December 2
…what redemption is. I certainly tend to imagine redemption—a new heaven and a new earth—coming at the end of a steady process of healing, fixing, and polishing. But we are about to celebrate a baby being born right into the mess of things. God didn’t wait until everyone got healed of all their trauma and miraculously kicked all their less-than-perfect…
December 20
When I first read this passage, it seemed at odds with abolition—watchmen on city walls? Right there in the first verse? But I remembered something a friend told me about how the image of a city is turned on its head in Revelation, which is itself a future vision of flourishing for the city. The New Jerusalem has walls,…
November 28-Disarming Visions
…and among us. Disarmed by prophetic visions of swords turned into plowshares, empower us to turn poisonous clouds and destructive fire into pillars of love and justice, so that through our work of abolition, they may lead us, like your people of old, out of slavery and into freedom. Amen. Artwork: “Disarm” by Yohana Junker (discover more at: https://www.yohanajunker.com/)…
Banned Books Blessing
…of God is dimmed. Without these books, our encounters with the amazing diversity of creation are incomplete, and our capacity for compassion across difference is stymied. Our love of God is limited because we do not have the chance to recognize all the ways the divine image is manifest in our world. We believe that banned books have a special…
December 17
…our hearts to visions of justice and safety beyond policing, enlarge our hearts to hold ever-widening circles of concern and solidarity, compel our hearts to connect our flourishing to the flourishing of our siblings everywhere. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen. Freedom Song Music: “Courage, My Friend” by Eric Bogle…
December 13
…placed keeps my chest restricted, I’ve never had a moment where my breath was so deep and satisfying. How loud can I celebrate with this newfound depth of breath? I’ve waited anxiously, even before I knew how to ask for what I needed. It came in little pieces until my body was truly mine – The fears and microaggressions, the…
Trans Justice is Racial Justice Toolkit
…between racial justice and trans justice by centering the voices of BIPOC trans, queer, and non-binary people and learning from their practices of intersectional justice-making how we all might join together to move toward the world of equity, love and compassion that God intends for us. This toolkit offers resources, practices, actions and worship ideas for intersectional solidarity honoring TDOV….
December 7
…reproductive care they have discerned, journeying with them toward freedom. Jesus would have us sit in grief with those who have lost community and family members to violence at the hands of the system that is supposed to protect and serve them, mourning with them toward healing. Enriched, equipped and yet still waiting, we are called to be partners in…
December 3 - So That We Might Have Hope
…with healing and mercy. Root us in your word that births a “hope not made of wishes but of substance, hope made of sinew and muscle and bone,” so that we might move in the pathways of restoration not punishment, of transformation not retribution. In advent hope we pray. Amen. Artwork: “Hope” by Yohana Junker (discover more at: https://www.yohanajunker.com/)…
December 19 - Here Am I
…of Creation and all that the Woman-born One comes to abolish. Prayer For co-creating hope, here am I. For a more just world, here am I. For envisioning freedom, here am I. For birthing Love and Transformation, here am I. Let it be with me according to your word. Amen. Artwork: “Consent” by Yohana Junker (discover more at: https://www.yohanajunker.com/)…