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Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

It’s no surprise to say that we live in a time of polarization. Community is fracturing into groups who affirm like-minded thinking while viewing others with suspicion and fear. How can we come together again? How can we bridge the divide of mistrust? How can we move from an us/them mentality to sim

Past Lives

Childhood sweethearts Na Young (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) are separated when Na Young’s family moves from South Korea to Canada. They reunite for the first time as adults in New York, where Na Young, now known as Nora, lives with her fellow writer and husband, Arthur (John Magaro). As Nora a

An American Immigrant

Colombian American Johanna Rojas Vann’s deepest hope in writing this novel for adults, based on true events, is to honor her mother and grandmother. She also wants “to inspire people to dig into their own roots and find all they can to love about where they came from. Why? Because, speaking from exp

The Yellow Handkerchief

A young girl is disgruntled when she thinks about the old yellow handkerchief that her abuela wears in her hair. The handkerchief was given to abuela by her own grandmother, and serves many functions: cleaning dirt from under abuela’s fingernails, forming a basket to carry eggs from the chicken coop

The Future is Sure

The Rock Music, a music ministry of The Rock Church in Utah, rolls out “The Future is Sure,” an EP celebrating the ultimate hope in Jesus. “Woven throughout the EP are themes of grace, mercy, holiness, repentance, and worship,” leader Steele Croswhite said in a release. “In collaborating with multip

The Mandalorian Season 3

Stars Wars began as a relatively simple story about good versus evil (The Force vs The Dark Side) but has evolved over the past 45 years into a complex world of relationships between characters, politics, outer regions of the galaxy, cloning technology, Sith organizational structure, a multitude of

Only the Beautiful

In 1938, 16-year-old Rosanne’s life was permanently changed when her parents and brother were killed in a car accident. Her father had been the vinedresser at Celine and Truman Calvert’s California vineyard, and Rosanne had grown up surrounded by the idyllic setting’s peace, safety, and beauty. Only

Pilgrimage

Guitarist, singer, and songwriter Phil Keaggy has been releasing albums for over 50 years. He was one of the original Jesus Music artists of the early 1970s when his conversion to Christianity caused him to leave his band Glass Harp and make music which spoke about his newfound faith. While his amaz

The Lives We Actually Have:100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie, authors of Good Enough and host and executive producer, respectively, of the Everything Happens podcast, once again join forces to address the cultural myth of the attainment of perfection when sufficient effort is applied. “Contrary to most of the advice of the self

Paper Cuts

In her sixth book in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society series, cozy mystery author Ellery Adams returns to Miracle Springs, N.C., and bookstore owner and bibliotherapist Nora Pennington. She and her friends Hester Winthrop, Estella Sadler, and June Dixon, business women who became a family of sort

By Bread Alone

As someone who has never made homemade bread with yeast–except in the bread machine, if that counts–I was surprised by how appealing and, yes, nourishing this book was. By Bread Alone is written by Kendall Vanderslice, a baker, theologian, and founder of the Edible Theology Project. I thought this n

Citadel

Citadel, on Amazon Prime, takes every spy movie trope from The Bourne Identity to Get Smart, lacquers them in Marvel movie gloss, and spreads it out over six episodes. There’s so much globetrotting going on you may get jet lag keeping up with our amnesiac spies, and when the credits roll you’ll wond

On Earth

Husband-and-wife duo Seth & Nirva challenge listeners to battle our culture’s moral decline with their six-track EP “On Earth.” The Lord’s Prayer is the main influence on the record, and the title cut echoes that. “The EP springs from this model prayer as we ask the Lord to bring the kind of revival

The Swing

Is there a place in your neighborhood where you and others go for solitude, to sit quietly with a grandchild, to meet a friend? The swing in this picture book is that place. It’s a classic two-swing structure set on a grassy knoll above an open seashore. The invitation is there for anyone who wander

Star Trek: Picard

When Star Trek: The Next Generation went off the air in 1994, it had accomplished something remarkable. The show had taken the familiar elements of the original series, added new characters and new storylines, and breathed new life into a franchise that many thought was a niche science fiction show

The Miracle Seed

In this informative graphic novel for children ages 8 to 13, author and illustrator Martin Lemelman shares his love for science, art, and archaeology as he relates the fascinating tale of ordinary Judean date palm seeds that lay dormant for more than 2,000 years. Whether due to climate change or war

The Testimony of Robbie Robertson

Robbie Robertson died Aug. 9. Robbie was Mohawk from my home community, Six Nations of the Grand River, Ont., and the leader and lead guitar player of the Americana rock group The Band. His screaming guitar work accompanied Bob Dylan when he went electric. Robbie worked with Martin Scorsese in sever

Church History for Chumps Podcast

Over the years I’ve stopped listening to music in favor of podcasts, and my favorite format evokes the feeling of sitting in the corner of someone’s kitchen, eavesdropping on friends talking about a topic they love. Even when it’s just me and my earbuds and I might never meet the hosts, I’m a partic