Debra Rienstra

A couple weeks ago, fellow Twelver Jeff Munroe confessed his fondness for Downton Abbey, the gorgeous, Brit-made, upstairs-downstairs soap opera that American viewers have swooned all over this winter.  Oddly enough, this show—which seems to celebrate class divisions and Edwardian…

Last week my mother spent a night in the hospital because of atrial fibrillation.  Her heart gets out of rhythm, and it needs to be shocked back in.  That sounds dramatic, but now that I have been formally introduced to…

It’s only January and already I can’t stand another minute of “news coverage” of the presidential race.  I have stopped listening to the yammering—from the candidates, from the talking heads, from the plastic news anchors in their shiny studios.  Why…

I apologize for passing over the many great posts since Theresa’s post on vocation, but I’d like to go back to that topic—which seems to have hit a nerve among our blog readers and writers—and try stirring up more conversation. …

Books lying around the house are never safe from my readerly omnivory.  So naturally I grabbed up the book my husband received from his brother this Christmas: Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of…

I spent this first week of Advent thinking about idolatry.  It started with a This American Life podcast on the Penn State disaster, in which reporters from the radio show interviewed the stunned residents of State College, Pennsylvania, as they…

You've probably heard the news from Southern California.  There's been some recent interesting related activity on my facebook feed.  Thought you'd enjoy. Thanks to Ron Rienstra for creative and technical assistance.