Could Ultimately Persecute ChristiansWhen I was in high school, Mom came across a poignant poem that she read to me. It is short, the language simple, but the message stops you in your tracks. Mom and I couldn’t remember who wrote it, but I found the poem again, and the history of its author on the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website.“First they came for the CommunistsAnd I did not speak outBecause I was not a CommunistThen they came for the socialistsAnd I did not speak out2023-07-1506 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastRepublishing an Essay with Relevant Reflection for July 4Well readers, I have two happier posts in the works, one of which is about how much I love my kitten Aslan whom I introduced in my last post. But given that my kitten and dog enjoy a higher standard of living than our government is providing children seeking asylum at our borders right now, I feel compelled to write about how much our country still falls short of the ideas expressed in our Declaration of Independence which we recently celebrated. I should say here it is not my intention to completely trash-talk our country because despite all the...2023-07-0531 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastClimate Change Part 1During the 1970s, my dad worked as a dispatcher for a trucking company in Michigan. In 1981, the company suspended operation of the Michigan terminal, but offered him a job in Wisconsin. So the family, which at that time only meant Mom, Dad and my oldest brother who was a baby, moved to Wisconsin. Life got very hectic as three more children were born, the last of which was me in 1990. But in 1998, while visiting Grandma and Grandpa nearby in Michigan City, Indiana, my parents thought it would be fun to drive through their old haunts in Benton Harbor, Michigan...2023-07-0334 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastUniformity DiabolicalHello readers, I hope you are doing well as we approach the end of winter and the start of Spring. Overall, I am doing well, although I have been feeling a little out of sorts, not in a severe sense, but in a way that has felt too complicated to write about. But I have felt compelled to listen to memoirs on Audible, and actually reading memoirs has been quite therapeutic for me. Despite writing a memoir a couple years ago, which I published here last summer, I hadn't actually read very many memoirs, partly due to the busyness...2023-05-2035 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastI Need my RumspringaI was on track to set out on my Rumspringa August 29, 2008 when my parents helped me move into the college dorm. I gave Disability Services the textbooks I needed months in advance, and after three weeks of guide dog training, Gilbert and I could expertly navigate the routes to the dining room and all of my classes. Mom offered to come to campus and just observe our walk to class the first day, just to make sure I had no trouble. It was a good thing she did because when Gilbert and I crossed the street from the dorm...2023-05-0525 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastI Need My RumspringaHello readers. I hope you are all enjoying summer. For the most part, I am, but I have to confess I have been a little irritable lately. Part of this I think is due to the heat and humidity. Perhaps because of climate change, it seems like heat and humidity gets to me, even in the house with the air conditioner on. But two other factors have made me irritable the past several summers. Actually, these factors aren’t exclusively limited to summer. Like a dormant virus, I can be fine for months, and then something will happen that tr...2023-05-0328 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastReflecting on the Gun Violence EpidemicEven if sensible gun regulations are implemented, I have heard multiple experts say it will be awhile before we notice a reduction in violent crime because there are so many guns in circulation, but even if we could hypothetically pull all guns out of circulation today, someone intent on killing people could find another way. The thousands of years of human history before the invention of modern guns was plagued by violence committed using bows and arrows, swords, wild animals, stones, and of course, the cross. In my community just before Thanksgiving, a disturbed individual killed six people at...2023-05-0128 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastReflecting on the Gun Violence EpidemicHello readers. I am sorry it has been so long since my last post. I really hoped to write something at least once a week now that I am on summer vacation, but somehow–I am still not entirely sure how–I irritated my sciatic nerve, and was in so much pain for a couple weeks, and sleepy due to a muscle relaxer an urgent care doctor prescribed, and the increased use of ibuprofen he recommended, that I didn’t feel like writing. I feel so much better now. I am almost back to my normal activity level although if I b...2023-04-3027 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastAnother Successful Semester of Seminary SchoolEpisode detailsCommentsWell readers, as usual, the semester kept me so busy that I wasn't able to write here. But overall, it was a successful semester. This past Monday was my first full day of summer vacation! My Systematic Theology professor gave us until this upcoming Saturday to submit the final research paper, but I was so close to having it finished this past Saturday that I decided to stay up until 1am Sunday morning to just finish it! The reason it took me so long is that the paper required footnotes, and unfortunately...2023-04-3017 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastWe Are Not AnimalsAs a child, I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books about her life as a pioneer living on the prairie. In the summer of 2010, after a particularly stressful semester of college, I even re-read them. After reading scholarly articles and textbooks until my head hurt, there was something comforting about returning to a childhood favorite, and reading them from an adult perspective, I also noticed things that I had never paid attention to as a child. Today I want to talk about a passage I found particularly poignant as an adult, and which I found myself thinking about again in...2023-04-2221 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastMy Case for ChristOne day the summer before last, an animal died in our yard, and my mom noticed some birds, which we later learned were turkey buzzards, had gathered around it for a feast. That afternoon, my parents, and even a family friend who dropped by, watched in morbid fascination as the birds feasted, even marveling at the clear presence of a pecking order as one bird pushed others out of the way to get the best morsels for himself. I too felt a sense of morbid fascination as they described what was going on. Of course, our slight pity for...2023-04-2124 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastReflecting on ChristmasMerry Christmas and Happy New Year readers! Don’t worry, I am alive and well. It has just been a crazy Fall semester and I either haven’t had the time or haven’t been in the right frame of mind to write. I have so much to update you on, from the family vacation to Hilton Head (I survived!) to the start of a new job. But first, I wanted to share the final research paper I wrote for Part 2 of Systematic Theology, which as I think I mentioned, I wouldn’t have had to take as I already...2023-01-0429 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastOn Human Dignity and the Sanctity of LifeAs promised, here is the research paper I wrote last semester about the sanctity of life. It addresses mostly the abortion debate, but also physician-assisted suicide. If you are just joining us, I encourage you to scroll down toyesterday's postfor clarification and context. I also want to add one more clarification. My last post focused exclusively on abortion as that is the issue dominating news and politics right now, but I believe there should be legislation banning physician-assisted suicide because as my paper explains, there are so many ethical problems with this practice...2022-09-0226 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastOn Human Dignity and the Sanctity of LifeWell readers, I am a woman of my word, and given that the Fall semester of seminary school officially starts this week, and the abortion debate will probably dominate the news cycle until midterms, it is almost time that I share the research paper I wrote last semester on the biblical perspective on human dignity. As I mentioned, I earned an 84%, not the greatest grade but in retrospect I realize it was a fair grade as I got too emotionally invested in the paper and thus it was too narrowly focused on the sanctity of life when the concept...2022-09-0119 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastWhat I Would Tell the Teenage Girl Who Wrote a Letter to President BushThis past year, Mom deep-cleaned the basement, put in new flooring (by herself), donated/threw away things we no longer used and reorganized special items we wanted to keep. One day several months ago, shortly after this massive undertaking was complete, I had just finished walking on the treadmill one Tuesday evening when I grabbed my phone off the shelf where I set it to play music, and in so doing noticed a folder with braille sticking out of it. Curious, I carefully pulled out the folder to look inside, and discovered she had saved the letter I wrote...2022-08-1426 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastA Tribute to GilbertI met my best friend in August 2008. His name was Gilbert, a yellow lab, my first guide dog and a loyal companion for twelve years. He came at just the right time to assist me in navigating college and the start of my career, and I couldn’t have asked for a more loving, loyal companion. My parents and I made the difficult decision to put him to sleep on December 2, 2020, the day after his fourteenth birthday. This was during the worst of the pandemic, and normally, protocol at our vet required calling the vet upon arrival in t...2022-08-0714 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastA Complicated QuestionIt is 2010, and I am standing in front of a classroom of thirty college students at Carroll University where I am a student myself. But I am not in this class. My classes are in the communication and english departments. This is a class for business majors studying diversity in the workplace, and I have been invited as a guest speaker. Presentations like this are second nature to me. I have been giving presentations like this since I was in second grade and was invited to speak to a third grade class. When you have such a rare disability...2022-08-0220 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastThe Rivers of Faith and Life Come TogetherThe first seeds of awareness that seminary school might be in my future were planted every time we went to Elmbrook Church, where I would be on the edge of my seat, fully engaged with the academic nature of each sermon that brought the Bible to life, and then fertilized one Sunday in 2013 when the senior pastor at the time remarked that as a child, he was terrified of public speaking, and yet God called him to be a pastor, proving that with God, anything is possible. I even visited Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, the school I now attend...2022-07-3108 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastComing to FaithIt is one of many Sunday mornings growing up. Most of the family is in the car, which is idling in the driveway. I say most because we were always waiting on one pokey sibling. BEEEP! Dad lays on the car horn. "Where is he?" Dad would mutter angrily. "I don't know, but I'm tired of always being late," Mom said with an exasperated sigh, "I almost don't even want to go if we cannot get there on time." That would have been fine with us kids. We almost always went to the 1...2022-07-3023 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastSchool DaysI am in first grade, and it is toward the beginning of the school year. The classroom consists of six short round tables, around which are four tiny plastic chairs. I sit in one of these chairs, and next to me in an adult chair sits Mrs. Zahn, the full-time teacher's aid that helps me keep up with the class. "Hi Allison," my friend Katie says as she takes her place at the table. "Hi Katie," I say. "How does she know it's me?" Katie asks Mrs. Zahn in amazement. "I don't kn...2022-07-3055 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastA Tangent on BrailleBefore I continue, perhaps you readers would appreciate a primer. I am so accustomed to being blind, and so familiar with braille and all of the technology I use that it is easy to forget how foreign and "amazing" it is to the general public. You have likely heard the name Louis Braille, an icon in the blind community. In second grade during one of my private braille lessons with Mrs. Reich, I remember reading a braille biography about Louis Braille, but he may not have been part of the mainstream school curriculum. Louis Braille was born in 1809, in...2022-07-2820 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastA Rogue Wave Just Before KindergartenWhile I was playing and learning at the Center, conscious only of the present moment, my parents and teachers were thinking about my future. My parents had a big decision to make, one that would effect the course of my entire life. Where would I attend elementary school? My older siblings attended a Catholic school, but going to school with them was out of the question as that school, and private schools in general, simply don't have the resources to accommodate children with disabilities. Just a generation or two earlier, it would have simply been a given th...2022-07-1618 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastRough Waters from the Start"I know you're an adult now and I shouldn't drag you to things anymore, but I'm dragging you to this. I think it's important," Mom said. It was October 2011 and I was complaining because I had just found out that Mom, Grandma and I would be going to a grand opening event for Vision Forward. This organization, formerly known as the Badger Association for the Blind, is a nonprofit that primarily provided services like technology training, Orientation and Mobility training, and social opportunities to blind adults. The name change to Vision Forward was only part of the or...2022-07-0442 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastDaddy Let me Drive"Brake now," Dad called out. The tires of our 1989 Toyota Camry squealed as I slammed on the brake.We both laughed and Dad said, "Don't worry. When I say brake now, I will give you plenty of time to come to a smooth stop, so you can press the brake pedal slowly."It was March 26, 2006, a Sunday morning and my sixteenth birthday. But I always knew I would never hold a driver's license. When I was seven months old, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor that damaged my optic nerve, leaving me totally blind...2022-07-0106 min
The Rivers of my Life PodcastDreaming of the RestorationI am about to embark on what will likely be the most important blog post I ever write. Unlike most of my blog posts which have no higher purpose other than to unravel my thoughts about my own life, I sense that this post could change other people’s lives. And after this blog post, when I go back to rambling about my life, I get the sense that I will be referring back to this post a lot. While most other blog posts were written because I wanted to share them, I felt a strange stirring inside, a se...2022-07-0121 min