Elaine Elizabeth Belz

“Expect rain around 10PM in Livonia.” As I sit at home in Detroit.

Um, OK. Anywhere else I’m not where I should expect things about the weather?

Markwayne Mullin can’t even secure the border between his two first names.

…

Hell yeah!

Thank you!

So they are, then.

If you're a woman in ministry in Metro Detroit (or whatever distance you're willing to come from!) please consider this invitation from the seminary where I teach.
Whatever your ministry is—lay or ordained, in or out of church—come!

I do eat a lot of pasta.

OMG, what a beautiful floof! Those eyes...

Acting on Faith The Second Sunday in Lent—March 1, 2026 Genesis 12:1-4a Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 John 3:1-17 Psalm 121Note: Scripture quoted in this blog is from the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) except the Psalm…

On practices that teach us where to turn our attention, because faith takes that kind of deliberate action.

eebelz.com/2026/02/28/a...

I would be a very bad military chaplain. Sure, let me check the Bible, see what it says about killing a couple dozen men with a bomb because Jeffrey Epstein’s best friend was bored and wanted to feel something. *flips pages*

Well, you’re not going to like this…

I threw together a document with some poems I might be able to work into a collection (to have on hand), and for fun, I went ahead & accepted Adobe's offer to have its AI summarize the "long" document for me.
Their summary was as many pages as my document, and it was also hilarious.

BORROWING LIGHT — Earth and Altar Tapers flicker, melt down into sand: the detritus of prayers. Saints in the windows gift a murky, fragmented light to this flat-lit nave, their forms dimming into color the incandescence of ...

My poem, "Borrowing Light," is up on Earth & Altar today:
earthandaltarmag.com/posts/y1o9ic...
#poetry

"Holy objects are not holy in & of themselves. They are holy only be negating themselves in pointing to the divine of which they are the mediums. If they establish themselves as holy, they become demonic."—Paul Tillich

I think this is a great way to understand use of the phrase "God bless the USA."

Bless you. That's hard work, and I appreciate that you're seeing it the way you are.

Do we really think Dems won't try to go back to the way things were? 'Cause that kind of "let's just get along" seems to be what matters to them.

Although I guess it depends on who we vote in this year.

Don't tell him - he'll start drawing them in himself

When Jesus shows up The First Sunday in Lent—February 22, 2026 John St. John Long (1798-1834), The Temptation in the Wilderness, 1824. Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7Romans 5:12-19Matthew 4:1-11Psalm 32 This post is a bit late…

eebelz.com/2026/02/22/w...
Featuring a painting by a man who gave up art to become a medical hack only to die of the tuberculosis he wrongly claimed he could cure, but that's not the story behind the art anyway.

Don’t support anyone who isn’t interested in justice and only “wants to unite.” There can be no harmony without justice.

Can it depend on which type of clarification you need to make, or which role you’re in when you make it?

Beaurifully put.

(I had elided some words like "just" in the quote to fit the character limit here.)

Trump's refusal to invite all governors to a White House meeting prompts group to back out The National Governors Association is pulling out of an annual meeting at the White House after President Donald Trump declined to invite two Democratic governors.

Source: apnews.com/article/gove...

Wes Moore (MD):
“I didn’t run for governor like, man, I can’t wait so me and the president can go toe to toe...But the fact that he is waking up in the middle of the night and tweeting about me...I pray for him and I...feel bad for him because that has...got to be a really, really hard existence.”

*at least 2, that we know of.

MSN's weather site is currently saying this, as I'm listening to thunder, hail, and heavy rain:

Is this brand new? I’m hoping for an ebook version on the library sight we use where I teach.

The irony is that academics mostly can’t afford to buy these books. I also recall that some publishers made scholars pay for color plates if their book needed them.

Even Cal? That is, if you have time to sit in their stacks reading.

If only AI could make that happen IRL.

I have a PhD in theological aesthetics. At least I’m teaching theology, but I certainly can’t quit my day job.