Tag: Advent

Rebels and Saints

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Uncategorized1 Comment

indexBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

For the last two weeks, Isaac has asked me to read the same story every night- The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq by Jeanette Winter. It is the story of Alia Muhammad Baker who saved all the books from her library just before the library was burned to the ground during the US bombing of the Iraq War. It ends with her dreaming of peace from her home filled with books from floor to ceiling. Each night, Isaac asks what happened to Alia? What happened to the books? We finally looked it up and they re-built the library and she is the librarian again with all the books and stories she held safe from our mass destruction. Continue reading “Rebels and Saints” →

Advent Song

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

imagesBy Kim Redigan

this advent i need a woman’s space.
a dark space.
a silent space.
somehow i’ve got to find my way
back to the womb of my own life.

this advent i need shawls and songs.
the sacramentals of ceramic mugs
and solitary candles
standing like sentries
throwing shadows on the darkened walls
of my winter heart. Continue reading “Advent Song” →

Wild Lectionary: Mary, Hildegard and the anawim

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

IMG_2855Advent 4B

Luke 1:26-38, 46b-55

You have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. Luke 1:52

By The Reverend Marilyn Zehr

I met her this afternoon when I went for a walk. She was throwing the ash from her woodstove onto the snowy road just outside her front door.

“Helps the cars get traction,” she said. “You’re the new minister aren’t you? Want to come in and see my Christmas decorations?” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Mary, Hildegard and the anawim” →

Learning from Laughter and the Trees: The Gift in Their Voices

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Uncategorized1 Comment

IMG_2589.JPGBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

My mom died New Year’s Eve when I was 19. We knew it was coming so that Advent as we sang “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” each night before dinner, I paid attention to the voices. I knew them so intimately- the tones and harmonies that our four voices made together. It was the sound of home and I ached to imagine how our singing would change with just three voices. So each night I zeroed in on the sound of my mom’s voice- desperate to not let it be forgotten. Memorizing deep within, in hopes that whenever I sang “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” that I would always hear her voice within it.

Continue reading “Learning from Laughter and the Trees: The Gift in Their Voices” →

Prayer: There is a moment between sleep and awakening

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

index.jpgBy Michael Boucher

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” →

¡Presente!

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation1 Comment

Willow (1)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!” →