MSI Press Blog

  With all the serious stuff in everyone's lives these days -- economy, covid, elections --it seemed that Friday the 13th needed a little levity. So herewith is a blog post from The 100th Lamb, a blog maintained by Elizabeth Mahlou (MSI Press author of Blessed Atheist and A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God ). Although Elizabeth no longer maintains the blog, the posts are still available. May it bring a smile to you this evening. A kindergarten teacher was helping one of her students put his boots on. He had asked for help and she could see why. With her pulling and him pushing, the boots still didn’t want to go on. When the second boot was on, she was nearly out of breath. She almost whimpered when the little boy said, “Teacher, they’re on the wrong feet.” She looked and sure enough, they were. It wasn’t any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as they worked together to get the boots back on – this time on the r

This excerpt comes from the section of A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God that talks about God's protection even while being an atheist. Puerto Rico Not only do I feel protected, but also I have no explanation for why I am here today other than having been protected in the past. Whether it is dreamily walking in front of cars—growing up on a Maine farm without much in the way of roads probably contributes to that habit—or being placed in harm’s way due to my occupation, I seem to escape injury regularly.        In 1980, my reserve unit had been called to active duty in Puerto Rico to replace sailors who had been attacked, wounded, and killed on the way home from the night shift at a military post. My unit, considered one of the most ready in the reserves at that time, was activated to fill in the decimated ranks until those wounded returned to duty and those killed replaced. I left my graduate studies and university teaching position and took off

“There is a clear difference between an easy life and a good life.”  Read the full book review at Readers' Favorites:  https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/blest-atheist .

“Khristos voskres” (Christ is risen). One person after another greeted me with these words as I climbed the stairs of the little, wooden church in Akademgorodok, a tiny town at the end of the man-made Ob Sea, bejeweling the Siberian steppe 45 minutes south of the city of Novosibirsk . The intertwining snow-covered birch and kedr (Siberian pine) trees created an illusion of a land of fantasy, made more so in the late evenings by the moon reflecting off the naked silver-white birch bark onto the dark red-brown trunks and evergreen branches of the pines. This was not yet the taiga ; it was somewhat south for that, but nonetheless the birch and kedry stood closely side-by-side like brothers-in-arms against a hostile white and cold universe.             “V istinu voskres” (Truly, He is risen). If my words of response rang hollow, there was a reason. They came from the lips of a bona fide atheist, convinced that religious congregations were at least in part delusional. Certain