The season of Eastertide is the season of resurrection, the season of new life. Arriving at the same time as the emergence of spring, we have all around us evidence that from the cold, hard, seemingly barren ground, astonishing wonders may emerge. Wendell Berry has learned from the earth and offers us his manifesto for practicing resurrection.
Read MoreThe heart of the Christian faith is the hope of new possibilities in the midst of failure and despair. That is the Easter story - that something new and never imagined emerges from the dying out of something known. Enjoy the music of celebration.
Read MoreThe Easter Triduum begins on Maundy Thursday evening, includes Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and ends on on the evening of Easter Day. We are called, through this holy time, to stay steady, to stay awake, to bear the sorrow, to adjust to the darkness, and then, to celebrate all that we do not understand.
Read MoreLent is a time of reflection. Here, to aid in your contemplation - a prayer, a theological video offering with Peter Rollins, two musical offerings, UCC Moderator Richard Bott’s Lenten message and a bumper sticker.
Read MoreSpirituals are uniquely American music, emerging as they do from the African American people who endured slavery. They were people who had their own native African spirituality taken from them, abruptly and violently, as though it were of no account. And then Christianity was forced upon them.
Read MoreThe Crucifixion of Jesus has been a focus for painters throughout the ages. What is depicted reflects the time, place, economics and politics of the painters and the culture in which they reside. Most notably, European artists from the Renaissance on, have painted Jesus, his family and his disciples as Caucasian, when in fact, Jesus was in the middle east, and would have had an ethnicity that reflected his birth place.
Read MoreIt is such a strange landscape to be living in. Everything looks the same, but it's all different. Simple things like shopping have become complicated rituals that need careful orchestration. Simple pleasures like visiting for a morning chat, are bound by rules and rituals we could never have guessed at.
Read MoreWhen we quiet ourselves, and listen to our inner wisdom, we do know how to proceed. We may despair, we may feel low in spirit, we may be sorrowful. But we do have a plan of action. We do know what we are to do. Hold steady. Keep your eyes on God. Keep your arms open to the world. Know you will sometimes be hurt, and keep loving anyway.
Read MoreHonour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. The fifth commandment, on face value, seems simple enough. But you will know that nothing, when it come to matters divine and matters human, is simple. Rich. Deep. Mysterious. Complicated. Yes.
Read MoreAndrew Peterson is a musician, writer, and performer who has offered the world a wide range of music reflecting on the mysteries of the Christian faith. A devoted man, he seeks conversations with the divine through his music, offering up thought provoking lyrics that catch at the hearts.
Read MoreHe weeps, the Centurion, for all he could not see, and when, too late, he realized his error. I weep too, for these many years later, my blindness is just as brutal. I like he am covered in the froth and fleck of the blood of the forgotten and maligned, those left to die alone, affliction branding their spirit with the hot poker of chance . . .
Read MoreEveryone loves the Sunday morning party of Easter – what’s not to love about waking up to a day that celebrates spring and new beginnings, with its playful motif of bunnies and Easter egg hunts, awash in shades of buttery yellow and palest mauve and the hope of some kind of confection before the day is through?
Ah, but the two days that proceed the Easter celebration are another matter.
"Dear Virus, Thank you for shaking us and showing us that we are dependent on something much bigger than we think. Thank you for the humbleness that comes with this realization..." So, begins Riya Soko's extraordinary letter of gratitude to the virus that has turned the world upside down. Here it along with Jennifer Henry’s KAIROS Easter message from 2020 and still powerful today.
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