Tag: Advent

9 Advent Practices For Radical Disciples

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire2 Comments

Rise-770x1011by tommy airey

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.
Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

Radical discipleship in North America entails much. A life devoted to spirituality, social analysis, simple living & suffering service can overwhelm us, leaving us with the same symptoms of the systems we are struggling against: addiction, alienation and anxiety. This final week of Advent season creates intentional space & time for us to reconsider and repent, alerting us to times we find ourselves sleepwalking an imperial trance. Here are 9 commitments that we can hold up to the light through Epiphany.
——————- Continue reading “9 Advent Practices For Radical Disciples” →

When Advent Meets the Academy

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology3 Comments

kimBy Kim Redigan

One of the principal truths of Christianity,
a truth that goes almost unrecognized today, is that looking is what saves us.
– Simone Weil, Waiting for God

“Be watchful! Be alert!” The words smack like a Zen stick as the stern command is issued to shake off the bittersweet beauty of autumn and awaken to the sober season of Advent.

Advent. The place on the liturgical calendar where I could most easily park my bones, the time of the church year when I feel most at home. Continue reading “When Advent Meets the Academy” →

Mary, did you worry?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

maryBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

I wrote this poem two years ago when I was pregnant with Isaac. These days in the wake of events in Ferguson, I still hold onto these worries and hopes of what it means to raise a white man today.

Mary, did you worry your son would grow up
to idealize the military and violence around him?
What did you sing in his ear?
What toys did you give him?
That taught him to put away the sword
and to give his life before shedding the blood of another. Continue reading “Mary, did you worry?” →

As We Light the Candles

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses2 Comments

Written by Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann. Published in The Witness in 1998.mom 94

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

James 5:7-11

Two weeks before my body succumbed to seizures in early September, an episode that resulted in the diagnosis of a brain tumor, I lay on my living room floor crying as I listened to “God Help Us” by the Miserable Offenders. Continue reading “As We Light the Candles” →

St. Nicolas Day

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

 

st nicholas

“At our house, we remember Saint Nicholas of Lycia on December 6, before Christmas. We think of the good bishop listening in the night to the cries of those who are afraid or lonely or tired. We remember him searching his heart for what he might do to help them.

We leave our shoes outside the door. And when we find a gift the next morning, we smile to think of the saints of God in all times who have listened in the night and done whatever they could to show us the love of God.

We delight in the saints even now who are listening outside our homes or in our hearts. We give thanks for the communion of saints who have died, but continue to care for us. They are listening and reaching to us with all their love, because God intends for all of us and for all things to be cared for and to be alive with the joy of creation.”

Excerpt from St. Nicolas: The Good Bishop of Myra by Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann

Advent Longing

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

light-in-the-darknessFrom author and activist Ken Sehested, a resident of the French Broad watershed of the Southern Appalachian Mountains in Asheville, NC. Ken just launched a subversively informative site called Prayer & Politiks:

Oh Wondrous One, Who rides the skies and consorts with the earth— haunting the heavens, hounding mere mortals with the expectation of ecstasy—come and rouse hungry hearts with the aroma of your Presence.

Let the song of angels sound again, announcing glory to God and peace for the earth.

Give your people wombs of welcome to the news of reversal: the annulment of enmity and the Advent of promise.

Let every lip echo the jubilant manifesto of creation’s destiny with justice and with joy.

Set our hearts on the edge of our seats, shivering in hope, longing, longing for the age when bitter memory dissolves into Magnificat.

Holy One of heaven, mark these dark nights with the brilliance of your star to guide emissaries of exclaiming grace.

The grace of contradiction and scandal to the insolent innkeepers of this age.

The grace of blessing and bounty to the indigent, and to all who find no lasting home save in the age to come.

An Invitation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

Picture3From Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

It’s been two months since this blog went live and it has been a joy to read the stories and gather a circle of writers and activists to participate. Yet, there is so much still dreamt for what this could be. We invite you to join us in collaborating and giving life to this space. The words, questions, invitations, struggles, pondering, poetry, rememberings are uttered by a community crying out for justice from a biblical vision living within the empire of the day. This space is offered as gift with the hope of collective ownership. Continue reading “An Invitation” →