I don't think about it much any more, but when Penny was born, some of the hardest questions to face were those about her future. Will she ever drive a car? Get married? Have children? Hold a job? Live on her own?

Those questions still exist, of course, and they come up from ...

Around 5:30 most evenings, the inevitable question arises. What are we going to eat for dinner? Sometimes I've planned it out in advance, but most days it's a scramble. And although I intend to provide nutritious meals every night, efficiency sometimes wins out.

There was a time ...

I found out last week that my friend Ellen Painter Dollar and I won an award from the EPA (Evangelical Press Association) for our point-counterpoint essays about disability published for Christianity Today online. My article was called, "Considering 'Curing' Down Syndrome With ...

"What? Since when did tard become politically incorrect?"

I felt confused when I heard these words fall off the lips of a character in the 2005 movie, The Ringer, starring Johnny Knoxville. I wasn't surprised it was coming from Hollywood. I was shocked, though, that the movie ...

Listening. It's  a daily topic in our household, and it's one of Penny's greatest challenges. A few weeks back, she and William were visiting my aunt and uncle. Aunt Jane asked Penny, "Where are your listening ears?"

"I left them at home," she replied.

"Don't worry, Penny. I brought ...

"Every baby is a little miracle to celebrate, support and protect."

Is it a trite advertising tagline? Or a profound truth? Take a minute (literally, one minute) to watch this ad for Pampers:

Should we celebrate babies born to teenagers? Babies born through ...

Should atheists in the military have chaplains to serve their needs? That's the question asked in a recent New York Times article, "Atheists Seeks Chaplain Role in the Military." The article discusses the spiritual climate of the military, which it claims is overwhelmingly Christian. ...

It sounds like good news. Researchers have developed a non-invasive test to detect Down syndrome early on in pregnancy. As this new test becomes widely available, it will replace current screening tests for Down syndrome. Any woman who takes the advice of the American College ...

I have a guest post today on Motherlode, the parenting blog of the New York Times. It begins:

Our middle child, William, had trouble sleeping as a newborn. And as an infant. And really up until he was eight months old. He fussed. He squirmed. He screamed. The slightest noise ...

It's easy to be dismissive of children's capacity for spiritual understanding. I've written recently about my trouble explaining Easter to our kids and about our messy prayer times as a family. There's a part of me that wants to give up on theology with our children until they ...

Over the course of the past week I have soothed Marilee after her brother bit her on the arm (Look carefully at the oval ring of teeth marks in the photo to the left. In his defense, he seemed shocked by her tears and said, "Mom, I was pretending she was food"), cleaned up a ...

My friend Jessica Bigby has offered a Perfectly Human post before: "Walking Toward Freedom." In it, she talks about what it meant–both physically and spiritually–to start learning to walk without her canes. Recently, I learned from Jess that after years of assuming that skiing ...

Recently Peter and I took a walk together. We were talking about some trouble Penny's had in school lately. Peter said, "Do you want to pray?" And so we did. It was easy, refreshing, and totally unusual for us.

After nearly two decades as a practicing Christian, I still have ...

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

-Benjamin Franklin

There's been a fair amount of reporting on the celebrations that followed immediately after news of Osama Bin Laden's death, with people swarming Times Square and flocking to the White House to cheer and dance and start a party.

But members of various religious communities have ...