Shaun Groves and Skye Jethani get it right … about Christmas anger
If you're going to get angry, it helps to have a worthwhile reason.
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Countdown Day 53
If our quest is a betrayal, it is only the most faithful kind of betrayal: a betrayal of the actualities of the past and present to seize the future possibilities toward which they reached. (18)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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Reflections on the President’s Oslo speech, Part 1
The President's campaign speech in Philadelphia on race and his speech earlier this year to the Muslim world from Egypt were, in my mind, two of the most important presidential speeches of my lifetime. I had tears streaming down my face as I watched the former, and was so moved I could hardly speak after the latter. His more recent Oslo speech, given as he received the Nobel Peace prize, also struck me as important, even though I hope that someday the President himself will come to differ with some of its content. (More after the jump.)
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Pregnancy, birth, and a new kind of Christianity … part 2
Another beautiful reflection offered here ... Especially quotable:
... A woman giving birth is preceded by a woman being pregnant. Pregnancy and Advent are alike in enough ways to consider Advent like a little pregnancy for all of us to go through together. As we are waiting for the Human One, we would be working to make the way for the One to come … the One who in turns makes the way for all of us. Which means we are all really making the way for all of us … if we keep Love central.
Pregnancy … so much happens under cover of flesh and in darkness, out of sight but not out of touch or out of mind. It was so clear to me that I was not in charge of what was happening; and yet I did not feel powerless or helpless. I felt an intimacy with mystery that went hand in hand with heartburn and growing girth and hormonal roller-coasters … physical and emotional and – when I let it – spiritual connection.
Advent becomes a way to revisit all of that, intentionally, learning from those memories and the way I feel them connecting to the seasons around me now. My life – in this season – feels pregnant with what is to come: next year’s work and worship and what I will try not to worry about, but just live into.
The days grow short. The light grow dim. The animals hunker down. The wind rises. The stars sharpen. I hear the intake of breath. A Story is about to begin … and hope spirals up in me, like tender fists and knees running along the inside of my belly. Mysterious … tangible … unseen … undeniable.
Thanks so much for these reflections on pregnancy, Advent, and "hope spiraling up." If you'd like to send a link to your reflection ... you can do so via info@brianmclaren.net
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Countdown Day 54
It’s time for a new quest, launched by new questions, a quest across denominations around the world, a quest for new ways to believe and new ways to live and serve faithfully in the way of Jesus, a quest for a new kind of Christian faith. (18)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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