Mike Wittmer

Month: March 2012

  • Jayber Crow

    I finished my first Wendell Berry novel this week. I picked Jayber Crow, which is a story about a balding bachelor barber who secretly “marries” Mattie, a much younger woman who is already married to a show-off that nobody likes. Jayber vows to stay faithful to Mattie and he does, though he never tells her…

  • deadly denial

    Yesterday Tim Challies excerpted one of the stories from The Last Enemy. It’s a moving story told by my friend, Jeff Halsted, who then was pastor of Indian River Baptist Church, about 30 miles south of the Mackinac Bridge. The story illustrates the importance of facing death with your eyes wide open, trusting yourself completely…

  • wrong on so many levels

    I am pretty sure this isn’t funny, but it caught me in a weak moment. Hint:  check the drapes. For you serious people, this comic is using humor to demonstrate how bad questions may lead to even worse answers.

  • fear and faith

    Another thing I learned while researching The Last Enemy is that it’s not wrong to be afraid of dying. Jesus was. His death contained unfathomable terrors, and he sweat blood as he braced himself for what was to come. Our deaths are infinitely easier, but we may still learn from the cross that fear is…

  • what I learned about death, part 1

    I promised I would share a few things I learned while researching The Last Enemy, and the first comes from Stephen Prothero’s book, God Is Not One. Prothero explained how each religion attempts to solve a different problem, and the unique problem that Christianity solves is death. Here is an excerpt from The Last Enemy:…

  • spring break

    My family and I returned last night from a wonderful week with my parents in Florida. I blogged once last week to make it look like I was still around, but actually I was finding shark’s teeth at Blind Pass, floating Chinese lanterns at Siesta Key, and meeting my Mennonite cousins who winter or live…

  • Why a book on death?

    My last two books have addressed consecutively the topics of hell and death, so I guess I’m mired in my blue period. I wouldn’t say I’m totally depressed, but my next project may be a history of the Chicago Cubs. The idea of writing a book on death occurred to me while watching Tom Brokaw’s…

  • the last enemy

    Today is the release of my book on death, The Last Enemy: Preparing to Win the Fight of Your Life. I kept the book small, with short chapters full of humorous and inspiring stories, so it would be enjoyably read by anyone. And since we’re all going to die, I think we all need to…