Un bebé, dentro de un útero, esperando nacer. Dos padres, solteros, buscando algún lugar, porque María sentía que su cuerpo se contraía. Mientras el imperio no lanzaba bombas sobre Mary, peligrosos soldados del imperio acechaban, hablando de la urgencia y la necesidad de una ubicación, para ella y el bebé.
Read MoreA Western perspective on Advent focuses on individualism – reinforces existing structures; it ignores the reality of social structures, reducing structural problems to personal problems. Mary couldn’t find a place to give birth. Yes, the villagers were selfish, but the system also made it normal to perpetrate against an oppressed people, even a mother in active labor.
Read MoreIt has been a year of recognizing deep systemic injustice, longing for change and questioning, “Who are we to be with one another? How are we to be with one another?” Advent is about waiting, gestational waiting. Who are your role models for expectant waiting to birth something long overdue?
This Advent season, perhaps it’s time to sing a new song? Let it begin with me.
Read MoreIn this Advent season, I’m continuing to name my longing, inviting Jesus to come and watching for Him. Maybe He’ll arrive like a Christmas carol carried on the wind, a sweet scent in the air, or a star in the East. However He comes, I’ll be waiting and watching.
Read MoreThe thought of Christmas brings me both joy and grief. Every. Single. Year. And every single year I pull out Christmas music and gravitate to “Oh Holy Night” by Mariah Carey. As a teenager, I discovered her Christmas album and had one of those ancient cassette tapes - connected to a wire - connected to my CD player. Am I even remembering that right? It was a sort-of-conversion device to play compact discs in my car. (That’s a clue to just how old I am.)
Read MoreAs I sit here trying to let my flame of joy live, I wonder about this. My rational brain and therapist in me say, “Yes, we hold the tensions of this world, we hold our various emotions and experiences together.” But my body and my heart are skeptical, possibly even scared, unsure if it’s safe. Safe for what you may ask? Safe to believe God is all who She says She is and I am who She says I am. Safe to be in my body as I feel the goodness of God and not fear disappointment, death, and it ending. Safe to take up space. Safe to believe that it’s okay to find rest and relief in my joy.
Read MoreMary, can you beckon us back to Advent in its’ truest form?
This year needs more than a forest of lights draped over stiff buildings.
It needs more than cheerful Christmas melodies.
Read MoreEven the restful aroma of a plucked tree’s pine and mint
Cannot swallow such vast lament,
It’s despair that hangs in the air.
And there was evening and morning the first day. Who am I to say
That a God who bends down low
Who drinks deep,
deep of my sorrow
Never hoped for a better tomorrow?
Read MoreDuring this pandemic we have been waiting, struggling with political heaviness, the loss of loved ones and the carelessness of others… but through it all, hope continues!
Read MoreDurante esta pandemia hemos esperado, siendo testigos de tiempos difíciles y pesadez política, la perdida de seres queridos y el descuido de otros… pero durante todo eso, lo que continua es la esperanza!
Read MoreAs we look back on the most memorable moments in our lives, we look back with joy and celebration. We try to recall the things that make us feel good and forgot the things that don’t. During this Advent season, what do you think it would be like if you intentionally focused on the less than pleasant memories in your past to gain new insight about yourself?
Read MoreThe dark days of winter stretch from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Cloudy skies force the sun to take cover. I feel alone. Slow home-school mornings compete with news feeds of election season anxiety, and air thick with virus. Although I see the faces of four eager-to-please children, I know the weight of their isolation in my chest.
Jesus, I declare, “Come.”
Read MoreRead MoreI set my Bible next to the puzzle, wondering if there was an arc that would hold me and my family from the impending flood. Days later, after my therapist handed me a yellow sticky note with 4 names of potential next therapists, I just stared. She’d made the call to get me into the hospital, and days before Thanksgiving, sat me down and told me to look for a new therapist. I really needed help, and I would be best served elsewhere.
Read MoreWild fierce announcing
Not the light witness of light
Anxiety gone
Read MoreNot unusually, I am sitting in the living room, writing. It’s 5:30 a.m. My 10 year old girl plops down by my side, reading her novel, and listening to the morning news with me. The day isn’t off and running, yet. We enjoy quiet morning moments, interrupted most often by two Labrador retrievers wrestling.
Read MoreAdvent’s exiles rarely sit in chairs at churches, or enter meaningful conversations with people wearing “What Would Jesus Do” bracelets. Advent’s exiles gather in homes to watch football, laugh at themselves, make cookies for neighbors, often speak English and another language, watch political news because it’s personal. Mostly, Advent’s exiles work hard, put their noses to the grind to make ends meet, and find time for family.
Read MoreWild hope dares me to keep believing, lean in. It is the “John the Baptist” kind of wild. I throw prayers, dreams, visions back to God, asking for answers, peace, and justice. I imagine John the Baptist, bearded, eyes alert, bearing witness to culture, anticipating a new way of living. He paces, dreaming – speaking – driven by calling. Yeah, that’s the same category of wild, I think.
