Purewow for the New Year:

 
A must read this week on the quotidian, literal, small and profound call to neighbor: “Christians Can’t Be Too Busy to Love Their Neighbors.”

 
Many thanks to Missio Alliance for streamlining some of the conversation happening this week around bi-vocational (co-vocational) ministry.

 
Brilliant among his contemporaries, we look forward to the Jan 14th release of Wendell Berry’s newest collection: “The Mad Farmer’s Poems.”

 
Benjamin Bratton (decidedly different from sweet little man-boy Benjamin Button) uses the TED platform to talk about why TED is a largely insufficient and overly reductionist means for tackling the world’s most pressing questions. “TED tands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. To me TED stands for: middlebrow megachurch infotainment.”

 
An interesting read on”What Happens When Schools Cut Denominational Ties.” Of course, one answer to this question (any many questions beside) is MORE STUDENT LOANS! But the implications are deeper still . . .

 
Even in Kansas City we are thinking Chris Christie had something to do with our longer-than-normal commutes, but there is a silver lining to all this sitting in traffic: podcasts! We recommend this one with writer Marilynne Robinson and astrophysicist Marcelo Gleiser.

 
Tolkien’s birthday, so this reflection on hope was one our our pure favorites.

 
A strong week in the Patheos noosphere. The articles that most quickened us included “Ratzinger on What the Church Will Look Like,” “Making 2014 a Year of Prayer,” and lastly a re-observation of Bonhoeffer.

 
Where is the geo-political location of meaning? In poor, religious countries, claims an article published by The Atlantic.

“Instead of relying on religion to give life meaning, people in wealthy societies today try to create their own meaning via their identity and self-knowledge . . . creating the meaning of your own life sounds very nice as an ideal, but in reality it may be impossible.”

 
 
Our friends over at Religion News Service are helping us translate Open Door’s latest Christian persecution list. Lord, hear our prayer.