Skip to main content
All Posts By

Debra Rienstra

memoirspirituality

A Memoir in Psalms

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” — Psalm 84:5 Combine Bono, Eugene Peterson, and the Psalms, and you can have 27,400 shares on social media in just a few days. We know this because an outfit…
mm
April 30, 2016
liturgical yearmemoirspirituality

A Lenten Update

Dear Jesus, Just thought I’d send a quick note and let you know how things are going this Lent. Actually, not so good tbh. I don’t know. I just wasn’t feeling it this year, you know? I didn’t give up chocolate or carbs or anything.…
mm
March 18, 2016
politics

Counting Our Blessings, Electoral Style

I did not want to write about politics today, but I’m feeling chock full of gratitude and I need to rejoice! Yes! Bloggers and journalists and broadcasters—not to mention all your friends and coworkers—are preoccupied these days with working up jeremiads about the U.S. presidential…
mm
March 4, 2016
artsCalvin events

The Festival Geek Recommends

My colleague Jennifer Holberg got a head start on me last November by recommending some authors who will be featured at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing–now a mere ten weeks away! In case you are new to this glorious phenomenon, the Festival is…
mm
February 6, 2016
artscollege life

Doing Something Else

Calvin College, where I teach, faced another brutal round of budget cuts this fall, and not surprisingly, the arts took a hard hit. I lament this deeply, though I’m not complaining. I understand all the exigencies behind it, and I gratefully acknowledge that the process…
mm
January 9, 2016
silly

Rejected Christmas Carols

If the joy of Christmas ever breaks through the frenzy of event-going and present-wrangling and (for me) end-of-semester grading, it happens through music. This year, for instance, I sat in my city’s gorgeous basilica and listened to a youth choir perform a haunting, dissonant arrangement…
mm
December 26, 2015
liturgical yearspirituality

No Words Fall

It must begin with Zechariah’s silence. Nothing against poor old Zechariah. Who can blame him for asking a decent question? The text tells us that both he and Elizabeth were upright and blameless before the Lord. So even if Gabriel comes off as a little…
mm
December 11, 2015
memoirspirituality

Contentment

Grandma Theresa’s heart is extremely weak. No surprise, as it’s been pumping nonstop since before she was born in July of 1912. That’s the year the Titanic sank. We visited Grandma yesterday in her room at the assisted care facility. At the age of 103,…
mm
November 28, 2015