The subversive, confrontational, emboldening stories of Christmas {Part Two}

Last updated on: March 16, 2023 at 7:34 am By Tricia Gates Brown

{Perhaps my favorite thing about this season is reminding readers (and myself) how subversive are the Christmas stories. Before reading this column, I suggest you read Part One HERE.} The Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke[1] served as preludes, or overtures, to those gospels. They encapsulated in miniature the “good news” of the larger piece and are the lens through which to read it. For readers living under the weight of imperial violence, including systematic economic and religious oppression, spying,... Read more

The subversive, confrontational, emboldening stories of Christmas {Part One}

Last updated on: March 16, 2023 at 7:34 am By Tricia Gates Brown

Perhaps my favorite thing about this season is reminding readers (and myself) how subversive are the Christmas stories. Among global literature, they stand out as baldly subversive and anti-imperial while at the same time being neutralized. The gospel writers of Matthew and Luke (the only canonical gospels with birth narratives) each in their own way set up a stark confrontation between Jesus and the Roman Caesars, of all things—something no first-century reader would have failed to recognize or to understand... Read more

The Cult of Thinness

Last updated on: March 16, 2023 at 7:34 am By Tricia Gates Brown

{This is a particularly vulnerable column. But in the sense that the deeply personal can sometimes be the most universal, it may resonate. Note, if you find talk of weight triggering, please accept this as a warning.} Confession: I have incredibly disordered thinking around body image and weight. It comes from culture, family, programming. My disordered thinking is particularly clear when I’m slated to see certain people I haven’t seen in some time, who will notice I’ve put on weight.... Read more

Upside-down: Four questions as we ponder the metaphor ‘king’

Last updated on: March 16, 2023 at 7:34 am By Tricia Gates Brown

Whenever we talk about God, or the incarnational role of Jesus, we use metaphors. The God who created a universe so beyond our understanding our heads explode trying to understand—this God can only be known by metaphor. And what Jesus might mean as representative of this God is equally head-exploding. God and Jesus are in many ways indescribable. Metaphors are how we talk about things that are indescribable. We compare the indescribable thing to something familiar and easy to understand... Read more

What makes us unstoppable? We tell stories.

Last updated on: November 12, 2022 at 1:33 pm By Tricia Gates Brown

First, a few years back, Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens (2014) enthralled me. Now he’s got a new book out. While I’ve not yet read Unstoppable Us, How Humans Took Over the World, I enjoyed hearing him talk about it on a favorite podcast: ‘The Gray Area with Sean Illing.’ Harari makes some similar assertions in these books, namely that humans have transcended other species because—of all things—we were able to pass on great stories. Sacred stories. Shared stories. Basically,... Read more

Have you ever had a bad goodbye? Offer yourself compassion.

Last updated on: November 5, 2022 at 6:56 am By Tricia Gates Brown

An overheard conversation brought to mind a deeply regrettable goodbye. The memory stings, as such memories do; but unlike past times when I have buckled, winced, and looked away at the memory, I wanted this time to have compassion in the recalling. I wonder if we all need this: to return to regrets with the practiced eye of self-compassion. After all, I was 23 years old at the time—barely a fully functioning adult, even if I did already have a... Read more

All Saints’ Day: The continuum of life and death

Last updated on: November 1, 2022 at 6:22 pm By Tricia Gates Brown

Because today is All Saints’ Day, I’m remembering my best friend who died just over a year ago—a Trappist monk for sixty-plus years, with whom I’d been close for 20 years. I miss him. Since his death, I’ve thought more about the afterlife than ever before, and its caused me to ponder more the ancient Christian celebrations of All Saints’ Eve (All Hallows Eve or Halloween), All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day—which stem from belief in enduring bonds between... Read more

Who you love determines what you believe

Last updated on: October 30, 2022 at 5:44 am By Tricia Gates Brown

Lately I’ve stumbled on materials about why we believe what we believe. Those who study such things find that our beliefs have little to do with reasoning or logic. This is a bit discouraging, because we want to believe our core beliefs are logical and based on reason. But the fact is, we adopt our beliefs from those we love and trust. Only then do we seek out ways to rationalize those beliefs. Beliefs are essentially born out of relationship,... Read more

You can start with compassion: On Abortion and nuance

Last updated on: October 27, 2022 at 7:41 am By Tricia Gates Brown

I take particular care when writing about abortion because the issue is not black and white. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be the most contentious topic of public debate in our country, and people wouldn’t hold the nuanced views they do. The fact is, the majority of Americans do have views that are nuanced—not black and white. According to 2022 Pew Research statistics, a majority of Americans (61%) believe abortion should be legal, with some perimeters; only about 37%... Read more

9 Ways Humans Can Know and Understand God

Last updated on: October 27, 2022 at 6:54 am By Tricia Gates Brown

To what extent can humans know and understand God? a reader asks. In answering, I start at the beginning. These 9 ways are not prioritized, but they do move from the first to the second half of life and the thread of incarnation runs through them. Everything we experience of God is embodied, en-fleshed. Even our contemplative reverberations occur in the cells our spirits inhabit on this Earth. This reality, this fact of human existence, is appreciated by all traditions... Read more