Rachel Marie Stone
Rachel Marie Stone is the author of "Eat With Joy: Redeeming God’s Gift of Food" and a book about Jesus for children called "The Unexpected Way."
All Stories by Rachel Marie Stone
No, Nicholas Kristof, bikes, beads and bed nets won’t save the world
By Rachel Marie Stone — June 23, 2014
There is, in foreign aid and development discussions, the danger of developing a Messiah complex: assuming that our donation to an organization half a world away is really, truly, going to change the world.
Surprised by Jesus and the ‘unexpected way’ of the Gospels
By Rachel Marie Stone — June 19, 2014
Reading through the Gospels again and again as I wrote, I realized afresh and in some ways for the first time how upside-down and unexpected Jesus' words and actions are. I like this Jesus so much better than the Jesus often dragged onto billboards and political podiums, and, dare I say, into the pulpit.
If you’re having trouble focusing, try writing by hand
By Rachel Marie Stone — June 17, 2014
If there is anything clearly spiritual about writing by hand versus typing the computer, it probably has something to do with quietness.
On kissing and writing and the meaning of life and love in the Anne Frank House
By Rachel Marie Stone — June 12, 2014
In The Fault in Our Stars, two dying teens share their first passionate kiss in the Anne Frank House. Seems a little awkward and even irreverent, until you think about it a little more closely.
Waiting around for God: what the wilderness cultivates
By Rachel Marie Stone — June 7, 2014
A Beautiful Disaster offers the wisdom of a deeply gracious soul who knows suffering from the inside, and who manages to celebrate the blessings that come through suffering while never suggesting that suffering is in itself a blessing.
Finding a church that captures ‘the taste of the place’
By Rachel Marie Stone — June 5, 2014
If McDonaldized church makes the case for increased efficiency, calculability, predictability and control, Slow Church makes “the case for taste”—specifically the case for “the taste of the place.”
Learning doesn’t stop because school does: in praise of quiet summers
By Rachel Marie Stone — June 3, 2014
When I consider the things that I know most about—and the things I am most interested in—I am struck that very little of what I know and love deeply was forced upon me by others.
How to kvetch with those who kvetch
By Rachel Marie Stone — May 31, 2014
Other people's moments of crisis and pain are not opportunities for you to unburden your own soul.
Addressing the distorted theology that defends abusers
By Rachel Marie Stone — May 30, 2014
Until l I read Is It My Fault? Hope and Healing for Those Suffering Domestic Violence by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb, I had no idea that the leading cause of death for African American women ages 15 to 45 is murder at the hands of a partner.
Phenomenal woman: recovering with Maya Angelou
By Rachel Marie Stone — May 28, 2014
Her words strengthened my weakened and wearied soul; that her words somehow helped me to inhabit my own body again. Thank you, Ms. Angelou.
The animals that sacrifice for us
By Rachel Marie Stone — May 22, 2014
Animals sacrifice for us. Why we can hope for a more peaceful world for them.
Jonathan Merritt’s new book offers the grace so many people crave
By Rachel Marie Stone — May 20, 2014
Does every generation need faith stories releasing them from legalism; opening hands and hearts to receive grace?
Why ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ may not express what we really mean
By Rachel Marie Stone — May 15, 2014
It is not for me to issue any particular call in relation to Mother's Day, or Father's Day, except maybe to say that the fierce dedication for which we celebrate mothers on the second Sunday in May are present in many, many people who are never called 'mom.'
Why does time’s passing call forth cliche — and grief?
By Rachel Marie Stone — May 7, 2014
The question beneath the clichés — at least for me — is why does the evidence of time passing grieve me? What do I weep for, exactly?
The troubling arguments from a NYC parent who got a religious vaccine exemption
By Rachel Marie Stone — April 29, 2014
A parent in New York City gets a religious exemption excusing him from vaccinating his kids -- but his religious reasons are really troubling.
