A Conventional Change

Easter morning dawns with the two Marys traveling together to finish the work begun on Friday. Here, the most traditional characters perform the most traditional of tasks with the greatest regard for tradition.

As convention dictated, it was the job of the Marys—as women connected with the deceased—to prepare the body for its final burial. The Marys were playing their assigned part in the story, fulfilling their conventional roles. Yet the story of the resurrection is a story of the conventional slamming headfirst into the re-creative force of Jesus’ unconventional life, ministry, and purpose—a collision that redirects lives and reality.

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The planned relocation of the United Methodist Publishing House has been complicated — in a good way — by a collection of old, rare religious books, including what may be a first edition of the King James Bible. Assessing the collection, and deciding what to do with it, are punch list items before the big move. Sam Hodges reports.

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Amy Dickinson has heard it all. In her syndicated advice column that appears across the U.S., “Ask Amy,” she throws in her two cents about everything from cheating spouses and bad etiquette to nasty neighbors and embarrassing family members.

The common sense expert also gets her fair share of emails from church members fed-up with the behavior of certain pew neighbors. Don’t we all know one or two of those annoying members—the mother who changes her baby’s diaper in the back pew or the old-timer who takes a nap during the sermon…and then snores until the organist hits the first note of “Just As I Am, Without One Plea”?

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