With the poor and meek and lowly
In his new book “Jesus the Refugee: Ancient Injustice and Modern Solidarity,” D. Glenn Butner Jr. appeals to Christians to see the ignoble reality of the Holy Family's flight to Egypt as a story that keeps repeating in human history and in this morning's news headlines.
This year I am lighting a new Advent candle
This year, I am adding an extra candle to my Advent wreath: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, and Grief. Advent is most commonly known as a season of waiting, but it is also a season of grief.
I put my grief in a suitcase
I’ve lamented my way through my time at Yale Divinity School, crying out in both pain and gratitude because I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and because my grandparents were not there to see me receive my Master of Divinity. I am becoming more fluent in the language of lament, learning its hollow vowels, complex conjugations, and myriad metaphors. And I thank God that God’s still patiently listening for my voice, even when I don’t really want to talk.
Cats and church growth
Just like meeting a cat when they make you break out in hives, meeting people where they live, where they grow, where they love—in the sacred interiority of their homes—is not an endeavor without risk. But it is in these spaces where we move from encountering the world and expanding the reach of Christian community, into what it means to make and build and sustain and nurture the relationships on which a truly redeemed world relies.
The Christians of Gaza
The voice of Palestinian Christians frequently speaks clearly in response to violence and injustice. The present war is no exception. Whether the church around the world listens or not is another question.