Bayo Akomolafe, is the chief curator of The Emergence Network, a research inquirey in the otherwise. It asks the questions: What if the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis. Here is his poetic offering: In the morning, you won’t find me here, A Meditation on Blackness.
Read MoreIn the age of the Anthropocene - the time humans have adversely affected the earth - and entrenched politics of whiteness, Bayo Akomolafe brings us face-to-face with our own unresolved ancestry, as it becomes more and more apparent that we are completely entwined with each other and the natural world.
Read MoreIn Rainer Maria Rilke’s seminal collection of poetry, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, the great twentieth-century poet explores the nature of—and his relationship to—God through divinely “received” prayers.
Read MoreThe 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 MoreAmid the on going struggles world wide to find compassion and grace in the midst of violence, Christians celebrate the power of courage and love in the midst of adversity and hatred. Good Friday is a challenging day, for a struggling, yet still beautiful world.
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 MoreContemplation, in its simplest analysis, is the spiritual arena that lies beyond our own personal efforts, where knowledge exists that cannot be obtained through the well worn pathways of intellectual acquisition.
Read MoreWe stretch our wings, head thrown back in the effort it takes to open ourselves to all that might be, not knowing whose fingertips we will touch in the aching desire to connect with another.
Read MoreWendell Berry is an American farmer, writer, environmentalist, poet and general all around man who wishes all of us to calm down and explore what we don’t know. His very short poem ‘To know the dark’ has been often quoted. It is a short poem that encourages the contemplation of the unknown.
Read MoreThe hymn "This Day God Gives Us" has a wonderful lyric that draws us into a meditation of the moment, a gratitude for all things, and the safety of the divine embrace. It is a modern take on the ancient Celtic writing St. Patrick's Breastplate.
Read MoreAs people of the way we need to be able take into account many parts of an argument or situation, to have a voice that can hold two opposing ideas at once, without feeling the need to choose one against the other. It is a voice that is more interesting in nurturing than opposing, more interested in discovering than demanding, a voice that is more interested in serving, than oppressing. Jesus was such a voice. And it is a challenging one.
Read MoreThose who are already facing health challenges, mental, physical or a combination of both, can feel overwhelmed. And even those with no apparent struggles can feel less grounded in the midst of the fluidity that is the current landscape. It may be wise to say that 'the only way forward is through.' But the through is not always a saunter through the flower filled meadow. Nevertheless, we persist.
It is hard to imagine where everything is headed - except to know that we are living in an uncertain time - and that living in the day, confining our thoughts to what - and who - we have in front of us is paramount. It is the ultimate spiritual discipline.
It is perhaps a time to remember, most of all, that though we can control the smaller, intimate moments in our lives and in our hearts, the larger arena of the universe is not within our control.
It 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 MoreThe world with all its delights, and sorrows, pushes and pulls us in many different directions. We tend to think that we are having to choose always, between good and bad. But this is not so. We are simply called to choose one way or another way, and often the choices are between two equally good things. How then will we know which path is the one to follow?
Read MoreWhen we look into the face of the other, truly look, we see them in all their vulnerability, in their unique beauty, in their richness of thought, their complexity. We see how easy it is to kill them in the many, many ways we can do this, and we see that they are asking that we do not.
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 MoreWars tear families apart, diseases rage, storms whip water into sheets of terror, and still, and yet, here is wondrous paradox: the great mystery we dare to name, holds us in tenderest caress, and like the sunʼs gentle warmth coaxing unripe fruit into the fullness of being, rocks us with divine dreams and whispers our true essence, pressing its heart upon us,
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.
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