By Bill Ramsey
December’s first day dawns,
presenting an unexpected sketch
between my beaten path’s margin
and a recently resurgent river’s bank.
A patch of park is neatly etched
beneath a tree’s elongated umbra.
The tall rusty cypress unknowingly
casts a silhouette of a Christmas tree. Continue reading “Cradles Unsuppressed”
There is a moment between sleep and awakening
When the dream world makes itself available
For us to deeply remember
What it is we need to know
Original instructions
On how to be human
On how to be in creation
On how to risk
On how to care for one another
On how to find joy
Continue reading “Prayer: There is a moment between sleep and awakening”
Excerpts from a recent interview with justice doula Micky Scottbey-Jones of the Faith Matters Network (re-posted from the Nobel Women’s Initiative site):
On “movement chaplaincy:”
We’ve been taught to think of movements and protests as “Who’s the target? What’s the action? We’re done.” In the same way that we have medics at protests to attend to the physical needs of people, a movement chaplain would be the person who’s clued into the emotional, spiritual, and mental needs, both in the moment of protest, and afterwards. They would help us decompress, celebrate, lament. We shouldn’t be going on to the next action until we’ve had time to process and celebrate our wins, and mourn our losses, and talk about how scared we were during one part and how great this other part felt. We need to change the way we are taught to organize. Continue reading “Brave Spaces”
By Chava Redonnet, Oscar Romero Inclusive Catholic Church, Rochester, NY
Bulletin for Sunday, December 10, 2017
Second Sunday of Advent
Dear friends,
I’m writing this a bit late… it’s Tuesday, December 12. It’s the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe: this morning in Mexico, people got up early and processed through the town with candles, singing “Las Mananitas”… at least, they did years ago and I expect they still do, now. Continue reading “Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe”
By Ken Sehested
To move into a seemingly bleak and
ominous future requires laying hold
of stories from our past:
Stories to remind us that buoyancy
emerges from unseen places,
at unknowing moments,
in unpredictable ways,
beyond all calculation
and prognostication. Continue reading “Silent Night”
By Tommy Airey
May the God of peace sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I Thessalonians 5:23
Back in the 80’s and 90’s, vintage Advent passages about “the coming of our Lord” were infused with the rapture theology of my fresh Evangelical faith. I eagerly anticipated an End Times scenario when Jesus would triumphantly return to rescue us from the sin of the world. I remained vigilant as the Left Behind series of books and movies filled in the blanks of what this letter from Paul assured us would soon happen:
For the Lord himself, with a word of command,
with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God,
will come down from heaven,
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive, who are left,
will be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air. (I Thessalonians 4:16-17)
Our Evangelical pastors repressed our sexual imaginations, but they gave us full permission to fantasize about the End of the World. It was almost too much for my adolescent mind. I conjured images of mass disappearances, freeways suddenly littered with empty cars and football stadiums with fans flying into the heavens. Researching the historical context, though, zoomed me back down to earth. Literally. Continue reading “¡Presente!”
By Joyce Hollyday Reposted from www.joycehollyday.com.
Two days ago, a calf was born on the 120-acre mountain farm next-door. On my morning walk that day, I rounded a turn in the trail and spied him under a chestnut tree by the creek, just hours old, still wobbly on his legs, his mother licking him vigorously. Last night a coyote tried to kill that newborn calf. His mother successfully thwarted the attack, but not without injury to her ear and face. On this morning’s walk, I noticed that all the cattle are huddled together at the bottom of the mountain, the calves in the center of their protective circle. Continue reading “Lions and Coyotes and Calves, Oh My!”
By Rianna Isaak-krauss
we sit in darkness
longing for light
death all around us
yearning for life
remember the advent call to wait
to wait with pregnant hope
as we watch Mother God conceive
and give birth with Mary
give the gift of birth to Mary
Radical Discipleship 