I got off the bus and a woman asked me if I had a light. I replied, “No, sorry.” She responded with, “God didn’t make anything sorry!” I said thank you. I kind of liked that.
Philadelphia
It’s Still Easter: a Theology of Color [photo sermon]
This week’s WordPress Photo theme is “Color“. Rather than simply writing about different pictures I’ve taken, I’m instead trying to write “photo sermons” based on these topics. In these posts, I want to try and use the photo itself as my “text”–trying to see how God reveals himself in his “other” book, in addition to the Bible.
In our last photo sermon, I talked about how I love that Easter comes around Spring time and so the natural world beautifully reflects the spiritual truth being celebrated. Also in line with this truth is the fact that Easter–just like Spring–is not just one day–it’s an entire season in the Church calendar.
It takes time for beauty and truth to get into and blossom within our souls. It takes preparation and anticipation for the roots of our hearts to quicken like the trees around us–to feel life coursing in them once more.
This is beautiful. And it doesn’t need to be this way.
Continue reading
Bad News: I live across the street from the best coffee shop in America [casual fri]
Bad news for my wallet, that is.
Yesterday Philly.com reported that food website The Daily Meal announced that they had found Ultimo Coffee to be the best coffee shop in the country.
(Annoyingly, you have to sit through their slideshow of the 32 runners-up before getting to the Ultimo feature. So, in my opinion, you’re better off clicking the Philly.com article.)
Anyway, people that know me know that I’m kind of a coffee snob, and I can honestly say that I really do love Ultimo Coffee. I even giddily posted on this blog when I knew their second location, conveniently located across the street from my house, was about to open.
It’s an amazing shop with amazing people, atmosphere, and of course, coffee. I’m proud to be on a first name basis with most of the baristas and the owner (as well as secretly being the Foursquare mayor of that location). It’s certainly my favorite shop in the country. It’s great to see them rightfully being recognized.
If you live in Philly, I can’t encourage you enough to go to one of their two locations. If you’ve never had it before, I’d be more than happy to buy you your first cup. I’ve had the honor of doing so for many friends.
Go Philly coffee scene!
Palm Sunday: Future-Tense [photo sermon]
Continuing WordPress’ uncanny timing of photo challenges with the Christian Church calendar, this week’s theme is “Future-Tense“. In essence, they’re wanting pictures that anticipate something to come; something that’s being waited for; some future thing who’s presence is felt in the picture, even in its absence.
This is most appropriate today, as it’s Palm Sunday of 2013.
It takes some real significance for an event from the Bible to find itself as a major Church Holiday. Considering that, it can be odd that Palm Sunday is one of these: there’s nothing really unprecedented or special about it in and of itself.
There are other places in the gospels where Jesus is proclaimed king, proclaimed Messiah, prophecies are fulfilled, large groups believe in him, and even several times he enters Jerusalem. So what’s so special about this moment?
The future.
Continue reading
Housing = Dignity. And this is how your politicians are robbing people of it.
A client quote I heard yesterday:
“When I was homeless, I felt like an animal, stuck in a concrete jungle. I only came out to eat and survive. Now that I have housing, though, I feel like a human again. It feels good to be human.”
And here’s the client quote I posted last week:
“I haven’t been homeless my whole life, but I’ve always been a human being.”
Below is a letter sent to our Governor from Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of HUD, about how the sequestration cuts will affect most of the programs that our clients depend on for housing (and, of far lesser importance, what I depend on for my job). Ladies and gentlemen, your representatives!
(You can read the original letter at the Housing Alliance of PA.) Continue reading
Love well for Easter: liberti Easter outreach
Lent has historically been a time where we look at things that we don’t like to look at, and dwell on things that are broken and painful. And when we do, we see that this darkness is to be found both in our hearts and in the wider world around us.
It’s not hard to see pain and injustice woven into the very fabric of our neighborhoods and the nations around the world.
What is hard, though, is figuring out how to respond to this pain and injustice in ways that are proper and truly loving.
Truly Loving
I believe that the most transformative efforts to address pain and injustice have several things in common: Continue reading
Marveling in the Cross: Lost in the Details [photo sermon]
For several months now I’ve been doing the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge. Honestly, I’ve gotten a little tired of that, so I’m going to start mixing it up with some weekly “photo sermons”, taking the weekly theme, picking an appropriate photo, and writing up a short meditation on the theme. We’ll see how it goes. This week’s theme is “Lost in the Details“.
One of my best (and oldest) friends is named David Schrott. He’s an incredible photographer, and an even more incredible man of God. He’s currently been spending an extended period of time back in his hometown of Lancaster, PA, recovering from surgery.
In this time of recovery, he’s only grown in his intimacy with God, his love as a friend, and the depth of his experience of spirituality. Recently, when I asked how he’s seemingly unlocked this door to the depths of the spirit and, as he puts it “longing for the resurrection in ways I never have”, he simply said this:
“Suffering! Without it, it is hard to long for anything but immediate pleasure.”
I love that guy.
Ash Wednesday Egalitarianism, or “Why do female preachers suck?”
Yes, that’s me in that picture. I love that picture. It’s been used in a few posts since it was taken a couple of years ago. This isn’t (just) because of some weird sense of narcissism that loves to see my face on my blog posts. Rather, this picture is a very meaningful reminder of one of the most formative nights in my Christian life.
I said in the beginning of this series on Women in the Church that for most of my life, I had been one of the staunchest defenders of male-led church leadership. I knew all the arguments, I believed the caricatures of the other side, and importantly, I had experienced that women made terrible preachers of sermons.
Now remember: this was “pre-conversion” Paul that was thinking these things. But still, as I had visited friend’s churches, listened to audio, and seen female televangelists, it was hard not to notice that I had never heard a “good” sermon offered by a woman. It seemed clear to me, then, that this unique “anointing” and “gifting” to preach was reserved for men.
Don’t get me wrong. I had received incredible guidance, teaching, and wisdom from women. But these had been in the contexts of schools, lectures, books, blogs, campus ministers, podcasts, and the wider world–not church sermons.
Join liberti for Ash Wednesday tonight
If you find yourself in the Philly area, I just wanted to extend an invitation to you to join my church, liberti center city, tonight for our Ash Wednesday service. It will be a time of reflection, singing, prayer, imposition of ashes, and inviting into this year’s Holy Lent.
The service is tonight at 7pm sharp, at 17th and Sansom St. There is also free parking available.
A group of us will probably get dinner afterwards. So if you’re in Philly, and especially if Ash Wednesday is new to you, I encourage you to come on out and join us at the beginning of this Holy Lenten season.
Also, for the rest of the Lent season, liberti has put together a simple prayerbook to guide our times of meditation and reflection. The liberti Lent prayerbook is a highlight of my Lent every year, and so be sure not to miss out.
Lent 2013 is on the way. What are you doing?
Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, which kicks off Lent, the time of year in which we our sins and shortcomings weigh on our minds and shoulders a little more than usual, that we might feel their sting, and that might propel us to Christ.
Lent is always a very meaningful time for me spiritually. It is my most fruitful time of blogging and meditating, and I hope that today is similar. This is probably because I’m wired to be extra sensitive to the quieter, subtler movements of my own heart.
I can also be prone to despair over my inability to change or grow, but even in the midst of the difficulty and darkness of this season, there’s always the dawn of Easter ever-more cresting upon the Lenten horizon.
Historically, there have been many ways that the Church had engaged in this time, and so there is great freedom in how we might do that. This is how I’m engaging in Lent this season: Continue reading
Weekend Photo Challenge: Unique
Today, I’m leaving my job. Monday, a new one begins.
When this is post goes live, I will probably be sitting in my near-empty cubicle at work, furiously trying to finish up the last bits of paperwork that has so consumed the past year and half of my conscious thoughts. Today is my last day of this job.
Back in 2011, I wrote about me getting this new job as a case manager (a.k.a. “social worker”–in Pennsylvania, you can’t call yourself a social worker unless you have a degree in it). It’s been an amazing experience, with some of the most knowledgeable and supportive supervisors and co-workers I’ve ever had the privilege of being around.
Continue reading
Art & Advent’s Intellect: Barnett Newman’s “Black Fire”
If you look at the top of every page on this site, you’ll notice there is a prominent header image. If you’ve paid any sort of repeated attention to the posts on this site, you’ll notice I have different headers for different themes and series. Lent, Easter, Women in Ministry, The Bible, Theology, Art, Personal, Political, Writing, and my upcoming Guatemala posts each have their own distinct headers.
Throughout this year’s Advent series, I’ve used a cropped version of the above piece as the header image. It’s called Black Fire by Barnett Newman. Until recently, it hung for many years in the abstract expressionism room in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I’ve spent much time sitting in the presence of this piece, contemplating it’s meaning.
Continue reading
The Surprise of Advent: WordPress Weekend Photo Challenge
This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is “Surprise“. With Advent having been on my mind (and blog), I thought of this picture. Or rather, to be more specific, the juxtaposition of these two pictures:
On one of my trips to the Philadelphia Art Museum to fight my inner Atheist, after spending some time with that beautiful Jesus statue above (a favorite of mine), I actually walked through the other side of the Medieval Art section to enter the Asian Art section.
I’m sorry, and forgive me if you can’t relate, but Asian Art has never done it for me. I don’t know why. I can see the craftsmanship aspect to it (I guess), but the beauty part feels lost on me. And so, when I go into Asian Art sections, my “art critic” side sort of quiets down and lets other parts of me take hold.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Thankful (humor edition) [casual fri]
Earlier this week I posted a response to this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge, which is on the theme of “Thankful“. I wrote what I hope was a beautiful expression of thankfulness that I ran across in my job; I wrote about a client of mine and the slow process of healing that brings us healing in the smallest things.
With that encouragement in mind, I’d like to offer you one of the things I’m most thankful for. What is it? I’m very, very thankful I no longer have the hair pictured below, circa 2006 (for comparison, here’s a current one):
See my past Weekly Photo Challenges here.
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the long way home 