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If the sacred-secular distinction fades and we grant
that all truth is God’s truth, then intellectual work
can be God’s work as much as preaching the gospel,
feeding the hungry or healing the sick. It too is a
sacred task.”
– Arthur Holmes
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www.theologicalhorizons.org
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Love, Sex, Relationships, God....
Well, sorry, we don't really have great advice for you, but we have been asking friends for titles of books they recommend on these subjects. We hope that this will be a good resource for you--and that you'll click on the comments button and add your own favorites! Online resources, audio, other resources are welcome here, too. Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality by Rob Bell read a review*will get you thinking about sexuality in some new ways Rob Bell is also featured on the short nooma.com DVD, "Flame"
Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both by Washington Post reporter Laura Sessions Stepp Read a review*a journalist's look at sexual relationships in contemporary university culture Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America's College Campuses by Donna Frietas, with a foreword by Lauren Winner Read a review*lots of statistics in this book--the reviews may be all the info you need Love Letters from Cell 92: The Correspondence Between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maria von Wedemeyer 1943-45, Ruth-Alice von Bismarck, editor read a review*"Wait with me, I beg you! Let me embrace you long and tenderly, let me kiss you and love you and stroke the sorrow from your brow. " No, this is not an excerpt from a Harlequin romance. These are the impassioned longings of the champion of radical discipleship himself, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as he wrote from a Nazi prison camp to his young fiancee, Maria von Wedemeyer. Our favorite collection of love letters! The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
*written for married couples but a great way to understand all caring relationships
Bold Love by Dan B. Allender and Trempter Longman *Don't just forgive and forget...instead, learn what genuine love is Inside Out by Lawrence Crabb *God can mold you into a person who is honest, courageous and loving A Heart to Heart About Men: Words of Encouragement for Women of Integrity by Nancy Groom As For Me And My House: Crafting Your Marriage to Last by Walter Wangerin *for engaged and married couples, the early chapters may be helpful for dating, too Friendship: a Study in Theological Ethics by Gilbert Meilander *love considered in more scholarly terms Thanks to Ida Bell, Shawn Slate, Amy Zell and Wes Zell for their book recommendations!
words of comfort from Julian of Norwich
 All things shall be well You shall see for yourself that All manner of things shall be well.... For as the body is clad in the cloth, And the flesh in the the skin, And the bones in the flesh And the heart in the trunk So are soul and body clad and enclosed in the goodness of God.... You will not be overcome. God did not say you will not be troubled, You will not be belaboured, You will not be disquieted; But God said, You will not be overcome.... What, do you wish to know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What does he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For Love. Remain in this. And you will know more of the same. exerpts from Showings by Julian of Norwich (1342-11412)
Give thanks with us!
At Thanksgiving we pause to reflect on God's many good gifts, and to give thanks in the company of those we love.
Though we may be far apart, you are invited to join us here on this blog. Please add your favorite table blessings, prayers, readings...or simply reflect on what fills you with gratitude. Here are some of our favorites...
"Live wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise, then you will discover the fullness of your life." --Brother David Steindle-Rast
Brigid's Grace God bless our food; God bless our drink. And keep our homes and ourselves in your embrace, O God. Amen.
from the Isle of Lewis Our God, we are Your guests, and 'tis You who keeps the generous table. We thank You. Amen.
from the Norhumberland Community O Lord, everybody's home, eating, drinking, breathing in the Lord. Now rejoice: the family's all together.
The Stranger's Blessing The Sacred Three be blessing thee, thy table and its store. The Sacred Three be blessing all thy loved ones evermore. Amen.
A Hebridean Grace Lord God, giver of all good things, may we who share at this table, like pilgrims here on earth, be welcomed with your saints to the heavenly feast. Amen.
From the Book of Common Prayer Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
Now click on "comment" and share your own thanksgivings!
Ancient Christian Blessings For Your Table
Brigid's Grace
God bless our food; God bless our drink.
And keep our homes and ourselves in your embrace, O God. Amen.
from the Isle of Lewis
Our God, we are Your guests, and 'tis You who keeps the generous table.
We thank You. Amen.
from the Norhumberland Community
O Lord, everybody's home,
eating, drinking, breathing in the Lord.
Now rejoice: the family's all together.
The Stranger's Blessing
The Sacred Three be blessing thee, thy table and its store.
The Sacred Three be blessing all thy loved ones evermore. Amen.
A Hebridean Grace
Lord God, giver of all good things,
may we who share at this table, like pilgrims here on earth,
be welcomed with your saints to the heavenly feast. Amen.
From the Book of Common Prayer
Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. What is your favorite table grace? Please share it by commenting to this post. Thanksgiving Blessings!
Easter: Resurrection Morning!
Christ is risen: alleluia! alleluia!
Christos aneste: alleluia! alleluia!You have risen, O Christ!Let the gospel trumpets speak,and the news, as of holy fire,burning and flaming and inextinguishable,run to the ends of the earth!You have risen, O Christ!Let all creation greet the good news with jubilant shout,for its redemption has come, the long night is past,the Saviour lives, and rides and reigns in triumph, now and to the ages of ages.Blessed are you, God of love and glory,you gave us your very self in Jesus.By your great mercy we have been born anew to a living hopeby the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
--Jim Cotter in Prayer at Day's Dawning
on Palm Sunday, the sixth Sunday in Lent
“The crowds who went in front of him and those who followed behind were all shouting: Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heavens!” Matthew 21:9 Christ on a Donkey, in the Augustiner Museum in Freiburg, is one of the most moving Christ figures I know… As he rides into Jerusalem surrounded by people shouting “hosanna,” “cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in his path,” (Matt. 21:8) Jesus appears completely concentrated on something else. He does not look at the excited crowd. He does not wave. He sees beyond all the noise and movement to what is ahead of him: an agonizing journey of betrayal, torture, crucifixion, and death….There is a deep awareness of the unspeakable pain to be suffered, but also a strong determination to do God’s will. Above all, there is love, an endless, deep and far-reaching love born from an unbreakable intimacy with God and reaching out to all people, wherever they are, were, or will be. There is nothing that he does not fully know. There is nobody whom he does not fully love. Every time I look at this Christ on the donkey, I am reminded again that I am seen by him with all my sins, guilt, and shame and loved with all his forgiveness, mercy and compassion. Just being with him in the Augustiner Museum is a prayer. I look and look and look, and I know that he sees the depths of my heart; I do not have to be afraid. --Henri Nouwen, from the Road to Daybreak
in the Wilderness: the fifth Sunday of Lent
 We know by a kind of instinct that peace lies in the heart of darkness --in the wilderness of soul. Something prompts us to keep still, to trust in God, to be quiet and to listen for God’s voice. Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation. Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
With friends: the fourth Sunday in Lent
Over the past weeks, we've explored silence, fasting and fixed hour prayer as ways to bring our attention to God, to become more available to God's transformative action in our lives. Encounters with God in solitude bring with them precious gifts. Still, spiritual transformation is not a solo event. We all need friends to encourage, support and speak the truth to us. Without their authentic voices, we may never see who we are. The discipline of walking the spiritual journey in the company of others is at the heart of Jesus' model for discipleship. What role have others played in your own life? Tell us your story. Comment below!
Christ in Community: insight from Dietrich Bonhoeffer "God has put this Word into the mouth of others in order that it may be communicated to us. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find his living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him. He needs again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs a brother as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain; his brother's is sure." Life Together
Pray the day: the third Sunday in Lent
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour or that one is what we are doing. A schedule defends us from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time." --Annie Dillard
"It is a paradox of human life that in worship, as in human love, it is in the routine and the everyday that we find the possibilities for the greatest transformation."
--Kathleen Norris
- What roles do routine and schedule play in your spiritual life?
- Have you had any experience with Praying the Divine Hours or with a consistent practice of morning and evening prayer? What was that like?
Your comments on these questions--or anything related to your Lenten days--are most welcome! To receive the Theological Horizons email, "Pray the Day: the Third Sunday in Lent" make your request by email: info@theologicalhorizons.org
Hungry for God: the second Sunday in Lent
"In a more tangible, visceral way than any other spiritual discipline, fasting reveals our excessive attachments and the assumptions that lie behind them. Food is necessary to life, but we have made it more necessary than God. How often have we neglected to remember God's presence when we would never consider neglecting to eat! Fasting brings us face to face with how we put the material world ahead of its spiritual source."Perhaps we can see, then, that the discipline of fasting has to do with the critical dynamic of accepting those limits which are life-restoring. Our culture would seduce us into believing that we can have it all, do it all, and (even more preposterous!) that we deserve it all. Yet in refusing to accept limits on our consumption or activity, we perpetuate a death-dealing dynamic in the world. That is why the discipline of fasting is so profoundly important today." ---Marjorie Thompson in Soul Feast
What is your own understanding of fasting? What has been your experience? Your comments are most welcome!
Be Still: on the first Sunday of Lent
WordI, who live by words, am wordless when I try my words in prayer. All language turns To silence. Prayer will take my words and then Reveal their emptiness. The stilled voice learns To hold its peace, to listen with the heart To silence that is joy, is adoration. The self is shattered, all words torn apart In this strange patterned time of contemplation That, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me, And then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended. I leave, returned to language, for I see Through words, even when all words are ended. I, who live by words, am wordless when I turn me to the Word to pray. Amen. --Madeleine L'Engle from The Weathered Heart
Your response is most welcome! Click on "comments" below...
Here's more for your reflections:
Silence in the Christian Tradition
Nothing is so like God as silence.
— Meister Eckhart
Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.
— Thomas Keating
Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen. — Thomas Merton Silence will illuminate you in God...
and deliver you from phantoms of ignorance.
Silence will unite you to God. . . .
In the beginning we have to force ourselves
to be silent. But then from our very silence
is born something that draws us into deeper silence.
— Isaac of Nineveh, 7th century Syrian monk It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.
— Thomas Merton The silence is there within us. What we have to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become the silence. The purpose of meditation and the challenge of meditation is to allow ourselves to become silent enough to allow this interior silence to emerge. Silence is the language of the spirit.
— John Mains
Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere — in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.
— Mother Teresa
The friend of silence comes close to God. In secret he converses with him and receives his light.
— John Climacus
Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.
— Thomas Keating Are they moved by a sense of human need for silence, for reflection, for inner seeking? So they want to get away from the noise and tension of modern life, at least for a little while, in order to relax their minds and wills and seek a blessed healing sense of inner unity, reconciliation, integration?
— Thomas Merton
The Invitation of Lent: Ash Wednesday
"Show me your way, O Lord!" The Psalmist's longing for God still echoes in us today. For those of us on the road of pilgrim faith, Lent is a season of the Christian year which invites us to listen to our own longing, to simplify our lives, and to focus on our relationship with God in Christ.
The Soul's Springtime
Lent comes from the Anglo Saxon word lencten, the lengthening of days from winter towards summer: spring. The term lento directs a musician to play slowly and thoughtfully. The Christian season of Lent is the 40 days (excluding Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. Traditionally it has commemorated Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the wilderness following his baptism. Lent also reminds us of the 40 days that Elijah and Moses both spent with God, and the 40 years Israel wandered in the desert. Lent prepares the way for the greatest observance of the year, the death and resurrection of Jesus on Easter morning.
Lent can be our own springtime path from darkness into light. As we spiritually journey into the wilderness, through solitude and self-reflection, Lent can flower in us with its fruits of right relationship with God and joy in Christ's resurrection. On Ash Wednesday "May God grant us the wisdom to know ourselves; the courage to admit our sins; and the grace to receive God's never failing mercy and forgiveness." "Go in peace, remembering that you are but dust and ashes and unworthy of being called the people of God. But also remember that you who were no people, God by his love and grace has made a people, children of his own household. Let us go forth in humility to be Christ to the world."
The Fourth Week of Advent
 If Mary had appeared in Bethlehem clothed, as St. John says, with the sun, a crown of twelve stars on her head, and the moon under her feet, then people would have fought to make room for her. But that was not God's way for her, nor is it Christ's way for himself, now when he is disguised under every type of humanity that treads the earth...It is no use saying that we are born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ. Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts. --Dorothy Day
The Third Week of Advent
When God
chooses Mary as the instrument,
when God wants to enter this world
in the manger of Bethlehem,
this is not an idyllic family occasion,
but rather the beginning
of a complete reversal,
a new ordering of all things on this earth.
---Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christ of the cosmos,
Living Word,
come to heal and save...
Incognito, in our streets,
beneath the concrete,
between the cracks,
behind the curtains,
within the dreams,
in ageing memories,
in childhood wonder,
in secret ponds,
in broken hearts,
in Bethlehem stable,
still small voice,
Word of God, amongst us.
-- Iona Community
Simplicity: a Christmas Pledge
Believing in the beauty and simplicity of Christmas,
I commit myself :
To remember those people who truly need my gifts;
To express my love for family and friends
in more direct ways than presents;
To rededicate myself to my own spiritual growth
and to the growth of my family;
To examine my holiday activities
in the light of the true spirit of Christmas;
To initiate one act of peacemaking within my circle of family & friends.
I myself am very glad that the divine child was born in a stable, because my soul is very much like a stable, filled with strange unsatisfied longings, with guilt and animal-like impulses, tormented by anxiety, inadequacy and pain. If the Holy One could be born in such a place, that One can be born in me also. I am not excluded. --Morton Kelsey
The Second Week of Advent
Annunciation
Mary's 'How can this be?' was a simple response...and profound. She does not lose her voice but finds it. Like many of the prophets, she asserts herself before God saying, 'Here am I.' There is no arrogance, however, but only holy fear and wonder. Mary proceeds--as we must do in life--making her commitments without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead. I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God's love breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it?...Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a 'yes' that will change me forever?" --Kathleen Norris from Amazing Grace
The Habit of Advent
In Mary "the Word of God chose to be silent for the season measured by God. She, too, was silent: in her the light of God shone in darkness." (Caryll Houselander)
We, too, may practice this habit of Advent patience. Though the frozen winter earth of our hearts lies fallow, God is pleased to warm us with Christ's presence.
Lo, in the silent night a child to God is bornAnd all is brought againThat ere was lost or lornCould but thy soul, o manBecome a silent night!God would be born in theeAnd set all things aright.--15th century, author unknown
The First Week of Advent
"By far the most important and significant event in the whole course of human history will be celebrated, with or without understanding, at the end of this season, Advent. The towering miracle of God's visit to this planet on which we live will be glossed over, brushed aside or rendered by over-familiarity.
What we are in fact celebrating is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to its quiet but explosive significance. For Christians believe that so great is God's love and concern for humanity that he himself became a man.
God's insertion of himself into human history was achieved with an almost frightening quietness and humility. There was no advertisement, no publicity, no special privilege; in fact the entry of God into his own world was almost heartbreakingly humble. In sober fact there is little romance or beauty in the thought of a young woman looking desperately for a place where she could give birth to her first baby. I do not think for a moment Mary complained, but it is a bitter commentary upon the world that no one would give up a bed for the pregnant woman--and that the Son of God must be born in a stable.
Behind all our fun and games at Christmastime, we should not try to escape a sense of awe, almost a sense of fright, at what God has done. We must never allow anything to blind us to the true significance of what happened at Bethlehem so long ago. Nothing can alter the fact that we live on a visited planet.
We shall be celebrating no beautiful myth, no lovely piece of traditional folklore, but a solemn fact. God has been here once historically, but...he will come again with the same silence and the same devastating humility into any human heart ready to receive him."
---J.B. Phillips (1906-1982) from Good News: Thoughts on God and Man
We invite your response! Click on "comments" and join the conversation.
Religion: Discovery or Invention?
"I grew up believing what my parents and what the church taught me, and that is that God created human beings. But now that I've been exposed to lots of other data, I've concluded that it's the other way around. It's human beings who have created God....I think people dig down into their own needs and into their desires, and they make up their wishes, and they project that onto the screen of religious belief. I don't think there's anything objectively real when a person says, 'I believe'."
With this, the young college student requests that her name be removed from membership in the church, saying that she can no longer consider herself a Christian. The minister, John Claypool, asks, "Where did you encounter this charge against the validity of religious experience?"
Her answer? "It's everywhere in the academic community where I'm living." Among several examples, she quotes the playwright Eugene O'Neill she's studied in a drama course: "Religion is the chloroform mask into which the weak and the fearful stick their faces."
Reverend Claypool responds: "Because I believe you're honest and you're seeking, I invite you to do three things before coming to a final judgement about this very, very momentous question."
He offers three tasks to the young thinker. He asks her to
- Read the Gospel of Mark at one sitting. "I want you to ask one question as you read the Book of Mark: Is this Jesus a weak coward making up something, or is He in touch with something that made extraordinary demands of Him?"
- Look at the story of Saul of Tarsus on the way to Damascus in the Book of Acts. Does Saul's discovery on that road represent wishful thinking? "Was it what he most wanted to be true...was he making it up out of his needfulness?...The truth revealed to him that day was the very opposite of what he had built toward his whole life."
- Write out in your own words the the kind of religious vision that you would most like to be true. "Make up a religion that suits you exactly and precisely." Isn't it true that there is much in Christianity that is not what is easiest for selfish people to embrace: loving your enemies, taking up a cross and denying myself, judgement, forgiving 70 times seven?
John Claypool says, "Before you come to a final conclusion that there is nothing to the religious enterprise except selfishness and needfulness projected on a screen outside ourselves, I'd like you to look at the life of Jesus, the experience of Saul of Tarsus and then examine your own needs, your own wants, and compare this to the canon" of Christianity.
In his sermon, Claypool goes on to discuss faith as an avenue of knowing, an authentic way of discovering genuine truth. His insights are an encouragement to those of us who are open, who are seeking, and who are willing to say, "I want to know the truth and I want to know it whatever shape it takes."
Read on by clicking this link:
Word ClaypoolWord.doc or pdf Claypoolpdf.pdfor Listen to the audio Claypoolaudio.ramJoin the conversation by posting your comments below.
- What has been your own experience of religion in the intellectual world?
- Would Claypool's "three things" engage you-- or a skeptical friend?
- What do you think of the ideas in Claypool's sermon?
A PRAYER FOR SEEKERS
"Father in heaven! We know indeed that seeking is never without its promise, how then could we fail to seek You, the author of all promises and the giver of all good gifts! We know well that the seeker does not always have to wander far afield since the more sacred the object of his search, the nearer it is to him; and if he seeks You, O God, You are all of things most near!"
--Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (1813-1855)
Alleluia! Easter Sunday
 Are there any who are devout lovers of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Are there any who are grateful servants? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord! Are there any weary with fasting? Let them now receive their wages!... Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord! First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day! You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on it, the calf is the fatted one. Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of His goodness! Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Saviour has set us free. He has destroyed death by enduring it. He destroyed Hell when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.... Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and it was overcome by what it did not see. O death, where it thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory? Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is Risen, and life is liberated! Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen! --from The Easter sermon of John Chrysostom (circa 400 AD)
The Love of God: Good Friday
To look at the Crucifix and then to look at our own hearts; to test by the cross the quality of our love--if we do that honestly and unflinchingly we don't need any other self-examination. The lash, the crown of thorns, the mockery, the stripping, the nails--life has equivalents of all of these for us and God asks for a love for himself and his children which can accept and survive all that in the particular way in which it is offered to us. It is no use to talk in a large vague way about the love of God; here is its point of insertion in the world.
--Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)
Maundy Thursday: The Last Supper
Recalling Christ's Passion
with Francis & Clare of Assisi
from The Word:
"During the meal, Jesus took and blessed the bread, broke it and gave it to his disciples: 'Take, eat. This is my body.' Taking the cup and thanking God he gave it to them: 'Drink this, all of you. This is my blood, God's new covenant poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sins. I'll not be drinking wine from this cup again until that new day when I'll drink with you in the kingdom of my Father."
--Matthew 26:29, The Message
Francis:
"Behold, each day he humbles himself as when he came from the royal throne into the into the Virgin's womb; each day he himself comes to us, appearing humbly...As he revealed himself to the holy apostles in true flesh, so he reveals himself to us now in the sacred bread...In this way the Lord is always with his faithful, as he himself says: Behold I am with you until the end of the age."
--Admonitions 1
Clare:
"Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!
...So that you too may feel what his friends feel as they taste the hidden sweetness that God himself has reserved from the beginning for those who love him."
--Letter III to St. Agnes of Prague
From an offering of Scripture accompanied by words from St. Francis (1182-1226) & St. Clare (1194-1253) of Assisi modelled on the traditional Stations of the Cross. To see the complete series, go to the website of the Poor Clare Colettine Community of Hawarden Wales, .
Open Your Eyes: Palm Sunday
 Last Sunday we worshipped at the Kirche zur Heimat in Berlin, Germany. The service was, naturally, in German, and while Charles and I knew enough to follow along, our children comprehended nothing. They sat quietly; their eyes wandered. The early spring sun streamed through the window and fell onto images in stone relief along the wall. There, in fifteen panels by Waldemar Otto, was the story of God's saving work through Israel. Can you identify the story told in this image? (Those are waves above the slaves' heads.) Will and Nan had an hour to ponder the beautiful pictures and let the German sermon go right over their heads. I thought of the many generations of churchgoers who for centuries--from early Christian times until 1962-- worshipped God through the Roman Catholic Latin mass. Many of these humble saints were illiterate, I'm sure, and may have known little Latin. But in their churches they were surrounded, as my children were, by images of the Biblical stories. We see much of this sacred art during our semester here in Europe, pictures created across ages to tell timeless truths to us all. With Palm Sunday we begin Holy Week and follow Christ's footsteps through his Passion, death and, at last, to his glorious Resurrection. Christians of many traditions enter their church sanctuaries to focus again on pictures along the wall, on the images that compose the Way of the Cross. The Way of the Cross dates back to medieval times, when Christians unable to make the physical journey to the Holy Land made an imaginary pilgrimage through art depicting Christ's Passion. The Stations of the Cross, traditionally fourteen sculptures or panels ranged along the church walls, invite pilgrims then and now to slow down, pray, reflect, and seek to walk along with Christ, remembering his sacrificial journey for us. If, in the coming days, you find yourself near the door of a church, particularly an Anglican, Episcopal or Roman Catholic church, step inside and open your eyes and your spirit to the Pascal mystery told through the Stations of the Cross. There are number of internet resources presenting the Way of the Cross in creative and fresh ways. I invite you to explore them, too: The College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, West Yorkshire, England, offers the Stations of the Cross with art, readings and prayers from the Iona Community in both text and audio. Collaborative Ministry of Creighton University presents the Stations of the Cross with a focus on this devotion as prayer that leads us to gratitude. Art, text and audio. Not a very fancy website, but the readings are imaginatively done. The BBC has posted the Stations of the Cross in beautifully simple art and some historical notes. Click on each small image to see it enlarged with accompanying text. The Poor Clares of the Ty Mam Duw community in Wales offer a unique take on the tradition with their Gospel Way of the Passion with Francis and Clare. They combine Gospel readings from The Message with words from Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi.
For Our Sakes: the Fifth Sunday in Lent
 The Maker of man was made man,that the Ruler of the stars might suck at the breast; that the Bread might be hungered, the Fountain, thirst, the Light, sleep, the Way, be wearied by the journey, the Truth be accused by false witnesses, the Judge of the living and the dead, be judged by a mortal judge, the Chastener, be chastised with whips, the Vine, be crowned with thorns, the Foundation, be hung upon a tree, Strength, be made weak, Health, be wounded, Life, die, to suffer these and such like things, undeserved things; that He might free the undeserving. For neither did He deserve any evil, Who for our sakes endured so many evils; nor were we deserving of anything good, we who through Him received such good. --St. Augustine (354-430)
image: The Cross of San Damiano (Umbria, 12th century) is especially treasured, as Francis of Assisi was praying before this cross when he received God's call to rebuild the church.
Winter Before Spring: the Fourth Sunday in Lent
"Before spring becomes beautiful it is ugly, nothing but mud and muck...The word humus, the decayed vegetable matter that feeds plants, comes from the same root that gives ride to the word humility. It helps me to understand that the humiliating events of my life...may create the fertile soil in which something new can grow."
--Parker Palmer, contemporary Quaker author
"Everything you need to know about life--about the mysteries of life, about the secret to life--can be learned in a garden, if you pay attention. For those of us hostage to the urban landscape, who pay little attention to the seasons...those of us who proceed from one appointment to the next oblivious to our environment, oblivious to the turning seasons, oblivious to the colors of plants--for us the church's recognition of the forty days of Lent becomes a reminder that we cannot experience the Easter tide of resurrection and renewal until we first go through a period of disequilibrium, of dying, of shedding, of letting go, of winter. You cannot experience spring until you have first experienced winter. You cannot experience Easter, Resurrection Sunday, until you first experience Lent."
--The Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems, contemporary teacher & minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church
"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." --John 12:24
"I have awaited a storm that should deliver me or pluck me away, and now it has come softly, even without my knowledge. But it is here. While I was despairing, thinking everything lost, it was already quietly growing...And now I know that all life is a process of getting ready, of ferment...If the cells and channels but take up and carry the onward surging sap, there will emerge at last rustling, leafy branches--a crown of sunlight and freedom."
--Erich Maria Remarque, German author of All Quiet on the Western Front (1898-1970)
"The goal of human life is not death, but resurrection."
--Karl Barth, Swiss Protestant theologian (1886-1968)
Singing Our Faith: the Third Sunday in Lent
 Christians in Germany are celebrating the 400th birthday of their greatest hymn writer, Paul Gerhardt, born March 12, 1607. This sunny Berlin morning, In the medieval Marienkirche, we were transported by Gerhardt's words and music. As Bishop Wolfgang Huber said in his sermon, we were experiencing the very singing of the angels together with us.
In his hymns, Paul Gerhardt combines a firm conviction of true Christian doctrine with deeply personal sentiment. His poetry is suffused with appreciation for human life and the natural world. Above all, Gerhardt expresses a belief in the Love of God as the greatest reality.
This "sweet singer of Lutheranism" wrote in the vernacular of 17th century German. Living through the difficult period of the Thirty Years War, Gerhardt suffered great personal losses and found himself at the center of theological conflicts. Despite Gerhardt's trials, what comes through in his poetry is the voice of one reliant on God, convinced of God's goodness and rejoicing in God's gifts.
On this Third Sunday in Lent, we offer a well known hymn by Paul Gerhardt based on Bernard of Clairvaux's 12th century text. In "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden", Gerhardt's fervent love for Christ speaks across 400 years to move us to faith, as well.
[ More of Gerhardt's poems]
O sacred Head now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown.
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss, till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.
Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee, thou noble countenance,
Though mighty worlds shall fear Thee and flee before thy glance.
How art thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How doth Thy visage languish that once was bright as morn!
Now from Thy cheeks has vanished their color, once so fair;
From Thy red lips is banished the splendor that was there.
Grim Death, with cruel rigor hath robbed Thee of Thy life;
Thus Thou hast lost Thy vigor, thy strength, in this sad strife.
My burden in Thy passion, Lord, thou hast borne for me,
For it was my transgression which brought this woe on thee.
I cast me down before Thee, wrath were my rightful lot;
Have mercy, I implore thee; Redeemer, spurn me not!
My Shepherd now receive me; my Guardian, own me Thine.
Great blessings Thou didst give me, O Source of gifts divine!
Thy lips have often fed me with words of truth and love,
Thy Spirit oft hath led me to heavenly joys above....
What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest Friend
For this, Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O, make me Thine forever! And should I fainting be,
Lord let me never, never outlive my love for thee....
next posting: Wednesday, 14. March
We welcome your response! Click on "comments" below
He Gave Us Himself
It is, of course, the most familiar, the most often-told story in the world. Yet it is also the strangest, and it has never lost its strangeness, its awe, and will not even in eternity, where angels tremble to gaze at things we yawn at.
And however strange, it is the only key that fits the lock of our tortured lives and needs. We needed a surgeon, he came and reached into our wounds with bloody hands. He didn't give us a placebo or a pill or good advice. He gave us himself.
He came. He entered space and time and suffering. He came, like a lover. He did the most important thing and he gave the most important gift: himself. It is a lover's gift. Out of our tears, our waiting, our darkness, our agonized aloneness, out of our weeping and wondering, out of our cry, 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' he came, all the way, right into that cry.
He sits beside us in the lowest places of our lives, like water. Are we broken? He is broken with us....Does it seem sometimes as if life has passed us by or cast us out, as if we are sinking into uselessness and oblivion? He sinks with us. He too is passed over by the world. His way of suffering love is rejected, his followers often the most guilty of all; they have made his name a scandal, especially among his own chosen people. What Jew finds the road to him free from the broken weapons of bloody prejudice? We have made it nearly impossible for his own people to love him, to see him as he is, free from the smoke of battle and holocaust.
How does he look upon us now? With continual sorrow, but never with scorn. We add to his wounds. There are two thousand nails in his cross. We, his beloved and longed for and passionately desired, are constantly cold and correct and distant to him. And still he keeps brooding over the world like a hen over an egg, like a mother who has had all of her beloved children turn against her. 'Could a mother desert her young? Even so I could not desert you.' He sits beside us not only in our sufferings but even in our sins. He does not turn his face from us, however much we turn our face from him.
--Peter Kreeft (1937- ), American Roman Catholic philosopher
Next posting: the Third Sunday in Lent, 12. March
That is the God for me! The Second Sunday in Lent
"No matter how deep our darkness,
he is deeper still." --Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983), from the depths of a Nazi death camp
I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the Cross.' In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?
I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away.
And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness.That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us.
--John Stott (1921- ), Anglican theologian
next posting: Wednesday, 8. March 2007
RESOURCES FOR LENT
You are invited to share books, thoughts, websites, articles, Bible verses that you find rich resources for Lent. Here are a few that we have found:
WEBSITES
Journey to the Center: A Lenten Passage by Father Thomas Keating daily Scripture, devotional & prayer.
ExploreFaith.org Accessible tools for lent from a broad Christian perspective
Bible Readings For Lent from the Book of Common Prayer Join believers throughout the world through shared Scripture readings throughout Lent
BOOKS
Show Me The Way: Readings For Each Day of Lent by Henri J.M. Nouwen
Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (a collection from various authors)
THOUGHTS IN LENT
"The old German word for springtime is 'Lenz' which is also connected with our word Lent. Here in Germany, however, it is generally said that 'Lent' (which they sometimes use here, although the German term is 'Fastenzeit') comes from the Latin word 'lentus' which means slow, calm, quiet, reposeful, deliberate--all words that refer to the attitude we are to have during the 40 days of fasting."
--Mary in Berlin, Germany
"Ash Wednesday. Lent's forty day beginning. Reflecting and repenting as we think of all that Christ came to break and came to offer...then, three days after the cross, we will be those for whom great remembering rejoicing will come. Reflecting. Repenting. Rejoicing. Fasting. Feasting. Easter's coming.
Like the ebb and flow of the tidal marsh creek nearby, the seasons of the church year add a rhythm to our worship. Beginnings. Endings. Changes. Constancy. Fasting. Feasting. Heart journeys for celebrating, confessing, over and over again. Easter's coming."
--Lane in St. Simons, Georgia, USA
"Our Lenten Roses are showing up through our snows, and the morning air sifting thru our open bedroom windows smell of new life."
--Dan in Denver, Colorado, USA
Please add your own reflections & resources! Click on "comments"
Look into this Mirror: the first Sunday in Lent
 "For he is the brightness of eternal glory,he is splendour of eternal light,the mirror without spot."--St. Clare of AssisiIn mirrors I see myself. But in mirrors made of glass and silver I never see the whole of myself. I see the me I want to see, and I ignore the rest. Mirrors that hide nothing hurt me. They reveal an ugliness I'd rather deny....But this is the hurt of purging and precious renewal--and these are the mirrors of dangerous grace. The passion of Christ, his suffering and his death, is such a mirror....The pain in the face of Jesus...is my self in my extremest truth. My sinful self. The death he died reflects a selfishness so extreme that by it I was divorced from God and life and light completely: I raised my self higher than God! But because the Lord God is the only true God, my pride did no more, in the end, than to condemn this false god of my self to death. For God will be God, and all the false gods will fall before him. So that's what I see reflected in the mirror of Christ's crucifixion: my death. My rightful punishment. My sin and its just consequence. Me. And precisely because it is so accurate, the sight is nearly intolerable. Nevertheless, I will not avoid this mirror! No, I will carefully rehearse, again this year, the passion of my Jesus--with courage, with clarity and faith; for this is the mirror of dangerous grace, purging more purely than any other. For this one is not made of glass and silver, nor of fallen flesh only. This mirror is made of righteous flesh and divinity, both--and this one loves me absolutely.... This mirror is not passive only, showing what is; it is active, creating new things to be. It shows me a new me behind the shadow of a sinner. For when I gaze at his crucifixion, I see my death indeed--but my death done! His death is the death of the selfish one, whom I called ugly and hated to look upon. And resurrection is another me. --Walter Wangerin (American Lutheran pastor, novelist, essayist, 1944--) from Reliving the Passion
Your response is welcome! Click on "comments"
the next posting: Sunday, March 4
Ash Wednesday: the invitation of Lent
"Holy God, our lives are laid open before you:
rescue us from the chaos of sin
and through the death of your Son
bring us healing and make us whole
in Jesus Christ our Lord."
---Common Worship, the Church of England
"Turn away from sin and believe the Gospel."
---from the contemporary Roman Catholic Ash Wednesday service
"Did you ever look inside yourself and see what you are not?"
---Flannery O'Connor
"No one wants to take the descending path to that naked, unvarnished truth, with all its unacceptable humiliations. It is much more comfortable to stay on the level of the plain and ordinary, to go on just being plain and ordinary. Yet it is to this path that Lent invites us.The reason Lent is so long is that this path to the truth of oneself is long and snagged with thorns, and at the very end one stands alone before the broken body crowned with thorns upon the cross. All alone--with not one illusion or self-delusion to prop one up. Yet not alone, for the Spirit of Holiness, who is also the Spirit of Helpfulness, is beside you and me. Indeed, this Spirit has helped to manuever you and me down that dark, steep path to this crucial spot....The spirit of truth does not seek comfort. The purpose of Lent is not to escape the conscience, but to create a healthy hatred for evil, a heartfelt contrition for sin, and a passionately felt need for grace. This continuous movement of faith from a sense of sin to grace and forgiveness ends only when the spirit is ultimately released....Forgiveness of sins is what the gospel is all about. Forgiveness of sins is what Christ's death on the cross is all about. The purpose of Lent is to arouse. To arouse the sense of sin. to arouse a sense of guilt for sin. To arouse the humble contrition for the guilt of sin that makes forgiveness possible. To arouse the sense of gratitude for the forgiveness of sins. To arouse or to motivate works of love and the work for justice that one does out of gratitude for the forgiveness of one's sins....Lent is not a tediously long brooding over sin. Lent is a journey that could be called an upward descent, but I prefer to call it a downward ascent. It ends before the cross, where we stand in the white light of a new beginning."---from Upward Ascent by Edna Hong (1913--, American Lutheran, poet, writer & translator)Your responses are most welcome! Click on "comments" below.
Our next reading will be posted on Sunday 25. February, the First Sunday in Lent
Christmas Day
As if to shame the mightiest human efforts and achievements, a child is placed at the center of history. A child, born of humans: a son, given by God. That is the mystery of the world's redemption. Everything past and everything future is encompassed here. The infinite mercy of almighty God comes to us, condescends to us in the form of a child, his son. That this child has been born for us, that this son has been given, that this human child, this son of God, belongs to me; that I know him, have him, love him, that I am his and he is mine-- my very life now depends entirely on all these things. A child has our life in his hands.
---Dietrich BonhoefferThe heralds of peace are on the mountains, bringing good news: God reigns! All the ends of the earth shall see God's glory. Let us lift up our voices and break into singing: "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!"
--Blair Gilmer Meeks
O Simplicitas
by Madeleine L'Engle
An angel came to me
And I was unprepared
To be what God was using.
Mother I was to be.
A moment I despaired,
Thought briefly of refusing.
The angel knew I heard.
According to God's Word
I bowed to this strange choosing.
A palace should have been
The birthplace of a king
(I had no way of knowing).
We went to Bethlehem;
It was so strange a thing.
The wind was cold, and blowing,
My coat was old, and thin.
They turned us from the inn;
The town was overflowing.
God's Word, a child so small,
Who still must learn to speak,
Lay in humiliation.
Joseph stood strong and tall.
The beasts were warm and meek
And moved with hesitation.
The Child born in a stall?
I understood it: all.
Kings came in adoration.
Perhaps it was absurd:
A stable set apart,
The sleepy cattle lowing;
And the incarnate Word
Resting against my heart.
My joy was overflowing.
The shepherds came, adored
The folly of the Lord,
Wiser than all men's knowing.
Carrying Christ: on the Third Sunday of Advent
"Advent is a time of waiting of expectation, of silence. Waiting for our Lord to be born. A pregnant woman...lives in such a garment of silence, and it is as though she were waiting to hear the stir of life within her. One always hears that stirring compared to the rustling of a bird in the hand. But the intentness with which one awaits such stirring is nothing so much as a blanket of silence."
--Dorothy Day
"When a woman is carrying a child she develops a certain instinct of self-defense. It is not selfishness; it is not egoism. It is an absorption into the life within, a folding of self like a little tent around the child's frailty, a God-like instinct to cherish, and some day bring forth the life...
This is precisely the attitude we must have to Christ, the Life within us, in the Advent of our contemplation.
We could scrub the floor for a tired friend, or dress a wound for a patient in a hospital, or lay the table and wash up for the family....We shall do it for just one thing, that our hands make s make Christ's hands in our life, that our service may let Christ serve through us, that our patience may bring Christ's patience back to the world.
By his own will Christ was dependent on Mary during Advent: he was absolutely helpless; he could go nowhere but where she chose to take him; he could not speak; her breathing was his breath; his heart beat in the beating of her heart.
Today Christ is dependent upon us. This dependence of Christ lays a great trust upon us. During this tender time of Advent we must carry him in our hearts to wherever he wants to go, and there are many places to which he may never go unless we take him."
Caryll Houselander from The Reed of God
On Longing: during the Second Week of Advent
"If you wait,
God will manifest himself."
--Thomas Keating, Cistercian priest
"Remember that while you are seeking you are also being sought...you will be found. You will be led. You will enter in. Look for that. Expect it. Expect to come to revelations of the Lord. Expect shells to break in their season. Expect boats to ride as the tide comes in. This is hope, to desire and to expect."
--Oswald W.S. McCall
"I believe that humanity's yearning--all of it, the wailing and the wishing, the eagerness and the edginess--is somehow, in the mind of a loving God, bound together into a single reaching for the light." --Tom Ehrich
"God, of your goodness give me yourself, for you are sufficient for me...In you alone do I have all." --St. Julian of Norwich
"Lord, give us grace to awake us,
to see the branch that begins to bloom;
in great humility is hid
all heaven in a little room."
--Carol Christopher Drake
for more Advent quotes and resources, take a look at www.explorefaith.org
the word of God in the desert
"...the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism for the forgivenss of sins."
Luke 3:2-3
Lectionary reading, second Sunday of Advent
"John the Baptist never shows up in any of the traditional Christmas pageants and plays presented during Advent by churches and schools around the world...Why? Is it because Advent is a peaceful, contemplative time of year and John the Baptist has a way of causing trouble--a way of disturbing the peace? John comes on the scene demanding repentance, warning us to turn our lives around, to turn our lives upside down!
I think one reason we like Advent is because, along with a sanitized view of the coming of the Christ child, it makes us quick to believe the lyrics of the beloved Christmas carol, 'All is calm, all is bright.' But we must be challenged to see that John the Baptist also plays a role in the Messiah story.
We say that we love peace. We especially like peace and quiet, it makes us comfortable. but a prophetic view of the Messiah's work requires us to ask difficult questions, such as: Is our comfort really just complacency?"--Jim Melchiorre from Reflections of Messiah (adapted)
"The times and places that open us to hearing the word of God are not always comfortable or comforting. 'The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert'....That desert was a hot, dry, harsh place which tested body and spirit. Our own deserts hold new possibilities for hearing the word of God at ever deepening levels. When the environment around us shifts and becomes unfamiliar, even harsh, we have the opportunity to let our spiritual ears perk up in order to tune into God's voice on wavelengths that previously escaped our awareness."
--Katherine L. Howard, O.S.B. from Waiting in Joyful Hope
Prayer of Confession
"God, our judge and our Guide,
you sent your messenger John
to cry out to those who fail to heed your word.
Give us hearts tuned to your voice and songs to sing your praise.
Forgive us for following crooked paths,
and put us on your straight highways.
Be our companion through the valleys
and keep us from stumbling in rough places.
Make a way for us in the wilderness of our distress...
That at Christ's coming we may be pure and blameless,
for the glory and praise of God. Amen."
Words of Assurance
"The Lord speaks tenderly to us,
for Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for our sins.
'The glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all the people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.' (Is 40:5)
Thanks be to God!"
--Blair Gilmer Meeks from Season of Light and Hope
More on Waiting during the First Week of Advent
"Christian practice can be summed up by the word patience. In the New Testament patience means waiting for God for any length of time, not going away, not giving in to boredom or discouragement."
--Thomas Keating, Cistercian priest & monk
"O God, you are my God,
I seek you and my soul thirsts for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water."
--Psalm 63:1
"You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you."
--Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet
"O Lord, how long? Will you forget me forever?
Will you hide your face?
Must I counsel myself? Take counsel in my own soul?
How long?" ---Psalm 13
"Follow him through the land of unlikeness:
You will see rare beasts and have unique adventure."
--W.H. Auden from "Christmas Oratorio"
"Have you not heard his silent steps?
He comes, comes, ever comes.
Every moment and every age, every day and every night
he comes, comes, ever comes.
Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind,
but all their notes have always proclaimed,
'He comes, comes, ever comes.'
In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path
he comes, comes, ever comes.
In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds
he comes, comes, ever comes.
In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart,
and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine."
---Rabindranath Tagore
"We have waited in silence on your loving-kindness, O God." ---Psalm 48:8
As Advent Begins
 "Advent" comes from a Latin word that means "coming" or "arrival," as when some great figure like the emperor arrived during a tour of his provinces. The season of Advent, beginning four Sundays before Christmas, is a focused, reflective time of preparation for our celebration of the humble birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Advent also reminds us that we await another coming of Jesus, a coming in majesty at the end of all things. The Second Coming will fulfill the promise of the First. Even as we expect the joy of Christ's coming, December brings the longest night of the year. For all of us, the troubles of the world are ever-present, close at hand and throughout the earth. Advent allows us to acknowledge the sorrows and incompleteness of human existence in the here and now and so greet God's new beginning in the manger with greater joy. At Advent, we gather together as a community and wait for the light. We listen to God's word, remember God's promises, and praise God who is the source of all light and hope. For each Sunday through Advent and into the Christmas season, we offer here readings from the rich tradition and invite your response.
For the first Sunday of Advent:
"Celebrating Advent means being able to wait.
Waiting, however, is an art that our impatient age has forgotten...
We must wait
for the greatest, most profound,
most gentle things in the world;
nothing happens in a rush,
but only according to the divine laws of germination and growth and becoming."
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"The time of Advent is absolutely essential...
If we have truly given our humanity to be changed into Christ,
it is essential that we do not disturb this time of growth."
--Caryll Houselander
"The small child of Bethlehem,
the unknown man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher,
the naked man on the cross,
he asks for my full attention.
The work of our salvation takes place in the midst
of a world that continues to shout, scream, and overwhelm us with its claims and promises."
--Henri J.M. Nouwen
"Come, Lord Jesus, and turn us toward your light."
--Blair Gilmer Meeks
a Puritan prayer on Isaiah 22:1
Lord, High and Lowly, Meek and Lowly,
Thou has brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.
Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give it to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.
from Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions
Do Christian students have a prayer in the classroom?
The front page article in today's Yale Herald speaks to this question in surprising ways. Following our summary of the piece, we invite your responses, experiences, insights. Yale undergraduate Lucas Kwong begins his article "Do Christians students have a prayer in the classroom?" with a look back into his journal: "I feel as if I'm drowning in an intellectual maelstrom, a vortex from which there is no release." As a participant in Yale University's Directed Studies, a freshman interdisciplinary program focused on foundational works of Western civilization (many from the Christian tradition), Kwong struggled to cope with the baptism-by-fire he went through at Yale with respect to his faith. "Even texts sympathetic to my belief seemed to verify that Christianity was a quaint historical artifact rather than a living, breathing, intellectually plausible system of belief." Still, Kwong believes that he entered college amidst a groundswell of post-9/11 academic interest in religion combined with a growing Christian community across the Ivy League. He says, "Had I matriculated in 1999, academics might have spurred me into agnosticism; in 2003, though, a nascent network of students and faculty existed to convince me that my belief was worth preserving, even at Yale." Yale professors interviewed for the article cited September 11, 2001, as the trigger for an "unprecendented revival of intellectual interest in religion after decades of indifference." One example cited: after a recent curriculum review, Harvard is considering requiring a course in religion towards the undergraduate degree. Says Yale philosophy prof John Hare, "It's clear now how much is at stake for our world with regard to religious questions." Religious studies chair Carlos Eire observes, "Back in the '80s, and even into the early '90s, people would regularly come up to me and ask why we were teaching religion in the university. No one asks that any more." Alongside this trend of general interest in religion, Lucas Kwong maintains that "Christianity--once the pariah of modern intellectualism--is slowly inventing itself as a viable academic perspective on campus." He credits this shift to Christian students "who take their cues from the few professors they know to be believers" and have formed communities of intellectual and spiritual support. "Professors known for straddling faith and reason are necessary models in an environment where, despite a renewed openness to religious discussion, Christians are still left feeling that they have something to prove." As religion becomes a central concern for scholars across the nation, what do you think will be the consequences for Christian belief in the classroom? Kwong explores this question further in his article. From the larger intellectual culture, last week's Guardian article, "Atheists top book charts by deconstructing God," proclaims, "Secularism is suddenly hip...The phenomenon represents a backlash against a perceived rise in religious fundamentalism and recent crazes for 'spirituality' by way of books such as The Da Vinci Code. Secularists are now eager to show that the empiricism of science can debunk the claims of believers." Where do you think these trends are going? What has your experience been?Let us hear from you! We welcome your comments to this posting.
What are you reading this summer?
Please tell us what you're digging into these days. Click on the "comments" button below and share favorite book titles, online articles or terrific websites.
Here's a recommendation from Karen Marsh to get things started:
In her brief book, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and 'Women's Work', Kathleen Norris presents the Christian perspective on everydayness, on the work in our lives that is never finished. Whether we are doing laundry duty or laboring in the workplace, we certainly struggle to find inspiration in the daily routine.
Norris writes, "We want life to have meaning, we want fulfillment, healing and evenecstasy , but the human paradox is that we find these things by starting where we are, not where we wish we were. We must look for blessings to come from unlikely, everyday places--out of Galilee, as it were--and not in spectacular events, such as the coming of a comet....There is a a sacramental possiblity in all things."
The Quotidian Mysteries has travelled in my bag all summer. Now when I face another round of dirty dishes, I remember, "We are, all of us, Christian men and women, engaged in priestly work, the work of transformation. But it may be work that is deemed useless by the standards of the world...But what we dread as mindless activity can free us, mind and heart, for the workings of the Holy Spirit..."
So let us hear from you... and happy reading!
 This life therefore is not righteous but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be but we are growing towards it,
the process is not yet finished but it is going on,
this is not the end but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified.
--Martin Luther
  Building on the comments following the Pentecost readings, we add this Celtic image of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose!
 Most powerful Holy Spirit,
come down upon us
and subdue us.
From heaven,
where the ordinary is made glorious,
and glory seems but ordinary,
bathe us with the brilliance of your light
like dew.
--from Celtic Daily Prayer
"Friend, it is a wonderful thing to witness the power of God as it reaches to the heart and demonstrates to the soul the pure way to life. Surely the person who partakes of this power will be favored by the Lord. Therefore, we ought to wait diligently for the leadings of the Holy Spirit in everything we do. Thus we will be able to travel through all that is contrary to God and into the things that are of God.
It is a wonderful thing to witness God's preservation that keeps us from sliding backwards and being tangled in the traps of the enemy. For the enemy has many ways and uses many devices to ensnare our minds and draw it away from the Truth. There our souls are lulled asleep with false hopes and we lose the feeling and enjoyment of the true life and power.
O Friend, do you not have a sense of the way to the Father? Then you must press your spirit to bow daily before God and wait for breathings to you from his Spirit. Pray that he will continue his mercy to you and make his way more and more clear before you every day. Yes, and also pray that he will give you strength in all the trials which may come your way. By his secret working in your spirit... you will advance nearer and nearer towards the kingdom."
--Isaac Penington (Quaker, 1617-1680)
 To live in the light of the resurrection--
that is what Easter means."Jesus Christ the resurrected---that means that God, in love and omnipotence, makes an end of.death and calls a new creation into life. God gives new life. "The old has gone." "See, I am making all things new." The resurrection has already broken into the midst of the old world as the ultimate sign of its end and its future, and at the same time as living reality. Jesus has risen as human; so he has given human beings the gift of resurrection. Thus human beings remain human, but in a new resurrected way... Christian life means being human in the power of Christ's becoming human, being judged and pardoned in the power of the cross, living a new life in the power of the resurrection...."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
 "We live in the time of 'in between', in the second Act of a three Act drama. We know the way the story will end--with the coming of a new heaven and a new earth...This knowledge is given to us in the Cross and the Resurrection. We know the way the drama will end because we know the First Act, the demolition of 'Nothing' and the dark powers of Jesus' atoning , the sealing of the promise of salvation and redemption.
But we live now in the between. We live, in a sense, between the abandonment of Jesus on Friday and the unmitigated glory of Sunday morning; we live in the Saturday of the between.
As Karl Barth says, 'We live amidst transition--a transition from.death to life, from the unrighteousness of men to the righteousness of God, from the old to the new creation...we are surrounded by the holy, but not completely surrounded; pressed by the profane, but not completely pressed back. The real seriousness of our situation is not to be minimized; the tragic incompleteness in which we find ourselves is not be glossed over. But it is certain that the last word upon the subject has been spoken. The last word is the Kingdom of God--creation, redemption and perfection of the world through God and in God.'"
Charles Marsh (1958- )
photo of solar eclipse by Fred Epsenak
On Good Friday
 Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross, To number drop by drop Thy 's slow loss, And yet not weep? Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved; Not so the Sun and Moon Which hid their faces in a starless sky, A horror of great darkness at broad noon-- I, only I. Yet, give not o'er, But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; Greater than Moses, turn and look once more And smite a rock. Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Image: "Christus am Kreuz" , woodcut by Lovis Corinth, 1919
 "O, Jesus, my feet are dirty. Come even as a slave to me, pour water into your bowl, come and wash my feet. In asking such a thing I know I am overbold but I dread what was threatened when you said to me, 'If I do not wash your feet I have no fellowship with you.' Wash my feet then, because I long for your companionship. And yet, what am I asking? It was well for Peter to ask you to wash his feet; for him that was all that was needed to be clean in every part. With me it is different; though you wash me now I shall still stand in need of that other washing, the cleansing you promised when you said, 'There is a baptism I must needs be baptized with.'" Origen
Desmond Tutu from his African Prayer Book
 The maker of humanity was made human,that the Ruler of the stars might suck at the breast; that the Bread might be hungered: the Fountain, thirst: the Light, sleep; the Way, be wearied by the journey; the Truth, be accused by false witnesses; the Judge of the living and the , be judged by a mortal judge; the Chastener, be chastised with whips; the Vine, be crowned with thorns; the Foundation, be hung upon a tree; Strength, be made weak; Health, be wounded; Life, die. To suffer these and suchlike things, undeserved things, that He might free the undeserving, for neither did He deserve any evil, who for our sakes endured so many evils, nor were we deserving of anything good, we who through Him received such good. Augustine, from The Confessions
PRAYERS FOR LENT O Lord,
my soul is like a house,
small for you to enter,
but I pray you to enlarge it.
It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it.
It contains much that you will not be pleased to see:
this I know and do not hide.
But who shall cleanse it,
to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord,
and spare me Your servant from sin.
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
Deep unto deep, O Lord, crieth in me.
Gathering strength I come, Lord, unto Thee.
Jesus of Calvary, smitten for me,
Ask what Thou wilt, but give Love to me.
Amy Carmichael (1867-1951)
O Lord, who has mercy upon all,
take away from me my sins,
and mercifully kindle in me the fire of thy Holy Spirit.
Take away from me the heart of stone,
and give me a heart of flesh,
a heart to love and adore Thee,
a heart to delight in Thee,
to follow and enjoy Thee, for Christ's sake. Amen.
St. Ambrose of Milan (339-397)
O Son of God, do a miracle for me and change my heart.
Thy having taken flesh to redeem me
was more difficult than to transform my wickedness.
Irish, 15th century
image: "La priere sacerdotale" from the series "Couleurs d'Evangile" by Corinne Vonaesch
 "Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were buying and selling there." Matthew 21:12"We read in the Gospel how Holy Week began with Jesus entering the temple and driving out all those who bought and sold. He rebuked the vendors of doves; 'Get these things out of here!' He was so crystal clear in his command that it was as if he said, 'I have a right to this temple and I alone will be in control of it.'
What does this have to say to us? The temple God wants to be master of is the human soul, which he created and fashioned just like himself. We read that God said, 'Let us make man in our own image.' And he did it. He made each soul so much like himself that nothing else in heaven or on earth resembles him so much. That is why God wants the temple to be pure, so pure that nothing should dwell there except he himself...
But who, exactly, are the people who buy and sell? Are they not precisely the good people? See! They strive to be good people who do their good deeds to the glory of God, such as fasting, watching, praying and the like--all of which are good--and yet do these things so that God will give them something in exchange...
Lest we forget, we do what we do only by the help of God, and so God is never obligated to us. God gives us nothing and does nothing except out of his own free will. What we are we are because of God, and what we have we receive from God and not by our own contriving....
Jesus went into the temple and drove out those that bought and sold. His message was bold: 'Take this all away!' But observe that when all was cleared, there was nobody left but Jesus. And when he is alone he is able to speak in the temple of the soul."
Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1327)
"All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." Julian of Norwich (1343-1413) When his followers saw him walking on the water, they were afraid. They said, 'It's a ghost!' and cried out in fear. But Jesus spoke quickly to them, "Have courage! It is I. Do not be afraid." Matthew 14:26 & 27
"On one occasion the good Lord said, 'Everything is going to be all right.' On another, 'You will see for yourself that every sort of thing will be all right.' He did not say, 'You will not be troubled, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted,' but he said: 'You will not be overcome.' God wants us to pay attention to these words and always be strong in faithful trust, in well-being and in woe, for he loves us and delights in us, and so he wishes us to love him and delight in him and trust greatly in him, and all will be well. "
Julian of Norwich
from The Practice of Prayer by Margaret Guenther (1929 - )
"We know by a kind of instinct
that peace lies
in the heart of darkness,
in the wilderness of soul.
Something prompts us to keep still,
to trust in God,
to be quiet and to listen
for God's voice."
from New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
"Many souls become addicted to the spiritual sweetness of the devotional life...The problem is this: when they have received no pleasure for their devotions, they think that they have not accomplished anything. This is a grave error, and it judges God unfairly. For the truth is that the feelings we receive from our devotional life are the least of its benefits. The invisible and unfelt grace of God is much greater, and it is beyond our comprehension...
God perceives the imperfections within us, and because of his love for us, urges us to grow up. His love is not content to leave us in our weakness, and for this reason he takes us into a dark night...True spirituality consists in perseverance, patience and humility. The Lord heals such souls through the aridity of the dark night."
from The Dark Night of the Soul, John of the Cross (1542-1591)
You give us shelter in the wilderness and show us where to find a way.
Hear us as we cry out, O God.
after Psalm 27
John the Baptist, Russian icon, 1560s
 "Lord, make me an instrument
of Thy Peace." St. Francis
"And so John came, baptizing in the desert and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins...At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan." Mark 1:4&9
"No Christian should ever think that he is not fit to be God's instrument, for that in fact is what it means to be a Christian. We may be humble about many things, but we may never decline to be used. John the Baptist told the people by the river Jordan, 'I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one who comes after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to take off his shoes.'Then Jesus himself came to be baptized by him, and John tried to dissuade him, saying to him, 'Do you come to me? I need rather to be baptized by you.' Jesus replied, 'Let it be so for the present; we do well to conform in this way with all that God requires.' So John baptized him whose shoes he was not fit to take off.The gospel is full of reassurances to us, some of them startling. You are salt to the world! You are light to all the world! Even the hairs of your head have all been counted! These words were exciting to those who heard them. Things might be dark but they were to be the light of the world. They were given a new sense of value as persons...One can hardly describe the joy of the first disciples, who were given by Jesus such a sense of their significance in the world...There are therefore two things for us to do. The first is never to doubt that God can use us if we are willing to be used, no matter what our weaknesses. The second is to see that God can use any other person who is willing to be used, whatever his weaknesses, and if need be, to assure him of this truth."
from Instrument of Thy Peace
by Alan Paton (1903-1988) , South African author & politician
 With Henri Nouwen
on Ash Wednesday“For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure;
wash me and I shall be clean indeed.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.”
Psalm 51 from the Ash Wednesday service,
Book of Common Prayer"God’s mercy is greater than our sins. There is an awareness of sin that does not lead to God but rather to self-preoccupation. Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and our failings and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says, ‘I am too sinful to deserve God’s mercy.’ It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride.Lent is a time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: ‘Are we like Judas, who was so overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God’s mercy any longer… or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?’ The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God’s mercy."by Henri Nouwen, A Cry For MercyLent is observed during the 40 days before Easter, not including Sundays, recalling the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. “Lent” is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for springtime, which is a literal translation of “the lengthening of days”. Originally it was a time provided for the training of candidates for baptism. In modern times, it has become a period of spiritual reflection, growth and preparation for Easter.This series of readings for Lent and Easter is offered by Theological Horizons
Praying After Katrina
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we are all confronted by unspeakable grief. Please pray for the people of Desire Street Ministries of New Orleans, a “beloved community” now scattered and suffering, as well as the countless others in need. At a loss for words, we turn to Christians who have gone before us, believers who have spoken the hope of the Gospel in the midst of affliction. With them we intercede for the distressed ones: In the MorningO God, early in the morning I cry to you. Help me to pray and to concentrate my thoughts on you: I cannot do this alone. In me there is darkness, But with you there is light; I am lonely, but you do not leave me; I am feeble in heart but with you there is help; I am restless, but with you there is peace. In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience; I do not understand your ways, but you know the way for me… Restore me to liberty and enable me to live now That I may answer before you and before me. Lord, whatever this day may bring, Your name be praised. ---a prayer from prison by German pastor & martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer In the EveningKeep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, And give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, Soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. --- from the Book of Common Prayer What prayer requests would you offer?
Waiting for God in the University
 This past year has been an education in humility. In June of 2003, after a busy year of teaching, program organizing and research, I turned my attention to a book project, which was under contract with a major trade publisher and due in March of 2004. What greeted me when I finally sat down at my desk was 900 pages of manuscript written in stops and starts over a three year period. I had hoped to write a book about Christian community as authentic social relation; what I had in front of me was an unwieldy manuscript covering an absurdly wide range of events and ideas in American political and social history since 1954. As the days of writing stretched into weeks, demanding more energy and time than I had ever expected, I began to understand in new and often excruciating ways how truly difficult it is to do one thing well. Like many professionals of the baby-boomer generation, I am inclined to take on many tasks and to perform them with at least a modicum of efficiency. Frenetic activity offers a certain kind of comfort and self-flattery; we present ourselves in multiple venues as indispensable agents responding to urgent concerns. Certainly much of our busyness is born of necessity; but necessity does not necessarily create good habits or lives attuned to the things that matter. The call to a single task, and to single-mindedness, requires nothing less than a retraining in moral and spiritual discipline whose goal is to chasten the self, its will, desires and ambitions. The Psalms admonish us to wait for the Lord; to behold His beauty and glory, to inquire in His temple. Far from passivity, waiting is a struggle that resists our grand narratives and schemes; a striving for wholeness that reminds us of our brokenness; a realization that our mission as believers is not to remake the world in our image but to bring honor to God. I love the words of the pastor and peacemaker, Christoph Blumhardt: “God will surely not be embarrassed if you do not blow your trumpet. He has trumpets, too.” The book, The Beloved Community, is now complete; 350 pages with pictures, to be published in December 2004. And in recent days, I have begun organizing events and workgroups for the next year and even making notes for a new book, evidence of my hard-headedness but even more of the inescapable demands of life. Still, I have learned life-changing lessons in the discipline of solitude and stillness: God wants our actions to be shaped by our waiting. “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” - Charles Marsh, Director
A Year With Sudan: A Reflection On Hope by Ross Kane
Perhaps more than anything in this year working with Sudan, I will remember the hope that I have seen in the midst of grief. Hope is a word that is thrown around quite a bit in Christianity, but I have never before understood it as I do now, having lived with the Sudanese. In this year my picture of hope has become far bigger than it ever has been, and what is remarkable is that this hope is found in a most hopeless place. There have been times I went to my room for solace after a hard day and could do nothing but fall to my knees asking my Father in Heaven whether or not good is really winning out in Sudan. I read a Sudanese prayer, and in each line—“into the pain of the tortured, breathe stillness; into the misery of displacement, breath comfort; into the pain of the widowed and orphans, breathe hope”—I see the faces of people I have met and with whom I have shared my life. I find myself, like the Psalmist, crying out to God, angry because I do not understand how atrocities like those in Sudan can occur in His world. What in this leads me to hope? Why should I find hope in such sorrow? Why amidst sincere questions of God’s sovereignty in tragedy do I speak peace? There is no logical reason pointing me to hope here. There is only the cross. I say that, because to hold onto hope in the midst of what I see around me, in the midst of the Sudanese struggle, can only be a Christological claim. “How do we hold onto God’s sovereignty when we are losing, and it appears that we stand only to lose more?” seems to be the question. But in the moment of that question I see the God-man upon the cross, in an act in which he appeared to be losing, and stood only to lose more. Yet in that moment of apparent loss, Christ was redeeming His world, “reconcil[ing] to himself all things…making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20 NRSV). In my despair I see the ultimate depiction of hope: the God-man upon the cross, in the act of redemption when it appears all has fallen apart. In this moment upon the cross we see God as He is paradoxically both revealed and hidden, and in a sense this is the way I see God at work in Sudan. In this event upon Calvary, when Christ was so broken, so seemingly hidden and unlike anything resembling God to human minds, He was carrying out the ultimate and truest revelation God has given: that of a God who heals, purifies, and redeems His world. A God who is actively participating in calling human beings back to the goodness of creation. A God inviting them to join the intended purpose of creation, to lay aside the abuse of creation and exploitation of other human beings, so that they may enjoy the good, which He has made and given to them. In those moments of ultimate despair upon Calvary, an act of even greater redemption was taking place. As Christ Himself was asking, “my God, why have you forsaken me,” God was showing ultimate solidarity with those suffering, while redeeming that very suffering at the same time. In the moment of greatest hopelessness, the greatest hope is found. Yes, in light of this act of Christ and the promise of a fulfilled redemption I find hope in Sudan. In the words of the Apostle Peter, this is living hope (I Peter 1:3). It is a hope that forces us to live in this world, in all its evil, sin, and suffering, but gives us a divine mandate to say “No” to this suffering, because we know it has been defeated, because we know the cross has said the ultimate “No” to evil and suffering, and the ultimate “Yes” to redemption. It is the cross that gives Christians the ability to act when everything around tells us we should despair, when everything around us tells us there is no reason to hope. It is the cross that gives us “hope against hope,” that pronounces God’s redemption moves forward against its apparent denial. No, man cannot explain this evil and suffering, but he can face it. The cross gives him boldness and courage to face suffering. It gives him courage to cry and to weep for his brother and sister, and to cry for his own suffering. It allows him to ask God how such things can be, but more importantly, it gives him the courage to say “No” to them. The hope I see is an eschatological dream of sorts. Christianity is a religion of history. We think of history as what has happened in the past, but I want to distinguish from that, because the Christian view of history must be forward and not only backward looking. Christianity looks forward in hope, anticipating the fullness of the redemption that is already in process. It’s a belief system that acknowledges that history is going somewhere, saying clearly that today is not the final word. I’m learning to see this picture of history not as it exists today, but rather as it will one day exist. And so we should live in the knowledge that we are participating in the redemption of this world through Christ. In this light, I do not lose heart in the midst of Sudan, I act in light of the coming full redemption. I acknowledge that historically we live between Good Friday and Easter, in “the already and the not yet” of the kingdom of God, between redemption fulfilled upon the cross and its final completion. Yet we must realize that we act within the current reality of the eschatological Easter. Though we Christians live between Good Friday and Easter, we act in Easter, and we participate in the reality of Christ as it is already made present. In the words of theologian Jurgen Moltmann, “From the first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present.” All of this is what I see in Sudan, that the hope of the Church for peace has informed its witness in such a way that peoples are being reconciled as they have been by no other actor. Rather than becoming discouraged and losing hope in the complexity of problems in the Sudanese situation, the Church can view Sudan with different lenses: the lenses of redemption. The lenses of “the already and the not yet” of the kingdom of God have informed the Church’s work of reconciliation, because the Church has the ability to see beyond hopelessness to the redemption already being made present, while also looking forward to the promise of fulfilled redemption. It is not a hope that finds its center only upon another world at the expense of the world around us, of God’s world around us, but rather it is a living hope. It is a hope that challenges us daily to wrestle with the question: what does this living hope mean for me today? May this hope penetrate our lives as we find inspiration from our brothers and sisters in Sudan. An "alumnus" of Theological Horizons. Ross Kane graduated from UVA in 2002, majoring in Foreign Affairs and minoring in Religious Studies. The past two and a half years he worked for the New Sudan Council of Churches, an ecumenical church body that carries out international human-rights advocacy on behalf of the Sudanese and facilitates a grassroots reconciliation process among warring Sudanese tribes known as the People-to-People Peace Process. He loves to cook and play jazz saxophone. To read more, see the Reuters Foundation article, "Warriors turn peacemakers in southern Sudan".
The Work of Faith
How the torch of racial reconciliation, once carried by Christian civil-rights workers, is now being carried by faith-based organizations.
Charles Marsh thinks the religious motivations of civil-rights workers don't receive enough attention in mainstream accounts of the civil-rights movement. In The Beloved Community, Marsh tells the story of the civil-rights movement, beginning in Montgomery, Alabama, in the context of the Christian faith of those who risked their lives not just for equal rights, but also for the gospel. Marsh says that many of those who are carrying on the work of reconciliation today are those in the faith-based community who have taken up the calling of early civil-rights activists. Marsh is professor of religious studies and director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia. Marsh spoke with Christianity Today online assistant editor Rob Moll.
To read this interview, go to www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/108/32.o.html or email us at info@theologicalhorizons.org
UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS
Atlanta, Georgia
Sunday, March 6 at Martin Street Church of God, 11:15 am / call 404.688.8545 Sunday, March 6 at Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church, 5:30 pm / call 404.266.8111
Oxford, Mississippi
Wednesday, March 9 at Square Books, 5:00 pm / call 662.236.2262Jackson, MississippiThursday, March 10 at Lemuria Bookstore, 5:00 pm / call 601.366.7619Charlottesville, VirginiaThursday, March 17 at Christ Episcopal Church at 6:00 pm / call 434.293.2347
The Disarming Child
I write this on the last of the twelve days of Christmas, confronted as you have been by images of despair and devastation in Asia, conflict and in Iraq. I am surrounded by a faded evergreen tree, discarded wrapping paper, countless mundane tasks waiting to be done. What has become of the promised peace on earth, tidings of comfort and joy?This year's Theological Horizons Capps Lecturer, Jurgen Moltmann, has reflected upon the prophet Isaiah's mighty vision: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." In these sad days there is no doubt that people walk in darkness; what then of the great light?In Jurgen Moltmann's powerful essay, "The Disarming Child", he concludes with the words, " The dream of a liberator, and the dream of peace, is not merely a dream. The liberator is already present and his power is already among us. We can follow him, even today making visible something of the peace, liberty and righteousness of the kingdom that he will complete. It is no longer impossible. It has become possible for us in fellowship with him. Let us share in his new creation of the world and--born again to a living hope--live as new men and women. The zeal of the Lord be with us all."("The Disarming Child", 1983) We are called to minister at the intersection of ideas and action. We witness to the truth of the Gospel where society's beliefs and values take shape. As Christians fully engaged in the secular intellectual world, we must "never forget that the community of Christ exists as a structure with four sides open to the world." (Charles Marsh in The Beloved Community) Our perspective on the world must be continually formed by the realized dream of the disarming child among us. ---Karen
An Amazing and Perilous Time
"This is an amazing--and perilous--time to be a Christian scholar. The modern intellectual world is adrift, unwilling to allow any claim of certainty by which judgements are made. Dominant forces work toward fragmentation, limiting reason and breaking down fundamental truths. Secular pluralism, long prevalent on university campuses, is nearly as pervasive in everyday life. Furious debates over values engage the common folk in Peoria and Spokane, not just the intellectuals of Cambridge or New Haven. Faced with these challenges, many evangelicals are responding with fear, searching for simplistic answers, and retreating from serious academic engagement."
--Nathan Hatch, Provost, University of Notre Dame As a scholar who is committed to addressing the critical questions of our day with honesty, careful study and Christian conviction, I too, worry about the integrity of our witness. Christians must reclaim their identity as , first and foremost, disciples of Jesus Christ. We are a peculiar people. We believe that God has redeemed a fallen world in the reconciling work of Christ. We believe that God has called us to be witnesses to the good news in our world and in our time--in the midst of the world's anguish and beauty, its tragedies and glories. Not every idea we vigorously defend as true and noble is consistent with Christian discipleship. We must be willing to measure our ideas and our lives by the one standard of truth, that is, by God's truth revealed in Jesus Christ in his life, teachings and redemptive work. If we are not willing to do this, then we must do like the rich young man who was not willing to give away his possessions for the sake of the Kingdom; saddened but certain that we are not ready to give all. There are many voices in our culture presuming to speak on behalf of God. During this Advent season, let us remind ourselves--and recommit ourselves to the world-transforming truth--that it is Jesus Christ alone who speaks authoritatively of the Father, who reveals the Kingdom of God. "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17). Let our engagement with the world be honest and responsible and yet in every way shaped by the discipline and costs of confessing Jesus Christ over all creation. This is an amazing and perilous time to be a Christian.
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