Tag: Advent

Learning from Laughter: Sitting in Court- An Advent Story

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment
isaac homrich cait
Photo credit: Cait De Mott Grady

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

“It’s not Christmas! It’s Advent!” declares my two-year old son loudly when strangers wish him a Merry Christmas. This kid carries his Grandma Jeanie’s spirit in his bold truth-telling with clear liturgical boundaries.

Advent is one of the things I have most looked forward to as a parent. It is a season of darkness, candles, slowing down, making Christmas gifts, wonder and joy, and learning the stories. Scriptures these days are filled with stories of our faith where the power dynamics are flipped on their head. Moments when after a long list of all those in power, God’s voice comes to John in the wilderness (Luke 3:1-6). Then of course, there is the story where amidst deportation and government counting, Jesus is born in a barn. The voice of God is not ringing from Kings or military warriors or presidents or bankers, it is in the poor, ordinary folk. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Sitting in Court- An Advent Story” →

Making The House Ready for the Lord

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation2 Comments

squirrelBy Mary Oliver

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you.  Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice—it is the season of their
many children.  What shall I do?  And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances- but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do?  And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do?  Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door.  And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea goose, I know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon:  Come in, Come in.

The Time is the Time of No Room Raids on the Unspeakable

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, UncategorizedLeave a comment

merton-pbsBy Thomas Merton (+December 10+)

We live in the time of no room, which is the time of the end. The time when everyone is obsessed with lack of time, lack of space, with saving time, conquering space, projecting into time and space the anguish produced within them by the technological furies of size, volume, quantity, speed, number, price, power and acceleration. Continue reading “The Time is the Time of No Room Raids on the Unspeakable” →

This Advent

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This Advent, as we light the candles in the dark and sing for Emmanuel, let’s be even more intentional than usual in clearing the commercial Christmas assault advent wreathfrom our minds and hearts. Whatever God is calling us to has little to do with shopping and driving ourselves into a frenzy creating the “perfect” holiday. We need to honor the silence and the dark, to remember our stories, to teach the youth in our lives what we believe matters. We need to recall, to intuit, to dream the life we’re called to and then make a plan that allows us to strip down enough to have it. In the course of that, of course, we need to give thanks for all that we are and for those traveling in our circles and beyond.    -Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann, THe Witness 1998

Questions From The Womb

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by tom airey
——————
And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
Luke 1:31-34

…the world hears the birth stories only to discount them as myth, or legend, or sheer fabrication, or alternatively it convulsively embraces them for what they are not–clubs with which to cow unbelief or bludgeon half-belief into full submission. One can only deplore this misuse, and hope for a rising generation better suited to receive the true value of the story Christians recall at Christmas.
James McClendon, Doctrine (1994)
Continue reading “Questions From The Womb” →

O Holy Nightmare: Incarnation and Apocalypse

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nativityBy Bill Wylie-Kellermann

Fritz Eichenberg, the artist so long associated with the Catholic Worker, published a wonderful and disturbing depiction of the Nativity. In the center foreground lies the babe on hay and in swaddling clothes. Nestled round are an adoring donkey and a cow. Through the crossbeams above, a star points down from the heavens. Hallmark, you would think, would snatch up the print for a comforting and conventional Christmas card. Continue reading “O Holy Nightmare: Incarnation and Apocalypse” →

Witnessing to the Darkness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking1 Comment

drones vigilReflection given by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann at the Air National Guard Base in Battle Creek, MI where they have begun operating drones.

Luke 1:41-47

I am really grateful to be here today. I grew up spending Mondays in Advent at Williams International. So, this feels like just the right place to be.

These days, I find myself turning to Mary as a mother. She raised an incredible son. Continue reading “Witnessing to the Darkness” →