When you question what you’ve assumed is good and normal, things get awkward. In this issue let’s jump in to the mess together and see what we find.

• Trouble with normal
• Quick clips from the awkward issue
  Geez Staff
• Awkward sermon winners
  Geez Staff
• Child of empire
  Emily Mekash 20
• Black hand on the Bible
  Will Braun 30
• Not one of those
  Brenda Melles 39
• Breaking the law
  Geez Staff 68
• The danger of civility
  Geez Staff 69
• Violent means to peaceful ends: Computing Congo’s mineral war
  Dan Leonard 74
• Lonely Planet guide: Backyard 57
• A heartfelt cringe
  NIcholas Klassen 10
• To pull the cord
  Jonathan Wright 18
• Golden plumbing
  Esther Harder 21
• The big biblical sell-off
  Nathan Mantey 22
• A doubter's companion to pending disaster
  Brian Hull 25
• My Old Grandpa
  Lorne Shuckster 25
• The ladies bathroom
  Carrie S. Martin 32
• Not by choice
  Diane Driedger 33
• gangly, somber and sickly
  Anna Frenette 34
• No room in the inn
  Michelle Schaafsma 35
• Tell me the old, old story
  Mandy Smith 36
• A family of faith
  Anne Dayton 42
• Maximun Security
  Chris Hoke 46
• The sexy 700 Club
  John Spalding 47
• Version C: Accepting the violence-prone fringe
  Robb Grace 50
• The great indoord
  Robert Jirucha 51
• The bliss of ignorance
  Dan Schreiber 53
• Nowhere left to go: The maturation of wanderlust
  Anneli Rufus 54
• An alien river
  Will Braun 56
• A guide for Spiritual Tourists
  Hannah Faith Notess 60
• Farting against thunder: A sermon about Ecclesiastes
  Ted Harrison 63
• An irrational look at the cross
  Katherine Munnik 64
• Good God, bad things
  Jenny Rae Armstrong 65
• Beehive rug
  Leslie Barnwell 66
• A dying father and an elusive blessing
  Robert Rowen-Herzog 68
• Youthful idealism 76