Best of the Blogroll 2012

Here to ring out the old year are my favorite posts written by my dedicated blog-neighbors from the year 2012. Thank you all for your dedication and continuing to write!

• Aardvark Alley provides a fine set of homages to the saints on their feast days.
• Be Virtue - This blog is new to my blogroll this year. She shares a straight-from-the-heart letter about God's healing work to restore our souls in "Dear Broken Heart -- from a Healing Heart".
• Blogotional - The writer reminds us that the power that transform us lies in the presence of God, and how easily we lose our focus on that.
• CADRE Comments - The CADRE group blog keeps tabs on current trends anti-Christian arguments. Here they noted that the Bloodline movie had been outed as a hoax.
• Chrisendom - Chris Tilling posts a profound and humble reflection on Jesus' cry from the cross, "Why have you forsaken me?" 
• Dr. Platypus - Dr. Pursiful alerts us to an early manuscript find of a section of the book of Romans, which at the time of the original announcement of the find was considered possibly the earliest manuscript yet found of that document. 
• Kyrie, Eleison - Anastasia posted a one-of-a-kind reflection explaining Christianity's profound focus on Jesus, and what that means for sin and salvation. She has also, right here at the end of the year, added a homely note about a humble path of service which is inspiring for how to make the most of simple everyday opportunities.
• Leithart - The author explains some of the beauties, wisdom and insights of understanding baptism and other sacraments in their context
• Meta's Blog - Metacrock continues his work tracking the scholarly medical review of purported healing miracles; I don't know that I've ever spoken to someone more knowledgeable on that topic. He also posted some hugely useful research on Paul's use of materials also known to us from the gospels, which helps establish that those parts of the Christian message are, in fact, very early.
• The Pocket Scroll - Here we find that Evangelicals read the church fathers because they're awesome. We also find an interesting way of thinking about the saints, even the less-plausible stories -- a way that calls us all.
• Sun and Shield - Martin LaBar has been posting a long series on prayer; my favorite to date has been this beautiful reflection on humility.
• Undivided Looking - The newest addition to my blogroll, the author writes on physics and Christianity. He first caught my eye with his post against what he calls, appropriately I think, "Medieval-bashing" in scholarship, the tendency to dismiss anything that was thought by the ancients by bashing the era without a lot of fact-checking. 
• Weedon's Blog - Pastor Weedon's valuable service is quote-mining different traditions to share with us. Here he posts on a way to think about "tradition" so that we hold on to the good and safeguard against abuses.

Some of the blogs on my blogroll have gone inactive during the year. A few others had a steady stream of solid posts but there was no one particular post that caught my eye. For those of you who have gone inactive: I hope to see you back in 2013. And to everyone on the blogroll: Thank you for blogging!