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A few months back, I received an email from an editor at beliefnet.com asking me if I would like to move my blog to their site. After a long conversation and a lot of back and forth, both of us decided that the move would be a good thing. So, as of tomorrow, this blog has a ...

When William was two months old, I took him to the pediatrician for a checkup. "He's really tight," our doctor said.

"Yep," I nodded. "It's hard for me to get him dressed. His arms are so strong I can hardly pull them away from his body."

He frowned. "He has extremely high muscle ...

I graduated from Seminary on Saturday. It was seven years in the making, to finish the three year degree (at least seven is a Biblical number). I now have what is called a "Masters of Divinity," a rather unfortunate title. By my reckoning, one of the goals of a Seminary ...

Please forgive the formatting of this post–blogger is sometimes out of control, or at least out of my technical capabilities! Still some articles worth reading:

"Red Family, Blue Family," New York Times, May 9, 2010. This is a great op-ed exploring abortion, teen pregnancy, ...

We don't get out much, so perhaps it's no surprise that neither Peter nor I had heard of The Painted Veil. We rented it based upon the trailer, and we weren't disappointed. It's a beautiful film. It's a pretty simple story: husband, who is also a doctor (played by Ed Norton) ...

I have a new post at her.menuetics. It begins:

In her new and buzzworthybook, For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, The New York Times's Tara Parker-Pope examines what brain chemistry and genes have to do with happy marriages. She begins a recent Well column with a question: ...

A few months into our life with a child with Down syndrome, I realized that we live in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right resources. We are within an hour of the best children's hospital in the nation, a hospital that has a satellite office ...

I was recently asked to write, in 100 words or less, an answer to the question: "How is the Holy Spirit at work in the world today?" Tough assignment, but here's what I came up with:

In nudges and whispers.

Like a seed growing, imperceptible at first. Like wind, invisible, refreshing, ...

"We live in a culture that has replaced soul with self. This reduction turns people into either problems or consumers. Insofar as we acquiesce in that replacement, we gradually but surely regress in our identity, for we end up thinking of ourselves and dealing with others in ...

Peter and I have been worried lately because Penny seems to care too much about how her actions impact our feelings. For instance, she had an accident while sitting on Peter's shoulders. So the collar of his shirt got wet. I took her home to change. She wouldn't look me in the ...

I've decided to start another weekly Friday feature, which will simply be a list of articles I've read in the past week that seem relevant and interesting to the topics I otherwise discuss on this blog. I won't comment at length here, but I will provide a sentence or two so ...

Michael Sandel's The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in an the Age of Genetic Engineering is thoughtful, well-written, and, despite Sandel's academic credentials, accessible to any reader. It is also very short (128 very small pages), and thus it is a great place to start if ...

"Don't grab!"

We hear those words a lot. It might be Peter or me admonishing one of our children. Or, just as likely, Penny reprimanding her brother. Despite the frequency of the command, grabbing is a part of the daily routine. Penny grabs a toy from William. William grabs my ...