Mary, Our Theologian of Hospitality

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isaac-villegasBy Isaac Villegas, Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship

Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19).

Her heart. We glimpse Mary’s heart in our Bible passage today. A glimmer of her inner life, of what she thinks about, of what will flash through her thoughts over the years, the thirty-three years, as her child grows from infant in the manger to man on the cross.

It’s worth taking our time here, with this verse, with Mary and her heart, because this is a surprising moment in the ancient world—a world dominated by men, where men do all the writing and thinking. So it’s surprising for a piece of literature to tell us that women have thoughts. I know that sounds strange to say—so crazy to think back to a time when men didn’t think it worthwhile to consider the possibility that a woman could have thoughts, thoughts worth pondering, thoughts worth sharing. The ancient world, the Western tradition, is notorious for considering women as more bodily than brainy, more suited for earthly concerns than to have time for thinking, for knowledge, for contemplation and speculation—for theoria, as the ancient philosophers would call it. Continue reading “Mary, Our Theologian of Hospitality” →

Sermon: Thirst

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waterA Sermon by Joyce Hollyday. Given at Circle of Mercy: February 28, 2016

My friend Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann died on New Year’s Eve of 2005 of brain cancer. In the aftermath, her daughter Lydia claimed me as one of her two honorary mothers. One of the ways I’ve taken that beautiful tribute seriously was to be present to help catch her son Isaac when he was born three years ago.

Last month Isaac’s brother, Cedar, came into the world. I wasn’t present for his birth, but I had the delight of meeting him when he was ten days old and staying with him, Isaac, and their mothers for a few days. My main task was entertaining Isaac. I read a lot of books, put together countless puzzles, and played endless rounds of the game “Goodnight Moon.” Continue reading “Sermon: Thirst” →

Wild Lectionary

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized4 Comments

IMG_9021.JPGcurated by Laurel Dykstra

Martin Luther wrote, “God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.” Watershed discipleship communities, forest churches, and farm-to-table faith projects attend in different ways to this Word in creation. But many of us falsely imagine that scripture is focused on divine-human relations and unconcerned with “trees and flowers and clouds and stars.”

The Psalm assigned for January 1 both assumes and demands that all creatures—celestial bodies, spiritual beings, plants, animals, and forces of weather—praise their creator. And the diversity of humankind is just one small part of this glorious chorus of praise. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary” →

Meditating into the New Year

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mainFrom the late Fr. John Main in The Present Christ: Further Steps in Meditation (1987):

Meditation is pure action that purifies all our other activities.  It is pure because it is selfless, wholly other-centered.  Most of our activities, our hopes and plans are carried out with a predominant concern for results, for their material worthwhileness.  At its worst this concern is mere self-interest, egoism at its most intense.  But any concern for results, for the fruit of action, betrays a possessiveness or attachment which disturbs the harmony of the energies deployed in the activity.  In meditating day by day, however, humbly and ordinarily, beginning our pilgrimage at the point we have received the gift of faith to begin, wherever that may be, we set out into the mystery of selfless, other-centered activity. We may indeed begin meditating with a superficial concern for results, trying to estimate if our investment of time and energy is justified by returns in knowledge or ‘extraordinary’ experience.  Perhaps anyone formed by our society is conditioned to begin in this way.  But the ordinary practice of meditation purifies us of this spiritual materialism, as we enter into the direct experience of Being, of pure action, we find all our other activities progressively, radically, purified of egoism.  To put this more simply–because meditation leads us into the experience ofl love at the center of our being, it makes us in our ordinary lives and relationships more loving persons.  Meditation teaches us what theology alone found not convince us of, that Being is Love.

Homeless Memorial Day

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homeless-memorial-dayBy Mary Scullion, a Sister of Mercy, is cofounder and executive director of Project HOME in Philadelphia

Elaine, a 37-year-old veteran and talented artist, was homeless in a wheelchair, having lost her legs to frostbite. She suffered from severe PTSD and addiction. Veterans’ organizations and other community groups were working with her to help her to break out of homelessness, but early one August morning she was struck by a drunken driver and killed.

Jim was an accomplished lawyer before mental illness precipitated a fall into homelessness. But even during years when he lived in a shelter, he was a tireless advocate, offering his political analysis and mobilizing energies in the fight for affordable housing, health care, and other critical services. He was working on voter mobilization among the homeless community last summer when he died suddenly. Continue reading “Homeless Memorial Day” →

Christmas: O Holy Nightmare: Incarnation and Apocalypse

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seasonsExcerpt and reflection from Bill Wylie-Kellermann’s Seasons of Faith and Conscience: Explorations in Liturgical Direct Action

A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. Because she was with child, she wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the heaven: it was a huge dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns; on his heads were seven diadems. His tail swept a third of the stars from heaven and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, ready to devour her child when it should be born.She gave birth to a son–a boy destined to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and to his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert, where a special place had been prepared for her by God; there she was taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days.Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. Although the dragon and his angels fought back, they were overpowered and lost their place in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent known as the devil or Satan, the seducer of the whole world, was driven out; he was hurled down to earth and his minions with him….When the dragon saw that he had been cast down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the boy. But the woman was given wings of a gigantic eagle so that she could fly off to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she could be taken care of for a time, and times, and half a time.The serpent, however, spewed a torrent of water out of his mouth to search out the woman and sweep her away. The earth then came to the woman’s rescue by opening its mouth and swallowing the flood which the dragon spewed out of his mouth.Enraged at her escape, the dragon went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep God’s commandments and give witness to Jesus. He took up his position by the shore of the sea. (Revelation 12:1_9, 13_17) Continue reading “Christmas: O Holy Nightmare: Incarnation and Apocalypse” →