A Thankful Tuesday List: Two candles lit on the Advent wreath. Quiet morning coffee in the light of the Christmas tree. The Playmobile Nativity Mary and Lightning McQueen going for a ride in the Spy Plane together. My four Pandora stations that basically tell you everything you need to know about me: Dave Barnes Holiday, Amy Grant Holiday, Veggietales Holiday, and Sufjan Stevens Holiday. (Judge if you dare!) Christmas cards and the sweet way they insist you update your address list (it's … [Read more...]
Star
December 2, 2011 By 30 Comments
Star “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” -Revelation 12:1 “…keep warm this small hot naked star/ fallen into my arms.” -Luci Shaw, “Mary’s Song” After the angel dissolved, I stood among the skies, clothed not in spun linen, but in fire: the sun’s silk my gown. I leaned into the swirl of gold and lit. Have I created my Creator? My … [Read more...]
World AIDS Day: Turn it Red
December 1, 2011 By 4 Comments
Ten years ago, as a 22 year-old, I returned home from one month in Kenya and South Africa. That month I studied African cultures and religions, Liberation Theology, and generally got my mind blown by a Baptist theologian in Nairobi who looked like Yoda. Dr Waruta spoke things to me that I'm still processing. He planted the seeds in my heart that have led to almost every theological shift I've embraced in the past ten years. The depth of his wisdom allowed me to realize that even though I felt … [Read more...]
To my Mary icon, in preparation for Advent
November 18, 2011 By 6 Comments
Mary, you’re always sad, looking at me from the corner of my desk, your son with his arms wrapped around your neck, his fingers spread and grasping your skin, his face pressed up to your cheek. You are always sad and he is always concerned. Look how he hugs you, one tiny pre-Renaissance-little-man-hand caressing your chest. His eyes lifted toward yours, as if he knows. (Of course he knows, you say.) You, in your robe of black, marked by two flowers, one over your heart, one over your mind … [Read more...]
{Practicing Benedict} The God who comes
November 2, 2011 By 6 Comments
Welcome to Mama:Monk’s weekly Wednesday series examining St. Benedict’s Rule and what it has meant to me as a stay at home mom. (Full disclosure! I’m no expert on Benedict or the Benedictine Order. I just love him/them and can’t seem to stop reading books that have “Benedictine” in the title.) In my former life I traveled with the ease of a butterfly. Alighting here and there, I never needed much recovery when I moved from one spot to another. We flew home yesterday so … [Read more...]
Savior of the Nations, Come
December 22, 2010 By 3 Comments
For my last post of the Advent season, I'll leave you with this lovely Advent hymn. I hope that your Christmas is full of wonder and beauty and hope. I'll check back in with you next week. Until then, Merry Christmas! Savior of the Nations, Come Savior of the nations come, Show yourself, the virgin's son. Marvel heaven, wonder earth, That our God chose such a birth. Not by human power or seed Did the woman's womb conceive; Only by the Spirit's breath Was the Word of God made flesh. Mary then … [Read more...]
On Mary: Faith and Doubt
December 20, 2010 By 11 Comments
Whenever I spend time reading the biblical story of Mary, the mother of Christ, I imagine her to be like me, a sincere believer who can still find a way to doubt, to say yes, then run. This Advent season, I haven’t been able to get past Mary’s doubt. It’s not that I can ever know she was a doubter, it’s just that I sort of hope she was. The more I know Jesus the more I grasp my need for what John chapter one calls “grace and truth,” a spiritual rescuing of those of us (all of us) who … [Read more...]
Christ’s Mother Reflects, His Childhood
December 17, 2010 By 4 Comments
Each day this week, I'll be sharing from a series of five Advent poems I wrote for John Knox Presbyterian Church in Seattle. I hope they will bless you as you prepare for the coming of Christmas. Christ’s Mother Reflects, His Childhood “and for him to see me mended / I must see him torn.” -Luci Shaw “Mary’s Song” He stood at the door, wet-faced and panting. in his hands three baby birds. They’re hungry, he sniffed, nested them in a bowl with grass, fed … [Read more...]
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