Debra Rienstra, Author at Debra Rienstra

“Danger: You Could Die Here in Paradise”

I know that important things have been happening in the news this week, but I don’t care because: I’m in Hawaii. Been here for almost two weeks with my wonderful partner, Ron, celebrating 25 years of marriage. We are giving ourselves a much-needed and extravagant…

Debra RienstraJune 29, 2013

cultural commentary review

Hypermodernity Got Ya Down? Put a Bonnet On It!

I have never read an Amish romance novel. I tried once—not very hard—and couldn’t do it, couldn’t even get past page three. However, I did just now manage to read with great delight, cover to cover, Valerie Weaver-Zurcher’s new book, The Thrill of the Chaste:…

Debra RienstraJune 15, 2013

Pious Petunia

Pious Petunia Celebrates Summer

Dear Miss Petunia: My husband and I bicker every summer about his preference for golf over worship services on sunny Sunday mornings. “I worship God so much better on the golf course!” he claims. I think he’s just being lazy about the spiritual life. Either…

Debra RienstraJune 1, 2013

memoir spirituality

Unfinished Business

I suppose I have simply gotten used to unfinished business. As more academic years slide past and pile up behind me, I have less a sense of closure in May than a sense of constant motion. Even this year, when two of my own children…

Debra RienstraMay 18, 2013

review spirituality

Making the Case for Church

I wonder, though. Is a defense of the church even possible? Even with the most airtight arguments or winsome stories, could we ever convince the skeptic that the church is a good and beautiful place to center your life?

Debra RienstraMay 4, 2013

cultural commentary

Quintessence of Dust

Last night, thanks to the cleverness and curiosity of internet geeks, my husband and I were able to listen for about three hours to Boston police scanners—live-streamed over the internet—during the operation that captured the Boston bombing suspect. We knew, before it was broadcast on…

Debra RienstraApril 20, 2013

liturgical year spirituality

Low Sunday, Doubting Thomas, and Story as Sign

Thomas, therefore, is like all of them and all of us. His second name, Didymus (the twin), perhaps signals that he is of two minds. He is both doubter and believer at once. The two states of mind wrestle inside him, and in that sense…

Debra RienstraApril 6, 2013

liturgical year

The Problem with Palms

Let’s admit it: Palm Sunday is a problem. I know I shouldn’t be questioning a moment in the church calendar that goes all the way back to the third or fourth century, but why do I always vaguely dread this day?

Debra RienstraMarch 23, 2013

liturgical year memoir Uncategorized

February Blahs

If for some reason you wish to study that peculiar state of human existence called “the blahs,” I suggest you begin in the third week of February in Michigan. It’s been winter for as long as we can remember here, and we still have a…

Debra RienstraFebruary 23, 2013

liturgical year spirituality

Thin Places

The Transfiguration story speaks to that part of us that longs for the mountain-top experience—for the epiphanic moment when, even for an instant, we perceive through the veil of clay to the numinous glory beyond. If only we could find a thin place, maybe we…

Debra RienstraFebruary 9, 2013

Debra Rienstra

“Danger: You Could Die Here in Paradise”

Hypermodernity Got Ya Down? Put a Bonnet On It!

Pious Petunia Celebrates Summer

Unfinished Business

Making the Case for Church

Quintessence of Dust

Low Sunday, Doubting Thomas, and Story as Sign

The Problem with Palms

February Blahs

Thin Places

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