Advent with Bonhoeffer: Mystery

What is mystery? 

A detective novel.  A question that puzzles us, a thing we just can't put into words. South African theologian and friend of Theological Horizons, John de Gruchy, invites us to consider mystery:

"Mystery is being encountered by and engaging reality differently. It is not a question of solving problems, but of participating in something that transcends and ultimately overwhelms us as we struggle with matters of life and death, love and justice, faith and hope...In the end, this is what it means to be 'led into mystery', and in the process to become more fully human." (from Led Into Mystery: Seeking Answers in Life & Death) 

Bonhoeffer said that our lives have worth to the extent that we keep our respect for mystery.  How can God lead us into mystery today, this second Sunday of Advent?

"The unrecognized mystery of this world: Jesus Christ.  That this Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter, was himself the Lord of glory: that was the mystery of God.  It was a mystery because God became poor, low, lowly, and weak out of love for humankind, because God became a human being like us, so that we would become divine, and because he came to us so that we would come to him.

God as the one who becomes low for our sakes, God in Jesus of Nazareth--that is the secret, hidden wisdom...that 'no eye has seen nor ear has heard nor the human heart has conceived' (I Cor. 2:9)...That is the depth of the Deity, whom we worship as mystery and comprehend as mystery."

"God travels in wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people.  God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof.  Where our reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely God loves to be."

"And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly.  God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings.  God marches right in.  He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them.  God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the week and broken."---Dietrich Bonhoeffer

(source: God is in the Manger: Reflections of Advent and Christmas)

Advent with Bonhoeffer: Waiting

Advent begins today.  This is a time to wait and to pray, "Come, Lord Jesus."  Dietrich Bonhoeffer(1906-1945) will be our guide during the next four Sundays. From across the years, Bonhoeffer reminds us that Jesus Christ expressed strength  through weakness, that authentic faith is more important than the beguiling trappings of religion, and that God is often heard most clearly by those in poverty and distress. Let's walk through Advent with Bonhoeffer. For Bonhoeffer, WAITING--one of the central themes of the Advent experience--was a fact of life during World War II: waiting to be released from prison; waiting to be able to spend time with fiancee, Maria von Wedemeyer; waiting for the end of the war. As friends & former students were killed  & his home was bombed, there was little he could do but pray and write. There was a helplessness in his situation that he recognized as a parallel to Advent, Christians' time of waiting for redemption in Christ.

"Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent," Bonhoeffer wrote to his best friend Eberhard Bethge as the holidays approached in 1943, "One waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other--things that are really of no consequence--the door is shut, and can only be opened from the outside."

"We can, and should also, celebrate Christmas despite the ruins around us...I think of you as you now sit together with the children and with all the Advent decorations--as in earlier years you did with us.  We must do this, even more intensively because we do not know how much longer we have."--letter to Bonoeffer's parents, Nov. 29, 1943, written from Tegel prison camp

"Be brave for my sake, dearest Maria, even if this letter is your only token of my love this Christmas-tide.  We shall both experience a few dark hours--why should we disguise that from each other?  We shall ponder the incomprehensibility of our lot and be assailed by the question of why, over and above the darkness already enshrouding humanity, we should be subjected to the bitter anguish of a separation whose purpose we fail to understand...

And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God.  Our eyes are at fault, that is all.  God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment.  No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives."--letter to fiancee Maria von Wedemeyer from prison, December 13 1943

from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: God is in the Manger--Reflections on Advent and Christmas, edited by Jana Riess

Update! NEW venue for Sarah Masen, Julie Lee & Will Marsh concert

 

Breaking news on our house concert on Friday, November 22 at 7:00:

It's a triple bill at a new location!

Sarah Masen, Julie Lee and Corrie Covell, on their Lift it Up Tour, will now be joined by an incredible rock bank from Australia, goodbyemotel.  [see their music video]  The band's music has been featured in Chrysler commercials as well as TV shows such as Gossip Girl, Covert Affairs, and Suits. Our own Will Marsh will open the show.

All of that is to say it's going to be amazing...SO amazing that we're moving to a larger space!

*** The show will be at a new location: Eunioa/The Garden at 1500 Jefferson Park Avenue - between Gibson/Nau and UVa Student Health.  Doors open at 7 pm. $5 ***

COME OUT & BRING YOUR FRIENDS.

Sarah Masen is a singer-songwriter based in Nashville whose music has been featured on the TV show Party of Five. You can download a free song from her most recent album The Trying Mark by clicking here. When discussing the origin of The Trying Mark, Masen says that "for two years I have had this confessional symbol [of the trying mark] before me as a kind of totem that returns my wandering energies toward center. The fear and frustration of 'I can’t do my longing justice and feed my children' is somehow compassionately softened by the trying anyway at both, each day. As I have meditated on the symbol, words like “enough” and phrases like “I don’t know” steady me, redirecting my attention to that mystery within which I live and move and have my being. The songs in this collection point to that unknown country the trying marks."

Julie Lee is also a singer-songwriter based in Nashville that is known as a "scrapbook of various traditional American styles." She has opened for Alison Krauss and her new album Till and Mule comes out November 19. You can hear some of the new songs on her website julielee.org.

FREE Parking (since it's after hours) in the parking lot behind Nau and Gibson Halls.

We can't wait to see you all there!

"Led into Mystery: Seeking Answers in Life and Death" with John deGruchy

John W. de Gruchy, Emeritus Robert Selby Taylor Professor of Christian Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, will give a lecture entitled, “Led into Mystery: Seeking Answers in Life and Death” on Tuesday, November 19 at 5:00 p.m. in the lounge of St. Paul’s Memorial Church across from the Rotunda.

John de Gruchy has authored or edited more than thirty books on Dietrich Bonhoeffer; the church in South Africa; contextual, public and Reformed theology; social history; Christianity and the arts; reconciliation and justice; and Christian humanism. He served two congregations and the South African Council of Churches as an ordained minister in the United Congregational Church before he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Cape Town in 1973. De Gruchy retired in 2003, but continues to be active in research, publishing, and mentoring at the University of Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch. With his wife Isobel, de Gruchy is now a resident member of the Volmoed Community for Reconciliation and Healing near Hermanus where he writes, gives seminars and makes furniture.

De Gruchy’s most recent book, Led into Mystery: Faith Seeking Answers in Life and Death, will also be the subject of his lecture. Led into Mystery is an unanticipated sequel to his book, Being Human: Confessions of a Christian Humanist. It was prompted by the untimely and tragic death of his eldest son, Steve, in February 2010, and the questions this posed about the meaning of life and death from the perspective of Christian faith.

Jean Vanier and Community

Last Friday at Vintage we discussed Jean Vanier, who, at 38, bought a small home in Paris and invited three men with developmental disabilities to come live and share the home with him.

This was the beginning of his community.

Vanier's vision grew into a global hospitality movement that is known as L'Arche, a safe space men and women with mental disabilities to discover their spirituality, explore vocations, and, most importantly, experience community. He said, "Community is the place where we ideally learn to be ourselves without fear or constraint. Community life deepens through mutual trust among all its members. The more authentic and creative a community is in its search for the essential, the more its members are called beyond their own concerns and tend to unite... Community is established by the simple, gentle concern that people show each other every day. It is made of the small gestures, all the services and sacrifices which say 'I love you' and 'I'm happy to be with you.'"

I wonder which came first: Vanier's concept of community which was then applied to the L'Arche philosophy, or L'Arche which showed a pure sense of community from which this definition stems.

I think that in being a student at UVa, I hear the word "community" used quite a bit to describe my current setting. We're told we're a community, a family, or at the very least, a bunch of students that should be tied together by the fact that we are all students. I hope I don't sound cynical, because I truly have experience fleeting moments of community at UVa, which are precious and dear to me. But if we look at community through Vanier's idea, community is sacred. When the UVa brochures talk of the community of students, I think they miss this meaning.

But Vanier is careful to point out that community is imperfect. It must go through stages - at first we are enamored with our group of people. We don't see their flaws and "everything is marvelous," as Vanier stated. But in the second stage, we are no longer disillusioned. We now recognize that being in community is hard.

The third stage -- if we can get there -- is one of realism and commitment. The members of the community "no longer see other members of the community as saints or devils," Vanier said, "but as people; each with a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, each growing and each with their own hope. The community is neither heaven nor hell, but planted firmly on earth and they are ready to walk in ti, and with it."

We must learn to forgive. That is the purpose of community for Vanier. Because we are imperfect and live with our sins deeply entrenched around us, we must learn that being in a place of acceptance requires constant mutual forgiveness. But this isn't a bad thing. In fact, I think that these imperfections -- these cracks and crevices that are split open by our sins against one another -- give God the room to fit in among us.

For a video interview with Jean Vanier about L'Arche, click here:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eldz3uNsmv4

-Rhody Mastin

Theological Horizons Communications Intern

UVA 2015

Jesus and Your Brain Podcast!

Did you miss Dr. Curt Thompson's talk, "Loving God with All Your Mind: What Do Jesus And Your Brain Have To Do With Each Other"?  Now you can click to listen to the complete audio recording! Curt Thompson, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice in Falls Church,  Virginia.  Dr. Thompson is the author of Anatomy of the Soul and blogs at www.beingknown.com.

Integrating new findings in neuroscience and Christian spirituality, Dr. Thompson discusses how it is possible to rewire your mind, altering your brain patterns and literally making you more like the person God intended you to be. Learn how to be mentally transformed through spiritual practices, interaction with Scripture, and connections with other people.

His talk at the Bonhoeffer House on September 20 was attended by well over 50 people from the University and community.  We're delighted to be able to bring the podcast of his talk to you now.

Announcing winners of the Goodwin Writing Prizes

You have waited to learn news of the 2013  Goodwin Prizes for Excellence in Theological Writing...

More than 100 exceptional essays across 40 schools were submitted in this year's competition.  After four rounds of readings, the board of directors of Theological Horizons has awarded:

The $2,000 Goodwin Prize to Ryan Harker of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary for his essay, "Formed to Consume: A Theological Analysis of Advertisements for Communications Technology".  His advisor on the paper, Prof. Andrew Brubacher-Kaethler, will receive an award of $500.

The $1,000 Goodwin Prize to Davey Henreckson of Princeton University for his essay, "The Political Image of Christ: Public Theology and Proleptic Ascent";

The $500 Goodwin Prize to Allison Hamm of Duke Divinity School for her essay, "The Crown of Creation: Sabbath-Keeping and Christian Worship".

Abstracts of the winning essays and profiles of the writers will appear on this website in the near future.

Congratulations to Ryan,  Davey and Allison.  Great thanks to all those who submitted papers in this year's competition.  We are greatly encouraged to see young scholars of such promise and commitment!

A Horizons Fellow's Thoughts on Fourth Year

  So you’re telling me I have to be a real person soon? Your fourth year at U.Va. is the last opportunity you have to cherish such a tight-knit, interwoven college community before being thrown into the real world.  For more reasons than one, it’s an awesome and exciting time.  But now since I’ve been put a position of a mentor and, obligatorily, a student for first year students to look up to, I’m starting to feel like this next step, this transition into a career – maybe just a gap year, or maybe even a ski bum year – lacks experienced guidance and a mentor that’s been through it all.  And that’s when the Theological Horizons Fellows program fell into my lap.  All it took was a dear friend to nudge me into applying, through forwarding the application request email.

I’m excited to live this year alongside a Christian mentor that’s put the foundation of his career on glorifying the kingdom of God. One beautiful thing about this program is how realistic the Theological Horizons staff are with the time of us fellows. We’re all excited for the investment of the mentor relationship to come, but are enthusiastic, invested fourth year students. Because of this inevitable fact, the fellows, along with Theological Horizons staff, have agreed upon a very manageable schedule for the year ahead.

It’s my hope that our relationship throughout the year will help propel me into the next step, but also equip me to enter this real world with my head on straight, a desire to make His name known through my working and future personal relationships, and perhaps even give me the wisdom to learn from others’ mistakes.

Wahoowa, Cam

Cameron Elward, UVa 2014

St. Benedict and Longing

Last Friday at Vintage we talked about the search in which we live our lives. In particular, a quote from Frederick Buechner made me think a lot about how the world in which we live can become an excuse for not finding God if we let it. "The struggle to find others with whom we can share our lives, others who give our lives texture and color and meaning, has been going on forever. The task of finding work to do that is fulfilling and productive and sufficient for our needs has been constant. The need for rest and sustenance and time apart has been never-ending. Our hope and our yearning and our desire for God, and life lived with God, have been everlasting, from age to age. The world is not a simple place. It never really was."

I think our generation can easily be a little too proud of the fact that our technological age both makes our lives more difficult and strangely simpler than our parents' and grandparents' generations. While it certainly makes writing research papers more efficient, constantly being tied into a form of media is also exhausting. But Buechner's insight was a sobering reminder that navigating the world, and especially navigating the world as Christians, never was easy. It wasn't harder for our parents because they didn't have google - and it isn't necessarily easier for us because we do. In recognizing that what we are going through and the questions we are asking in terms of our faith are not novel, it becomes much easier to open up to humility. And I think it's this humility that yields balance - I want to find a way to balance everything within my work and within my faith search. But even more importantly, I want to find a way to balance all of the components. This sometimes seems daunting, but Benedict warns us, "Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God's commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love."

Theological Horizons Fellows: Vocational Discipleship

The Theological Horizons Fellows program was founded with the vision of vocational training for 4th year students at UVa.  In the context of relationship with a mentor, fellows will wrestle with the implications of the intersection of faith, thought & life on their vocational choices. That being said, we are excited to introduce our fellows to you!

Cameron Elward Peachtree, GA Biomedical Engineering (major) and Spanish (minor)

 Maria Maguire Richmond, VA Studio Art (major) and Religious Studies (minor)

Zachary Porter Istanbul, Turkey Music and Economics

Mary Lansden Brewbaker Tuscaloosa, AL Economics and Religious Studies

 Carolyn Harris Atlanta, GA Finance/Management

Brett Goodwin Leesburg, VA Aerospace Engineering

 Lauren Thomas Charlottesville, VA German (major) and Dance (minor)

Katie Prey Baltimore, MD Nursing

 Theological Horizons hopes to provide the fellows with tools, such as spiritual practices, strategies & frameworks, for making decisions to navigate the transition from college to post-college adventures. Good luck with your fourth year, Fellows!

Therese of Lisieux and Finding Your Identity

Our whole lives are about identifying ourselves – especially in relation to others. In fact, almost every title that I identify myself by directly connects me to another person – I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a friend. There are also titles that connect me to institutions – I am a student. I am a Baptist. But all of these titles and means of identification force me to look outside of myself for internal validation of who I am.

At Vintage last Friday we talked about Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun that spent ten of her 24 years with prayer as her only work. It’s fair to say that her identity was very clearly bound up and enmeshed in God. But for those of us who are not nuns or cannot devote every hour of our day to prayer, I think it is less obvious – certainly when compared to Therese – that we can be identified by our connection to God.

In an adapted version of Therese’s writing by Scott Cairns, Therese speaks pleads with souls to let Jesus in.

Notice!

Jesus stands just before you,

Waiting in the tabernacle shaped for you –

Shaped precisely for you!

He burns with great desire

To enter into your heart.

Ignore the yammering demon

Telling you ‘not so!’ Laugh in his pinched face

And turn without fear to receive

The Jesus of quiet calm and utmost love.

Partake of His Mysteries often, often as you can,

For in Them you find your sole, entire remedy,

Assuming—of course—you would be cured.

Jesus has not impressed this hunger in your heart for nothing.

This gentle Guest of our souls

Knows our every ache and misery.

He enters, desiring to find a tent,

A bower prepared for His arrival within us,

And that is all, all He asks of us.

In her writing, the intimacy between Jesus and the human soul is made clear – it is a divine intrusion. Even in the verbs she uses, it is evident that Jesus is not passive in his waiting for us to accept His invitation. He wants to enter, to cure, to impress. But most importantly, Jesus wants to become part of us. In this entering and curing and impressing, He should become a part of the fabric of our soul. Indeed, as Ruth Haley Barton wrote in her book Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, “There is a place within each one of us that is spiritual in nature, the place where God’s Spirit witnesses without our spirit about our truest identity. Here God’s Spirit dwells within our spirit, and here our truest desires make themselves known.”

Somewhere within what we currently exist as, we are already validated. And when we recognize the place where God dwells within us, we no longer have to seek external connections to support our fickle identities. We are found within.

-Rhody Mastin, UVA 2015

Theological Horizons Communications Intern

Loving God with All Your Mind: Lunch and Seminar

 

Theological Horizons invites you to Curt Thompson's seminar on Friday, September 20 at the Bonhoeffer House from 1-3pm:

Loving God with All Your Mind:

What do Jesus and Your Brain have to do with Each Other?

Dr. Thompson is the author of Anatomy of the Soul, and blogs at www.beingknown.com. Integrating new findings in neuroscience and Christian spirituality, Dr. Thompson will discuss how it is possible to rewire your mind, altering your brain patterns and literally making you more like the person God intended you to be. Learn how to be mentally transformed through spiritual practices, interaction with Scripture, and connections with other people.

All are welcome! A light lunch will be served.

Copies of Dr. Thompson's books will be available for $10.

There is no parking available, but the UVa Inner Loop will drop you off on Rugby Road in front of Westminster Church, near the top of University circle. Inner Loop is also convenient for First Years, as it runs directly in front of Old Dorms on McCormick Road.

The event is free, but space is limited. Please register by emailing Karen Marsh at karen@theologicalhorizons.org

For directions to the Bonhoeffer House, please click here: http://theologicalhorizons.org/about/the-bonhoeffer-house

Auction: Family Weekend guest room for 2 on the Lawn!

 Parents, experience true Wahoo hospitality!

ON AUCTION  to benefit our Vintage lunch ministry to students:

A UVA COLONNADE CLUB GUEST ROOM ON THE LAWN 

a queen bedroom for 2 nights: Fri. Sept 27- Sun. Sept. 29

includes a basket of Virginia treats & parking at the Club

Enjoy all of the Family Weekend festivities from your personal retreat on the Lawn at the heart of UVa!

FINAL BID: $750  (last updated 8:00 pm 9/15)  The auction is now closed!

The value of the room is $350. To place a bid, email Karen Marsh karen@theologicalhorizons.org

The auction will be open until 8 pm on September 15

 The Colonnade Club is housed in Pavilion VII, the oldest building on the Lawn, designed by Thomas Jefferson as the first structure in his “AcademicalVillage,” a UN World Heritage site.

Today Pavilion VII is the Colonnade UVa Faculty Club. The members-only Club, completely renovated in 2001, features lovely common rooms, a solarium that opens on to the beautiful enclosed Pavilion garden and eight overnight non-smoking guest rooms.   more about the Colonnade Club

Karen & Charles Marsh are auctioning one queen bed guest room with private bath on the main floor of the Colonnade Club, handsomely furnished with historically accurate furniture. 

Parking on location at the Club is included. 

Welcome to a new year at the Bonhoeffer House!

A new academic year is arriving in Charlottesville.  The streets are jammed with UHaul trucks unloading, mothers in line at Bed Bath and Beyond,  first year students walking down Rugby Road taking it all in, as upperclassmen bump into friends they haven't seen since May.

It's hopeful, tentative, even overwhelming time as we all take a deep breath and dive into University Year 2013/14.  To ease the anxiety of Move In Day, a incredibly kind group of older students met at the Bonhoeffer House this morning to assemble bags of homemade cookies (thanks to those who baked them!), handwritten notes & colorful flyers listing the offerings at the Bonhoeffer House.  They headed off to dorms to deliver warm welcomes to first year students in their dorms and put a friendly face to the name "Theological Horizons".

All are welcome to the Welcome Lunch next Friday, August 30, from 12 till 2 at the Bonhoeffer House .  Drop in for our picnic favorites---and to hear a few words of encouragement on surviving and thriving in college.

Morning Prayer, which meets in the UVa Chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:15-8:45, begins on September 3.

Vintage, our weekly student lunch with readings from the Christian classics, starts on September 6 from 1-2.

The Breakfast Bible Study for all community members, faculty and students, begins on September 11 from 9-10 am.

Keep an eye on the Theological Horizons Calendar because terrific special events are planned throughout the fall!

Questions! Email us at info@theologicalhorizons.org

We pray for God's abundant blessings on these times together--and upon all that this year holds for us.  Please join us in praying for grace, peace and joy, that God would be glorified.

A summer House concert that refreshes

Tracy Howe Wispelwey brought her unique blend of songwriting, worship and spiritual commitment to the Bonhoeffer House at her first concert in town on Sunday night.  "She's a breath of fresh air to the Charlottesville music scene,"  remarked Greg Gelburd after Tracy's set of acoustic songs. If you missed this summer evening with us, there are sure to be more opportunities to hear her--she's just moved to Charlottesville!  In the meantime, listen to her album, "Hold On To Love", and learn more about Restoration Village Arts, her nonprofit Tracy dedicated to advocacy and community.

Do you want to receive invitations to future events like this one?  Join here.

Summer Salon Evening this Thursday

Join us for a Summer Salon Evening at the Bonhoeffer House at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 18.  This is free and open to all!  Parking is free at the UVa Culbreth Theater Garage. Artist Malcolm Hughes encounters nature as a creation of divine intention and, "like our very bodies, a place of marvelous order and interest."  Read more about the painter.  Embrace summer in a fresh way during the evening of art, ideas, food and invigorating conversation.

Come back for more at the Bonhoeffer House on Sunday evening, July 28, when we host a House Concert with singer-songwriter Tracy Howe Wispelwey.

Movie Night's unlikely pilgrims

From Rev. Saranell Hartman, Assistant Director of Theological Horizons: On a summer evening in Charlottesvillewe gathered at Open Grounds Studio at UVa to watch the ‘The Way’. This movie showcases two themes I love: community & spirituality. When Dr. Tom, played by Martin Sheen, learns that his son has died while trekking around the world, his own journey begins. He decides to complete what his son started El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James).  El Camino is a pilgrimage that takes pilgrims across the top of Spain to a cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.

Pilgrimage was once a common spiritual practice, along with prayer, fasting and retreat. For many years only a few walked El Camino but in recent years 1,000 pilgrims a day receive their “compostela” (certificate of completion). Why such an influx? Pilgrimage requires disconnection of our daily routines our iphones, ipad and lists of appointments and offers connection to humanity and the world. It allures those seeking greater meaning in life.

The movie's website says this: The Camino, by its nature, serves as the ultimate metaphor for life. Footsteps along a well-trodden path may be our guide, but do not shield us from the questions that most of our busy everyday lives prevent us at times from fully recognizing. The road offers very little to hide behind. The process of life is life along whichever road, path, Camino, or Way we find ourselves on. Our humanity toward ourselves and others, our history and our future is what defines us. Take the journey of life. Buen Camino!

Through unexpected and oftentimes amusing experiences along "The Way,"  Dr. Tom discovers the difference between "the life we live and the life we choose.”  The quartet of misfits, each walking ‘the Way’ for a different reason, become a community. Slowly Dr. Tom realizes that he doesn’t walk life’s journey alone- metaphorically or literally. And neither do we!

Would you like to come to more events like this?  Sign up here.

Experiencing Agape

Encounters with Jesus change the lives of each character we studied throughout the Breakfast Bible Study this semester.  Grace is like that.  Grace is what God does for us --  that which we could not do for ourselves.  Grace changes our hearts, souls and minds.  Grace empowers us to live as the people God created us to be.  People created to love: love God, our neighbor and ourselves. Our semester study of 'The Way of Grace' concluded with an Agape meal or love feast.  The feast is a simple, ritual meal.  Hymns are sung, Scripture is read, and testimonies and stories of faith are shared.  John Wesley instituted the Agape meal after the Moravian pattern to symbolize the unity and fellowship of love in Christ.

One of our resident artists, Morgan, shared three original paintings  to accompany each of the three courses. Through color, light and subject, each piece illuminated for us a dimension of grace.

In her memoir, Out of Africa, Isak Dineson wrote, "We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe.  But in our human foolishness and shortsightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite.   For this reason we tremble...But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite."  The pile of bread on the table at the center of the room focused our attention on the abundance of grace that is offered to us in Christ.  It is out of God's abundant grace that we live.  Grace calls us to life.  We are invited to live confidently, trusting in God's presence while we work, play and sleep.  Matthew 6:33-34 says, "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Dallas Willard says, "Grace not only cleanses us (from sin), but it is the fuel that propels us forward as we bring the presence and love of God into the world each day.  As we live for Jesus and bring his love to the world, the kingdom is near."

As followers of Jesus we live by grace.  May God's presence continue to bless and keep us on this journey of ever deepening faith.

THROUGH FRIDAY: Double your donation

GIVE NOW and we'll match it!  Till May 31, every dollar you give to Theological Horizons will be doubled during out MATCHING GIFT CHALLENGE.

Generous challenge donors have pledged $15,000 to match every contribution you make.  Your gift will provide for TWICE the ministry.  So don't miss out!  Take 2 minutes to donate online now.

P.S. Yes, we will match your gifts to the UNIVERSITY of VIRGINIA, too!  Give here.

Spring Institute on Lived Theology, May 22-24

“Theology’s Crippled Imagination” is just one of several subjects to be discussed at a three-day conference next week and hosted by the University of Virginia’s Project on Lived Theology. The project’s goal is to understand the social consequences of religious beliefs, said project director Charles Marsh, a U.Va. professor Religious Studies and founding director of Theological Horizons.

Charles says that the heart of the project’s mission is encouraging younger theologians and scholars of religion to embrace theological life as a form of public responsibility. “Among an emerging generation of teachers, writers and researchers, we are discovering a hunger for the opportunity to reconnect the theological enterprise with lived experience, and it is our privilege to provide a public space in which that task can be pursued.”

This year's conference, “Lived Theology in Method, Style and Pedagogy,” features public lectures by three keynote speakers: Rev. Willie James Jennings, associate professor of theology and black church studies at Duke Divinity School; Rev. Traci C. West, professor of ethics and African-American studies at Drew University Theological School; and Ted A. Smith, assistant professor of preaching and ethics at Candler School of Theology.

All three speakers are accomplished authors. Each will give a free public talk at the Solarium in the UVa Colonnade Club.

An active Baptist minister with research interests including liberation theologies, cultural identities, and anthropology, Willie James Jennings will speak on “Theology’s Crippled Imagination” May 22 at 4 p.m.

Traci West has written extensively on violence against women, racism, clergy ethics, sexuality and other issues of justice in church and society. She will speak May 23 at 9:45 a.m. on “Waging Ethics through Community.”

Ted Smith works at the intersections of practical and political theology, with special attention to the forms preaching and worship take in modern societies. He will speak May 23 at 2 p.m. on “Eschatological Memories of Everyday Life.”

Housed in U.Va.’s Department of Religious Studies, the Project on Lived Theology hosts meetings at U.Va. and in community centers across the country as well as in congregations across the ecumenical spectrum.

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