Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Christian Spirituality

Twelfth Night: Reflections on Epiphany 2016

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality

This guest post is by Jill Crainshaw.

Twelfth Night is upon us,[1] the eve of Epiphany when we remember how magi from Persia followed to Jesus’ birthing place an unusual God-flung orb of light that appeared in the heavens. The word “epiphany” means “manifestation” or “a striking appearance.”

In the U.S., Epiphany provides a time after the scramble of holiday shopping and parties to focus on the refreshing surprise of God-with-us in the birth of Jesus. What does manifestation of God in Jesus mean in a world where so many fear for their lives, where too many innocents are slaughtered? How are we who live in the face of such hard realities to incarnate Incarnation?

What if we decide on this Twelfth Night that God-with-us means God-in-us—in what we do each day to insist on justice and peace in our homes and neighborhoods and beyond?

Post-Christmas daylight reveals yet again the knots and snarls of our everyday lives. We have work to do to make real in all seasons and throughout each day the cascading possibilities promised during the Christmas season of illuminated nights. God is with us. Thanks be to God. Now—on to the work to which God calls us.

Star-watchers.
Eyes wide opened
by what they see
in backyard night skies,
a dream and a LED-bright star their GPS,
“Bearing gifts they traverse afar”
to investigate
explore
consider.

Then—eyes wide opened
by what they see–
re-routed,
home by another way.

Ah, the peculiarity of Christmastide epiphanies:
shepherds
cows… [Read more…] about Twelfth Night: Reflections on Epiphany 2016

Advent Four:  Do You Hear What I Hear?

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality

This guest post by Jill Crainshaw is based on the Gospel lectionary reading for Advent 4, Luke 1:39-56.

Snow falls. Gently. Lights twinkle in houses festive with welcoming wreathes. Santa and eight tiny reindeer alight on a snow-softened roof. Enchanted. Perfect.

“Bah Humbug!”

Those were Robin’s words as she opened that year’s Christmas gift to discover–the snow globe. A holiday scene trapped in a watery sphere. “What does a 50-year-old woman do with a snow globe? You look at it, and then what?”

Robin had no room for one more thing to look at. Her house was too full of stuff. Her life too complicated. Her time too cluttered with grown-up realities. She packed the snow globe back into its box and shoved it onto a top shelf in a closet.

But don’t we sometimes long for a snow globe Christmas? Smiling people strolling down cheerful sidewalks. Just the right amount of snow to hide imperfections without shutting down streets. A lovely Christmas contained in a predictable scene. Oh, the extremes some of us have gone to at times to create that perfect Christmas, and what disappointments have befallen us.

I think we are tempted to see the Nativity story as a series of picturesque snow globe scenes too. Joseph in a well-organized carpentry shop working with gently used Harbor Freight tools. Shepherds on a verdant hillside, startled by the angels that Christmas night, but not too much. A baby born in a barn kissed by the glow of heaven’s brightest… [Read more…] about Advent Four:  Do You Hear What I Hear?

Advent Three: Rejoice?

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality, Poetry

“Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4).  “Sing for joy!” (Isaiah 12).

With these words, ancient biblical voices call us to joy on the third Sunday in Advent.

The Latin term for this week in the season of Advent is “Gaudete” or “Rejoice,” and on this Sunday many churches follow the historic practice of lighting a rose-hued candle of joy instead of the penitential purple or anticipatory blue candles of the other three Sundays.

I have been thinking in recent days that perhaps this Advent we should forego Rejoice Sunday. The world is too weary with violence and pain. Indeed, what manner of rejoicing even rings true as we strike a match and touch its flame to the joy candle on this year’s wreath?

My friend’s 75th birthday celebration made me stop and reconsider my decision to snuff out the joy candle. Party-goers were asked to write my friend a poem or blessing. As I thought about this request, I realized that my friend’s life itself is both blessing and poem, for she has done what she could over her years of living to be kind, not just during the idyllic weeks of quixotic Christmas snow globes, but for the season that is her lifetime, even during times when life was anything but kind to her.

Thinking about my friend’s 75 years of weeks and days of learning by doing how to be a kind and caring human being has made me reconsider the meaning of that rose-hued candle on the Advent wreath. A world weighed down by fear and grief needs gifts of kindness. We may even be… [Read more…] about Advent Three: Rejoice?

Advent Two: Longing for Sunlight and Song

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality, Poetry

The songs and images of the Advent and Christmas season stir in many people a longing for peace and good will. But peace is hard to come by these days. Instead, violent world realities incite fear.

How can a fear-wearied world rejoice with songs of hope? How do we keep fear from taking over and destroying our capacity to love and care for each other and our neighbors with open hearts and minds?

The admonition to “fear not” appears often in Advent lectionary readings. Angels materialize at unexpected times to urge Mary, Joseph, and shepherds on a hillside not to be afraid as unfamiliar and fearful things happen in their lives. The “fear nots” of these familiar nativity scenes sing out to us in beloved Christmas carols, and children enact them in annual church Christmas plays. The Advent and Christmas season is a time to consider what we fear and to be aroused by God’s fear not.

The Canticle of Zechariah, a lectionary reading from Luke 1 for the second Sunday of Advent, also sings about the power of fear and the mysteries of God’s call to “be not afraid.” In this ancient story, Zechariah is startled when an angel announces to him that his wife, Elizabeth, is to birth a son in her aging years. His skepticism becomes speechlessness.  Zechariah is silent for many weeks, until his and Elizabeth’s child—John the Baptizer—is born and his silence gives way to a fear-not song of freedom and fearless worship. This poem-prayer for the Second Sunday in Advent is based on Zechariah’s… [Read more…] about Advent Two: Longing for Sunlight and Song

Advent One: Longing

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality

In my church this Sunday, we will begin the Advent season by hearing biblical texts crafted by writers who longed for God’s presence. The Gospel text for the first Sunday in Advent this year, Luke 21:25-36, speaks of “distress among the nations.” Jeremiah imagines justice, righteousness, and safety in hurting lands (33:14-16). These texts speak to us across the years with great urgency. Almost daily in my newsfeed, I read of distress among nations and peoples, and along with Jeremiah I imagine—hope for—justice and safety for people whose fearful eyes search the skies not for stars but for bombs. So the season of Advent begins–with too many people across the globe seeking refuge from the symbolic and literal “roaring of sea and waves” (Lk. 21:25). Advent begins.

Bright flames dance in the distance
somewhere on down the path.
We are eager for the light,
for toes warmed up by a friendly fire
after walking
too many wintry miles.

But for now, one candle only,
an illuminating snippet
to see us through
until the spark catches and the fire grows.

God of First Light,
Stir in us a yearning
to hear with gentle ears
the stories of others
who stumble with us
upon this just-lit Advent fire.

Send to us for these dim days
flashes of insight.
Light a new torch to animate humanity’s treacherous search
for this thing we call truth.
Keep us from harboring
evidence of things not seen
in the limited glow of a single flame.
Arouse longing for wisdom and beauty
that await recognition
beyond the… [Read more…] about Advent One: Longing

It's All About How We See

by Chuck Queen in Christian Spirituality

See what you see. This is the meaning of a Jesus saying in the Gospel of Thomas,
Jesus said, “Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed” (Logion 5, trans. by Marvin Meyer).
Not long ago I went into the kitchen to fix a piece of toast for breakfast. I opened the pantry door and looked in the basket where we keep the bread. No bread. So I looked around in the pantry. Couldn’t find it. I opened the cabinet where we keep the cereal. It wasn’t there. So I did what many people do. I blamed someone. I’m thinking, “Ok, where did my wife put the bread?” In the meanwhile I cracked my boiled egg, peeled it, and as I tossed the last piece of shell in the trash, I glanced around in the pantry one more time and guess what? There was the bread. Guess where it was? In the basket where it was supposed to be. So how did I miss it? How did I not see what I was obviously looking at it?

While this may be a rare kind of experience in the physical world, in the spiritual world it happens all the time. We tend to see reality as we are, not as it really is.

Consider how two Christians can read the same biblical text and interpret it not only in different ways, but opposite ways. We all know how the Bible has been used to support slavery, violence, patriarchy, oppression, elitism, nationalism, bigotry, etc.

In the hands of an unenlightened, unloving person even the most… [Read more…] about It's All About How We See

A Progressive Baptism on the Banks of the Chicago River

by Christian Chiakulas in Christian Spirituality

Recently, on an almost unreasonably beautiful November day, I baptized my daughter in the Chicago River. Certain elements of my extended family had been nagging me throughout my daughter’s first year on planet Earth to do so, despite my lack of a formal denomination, “In case anything happens.”

What they meant could not be clearer. They were afraid that if some terrible accident befell my daughter and she passed away, she would be consigned to hell or purgatory because of her lack of baptism.

Growing up and into my teens I had thought of baptism as a sort of insurance policy; babies are too young to accept Jesus as their savior, so baptism is a way to do it for them – just in case.

I no longer think of baptism this way, mostly because I refuse to accept the notion of a God who would damn babies to hell (or purgatory) because they never had the chance for an old man to sprinkle water over their head. Consequently I did not plan at first to even bother with baptizing my daughter.

But still, something about it nagged at me. One of the things we can be most sure of about Jesus is that he was baptized by John before the beginning of his own ministry. If it was good enough for Jesus, who am I to argue?

Of course, all the doctrine about hell and purgatory is post-Biblical, post-Jesus. What did baptism actually mean to Jesus, to John?

Mark (the earliest gospel) says, almost at the very beginning of his story, “John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism… [Read more…] about A Progressive Baptism on the Banks of the Chicago River

Why I Pray

by in Christian Spirituality

I pray. I pray a lot, my first words upon waking as my feet touch down on the gray wool carpet. If I forget, I lift them up again, in a do-over of gratitude. Thank you. Thank you, God. At 50, I take no day for granted. Then I stumble into the hushed temple of morning where I worship alone, in silence, while my husband and two teens sleep, more devoted to the gods of the midnight hours.

Sometimes I pray while the hot water flows over earthy grounds in that first communion with coffee each day, my prayers held up like a shield against worry for my son and his math test, (let him do well); for my daughter in her evening soccer game, (keep her safe); for my husband’s therapy client whose name I can’t know, only that she didn’t want to live yesterday, on an autumn day as glorious as God.

I push the plunger on the French press, the resistance of water as familiar as my own around religion. Then I turn to look out the kitchen window at the silhouette of the tamarack tree, branches joined in the sky in a perpetual stance of prayer. I hold myself in stillness, in the fading vapors of my wishes turned words turned breath again before it goes, where? Where does it go, this improvised poetry of spirit that asks nothing of me, beyond belief?

Growing up, my sister and I were taught belief through the weekly mass, mostly tedious except when we stood and solemnly spoke, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” Words so easy that I felt a flicker of belonging to that… [Read more…] about Why I Pray

Why Are There Tears in Heaven?

by in Christian Spirituality

“And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev 21:4, NIV)

I’ve always wondered why there would be tears in heaven. The only reason I could imagine, amidst what I believe will be unimaginable beauty and celebration, was that someone I loved on earth wasn’t there.

But now I have new reasons. I recently participated in the Why Christian 2015 conference. This event, organized by recognized authors and speakers Nadia Bolz-Weber and Rachel Held Evans, brought 1,000 men and women to listen and respond to this question: Why, in the wake of centuries of corruption, hypocrisy, crusades, televangelists, and puppet ministries do we continue to follow Jesus? Why, amidst all the challenges and disappointments, do we still have skin in the game? And while that event gave me too much to ponder to summarize in one column, it did give me three reasons for tears in heaven.

First, the event was held in the historic St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis. Built in 1858, this beautiful, traditional church contained stained glass windows, stone carvings, pews, prayer rooms, and a library rich with wood carvings and filled with books. Where did we lose the idea that a church should reflect the awesome majesty of the glory of God. Moses instructed the people in how to build a temple that was an earthly copy of a divine reality (Exodus 25:8-9, 40). The sight of this… [Read more…] about Why Are There Tears in Heaven?

What Must I Believe to Be a Christian?

by Christian Chiakulas in Christian Spirituality

When somebody claims the title “Christian” for themselves, whether they are progressive or conservative or another “-ive,” chances are you can infer at least a few of their beliefs.

They believe that Jesus was God, that is almost beyond question; they probably also believe that Jesus – the “Son” – is one aspect of the Holy Trinity, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. They probably believe that Jesus died for the sins of humankind, and also that the Christian Bible is in at least some respect the Word of God. There’s a good chance they believe that Jesus was conceived by a virgin, that he performed miracles, and that he rose from the dead (again, in at least some respect) after three days.

Christians can argue doctrine and dogma, orthodoxy versus orthopraxy, the importance of Paul’s letters, whether the New Testament has precedence over the Old, and many other disputes, but the things I mentioned above are relatively secure. They are, in a sense, what separates Christians from people of other faiths or creeds who happen to admire Jesus, like Gandhi, or secular humanists who think the Sermon on the Mount just happens to encompass the best of human morality.

Recently I was involved in a religio-political debate with a distant family member I rarely see, and when things began to get heated, he ended the conversation with a pointed, “Well, as long as we can agree that Jesus was God, that he was born of a virgin, that he died on the cross for our sins, and that he rose… [Read more…] about What Must I Believe to Be a Christian?