Aliel Cunningham

Today I feel small. There is so much happening around the world right now at a pace that leaves me feeling stunned. I can’t take it all in. I have been praying with my church for those in Ukraine these past few days and then today I gave a lecture to graduate students in Russia…

This Ash Wednesday is no ordinary day for me. In fact, this whole past week has been a heartbreaking and unsettling one for almost everyone I have talked to as we have watched in disbelief the images of tanks rolling into Ukraine and heard the stories of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing their once peaceful land…

In this season where so many of us are working from home, I wonder if I am the only one who needs help staying disciplined, focused on a single task, and actually, you know, work! For most of my career, my home space was the place I came to relax, kick off my shoes, call…

So many negative things have been written about the year 2020 that there is no need to rehash them or review them here.  As a child closes their eyes and imagines that they have disappeared, so too we want to close our eyes and make the dingy wrongs and muddy ills tracked all through our…

If there were to be a motto for 2020 from the Bible, it might be this verse from Ecclesiastes:  “A time to refrain from embracing” The key word here is the verb “refrain”.  It literally means “to stop oneself from doing”.  If i could sum it up – no one single word could probably express…

Love Your Enemies, Really? I’m a comic book fan. Especially Marvel, and most especially Spiderman. I grew up reading the comic books, collecting them, watching the different cartoon series, and then as an adult, watching all the movies. Despite some pretty terrible flaws in some of the movies, I can’t help but smile through each…

  This past two weeks have been a whirlwind of motion for me…  I arrived here in Lithuania for a teaching session with MA students for a class which focuses on asking the “big questions” about language teaching – what are our motivations and goals for teaching a language, how does language shape our perspective…

(Photo Credit: Casey Horner) Something in my makeup compels me to stand up for what is right. Time has taught me, however, that what I think is right in one period may not look the same one year or ten down the road. And when I later reflect back on a conflict, my sin may…

By Guest Author: Matthew Kanitz This last Halloween our neighborhood, just like many neighborhoods throughout the world, erupted in a cacophony of spooky ghosts, inflatable black cats, and the occasional spoof graveyard. “What are those Dad” asked my son Caleb with all of innocent curiosity a 6 year old could muster. “Those are gravestones. You…

It was a glaring hot day at the beach one summer afternoon and my dad and I were catching our breath sitting on the sandy towels and shielding our eyes from the sun’s sparkling brightness catching on every wave that rolled in.  We started people watching and making comments about the different ways people reacted…