Jennifer Cumberbatch reflects on how we wait as we wait in the liturgy of our lives during this season of Lent [Malachi 3:1-4]. Reflection What areas are you called to act as priest and mediator in your spheres of influence? What areas are you invited to expand the kingdom of God?   Resources Song: And He Shall Purify (Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vyOk09uxUc Song: Hallelujah Chorus (Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGbXPvWR79o  

Vox Veniae Podcast

Waiting as We Wait

Weylin Lee reflects on how Jesus' transfiguration invites us to transformation and change as we enter this season of Lent [Mark 9:2-9]. Reflection How might you be invited to expand your symbols of God? How is listening to Jesus being embodied in your life? How are you being invited to sit in the paradox of wholeness and woundedness? Practice Expanding our symbols for God. Use a different image or word to refer to and connect with God. How does this new image or word expand the container you’ve placed God inside? Listening to Jesus exercise. Read the Gospels during Lent and pay attention to what Jesus said and did.  Use a different translation or listen to the text. In your listening, wrestle with and discern how to embody his words and actions.   Resources Book: Wearing God (Lauren Winner) https://smile.amazon.com/Wearing-God-Clothing-Laughter-Overlooked/dp/0061768138/  

Transfiguration and Transformation

Judy Peterson reflects on how the incarnation of Jesus invites us to live our faith in an embodied way [Luke 7:11-22].   Reflection What do you long to see made manifest in this world? When was the last time you were moved from your innermost being and how did you respond?  

Giving Our Letters Legs

Title: True Authority Kelly Cutbirth reflects on how Jesus modeled another way of authority and how we’re invited to embody this truer way of authority as we lead and follow others [Mark 1:21-28].   Reflection What ideas about authority am I being invited to let go of? How can I use my authority to care for and restore freedom to others?   Practice Authority grounded in love. Practice caring by writing a note to a leader whose authority has inspired you. Or, as a leader, write a note to someone who follows your authority letting them know you care about them. Authority restoring freedom. Next time you’re overwhelmed by an emotion, try taking three long belly breaths. See if you can restore some of your freedom.   Resources Video: Ted Lasso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u7EIiohs6U    

True Authority

James Alison reflects on how the good news of God is God’s own self and the invitation for us to repent which is meant to soften our hearts [Mark 1:14-20].   Reflection Why does the good news of God have anything to do with repentance? Why Galilee? Why fishers? And why brothers? 

The Good News of God

Jane Patterson reflects on how we might practice courageous speaking and listening that makes space for discerning God's truth and guidance in these times of difficult conversations  [1 Samuel 3:1-10, 11-20]. Reflection What do you know from your own experience of courageous speaking: what factors help others listen to you? What do you know from your own experience of courageous listening: what makes it harder to listen? What helps you listen? If you could write a letter to the future about the times we are living through, what wisdom would you want to hand down? 

Courageous Speaking & Courageous Listening

As we enter a new year, Weylin Lee reflects on what our invitation is toward a new way of being and experiencing transformation [Mark 1:4-11]. Reflection What area of your life is in need of truth-telling? How are you invited to consent to God's unconditional love in this year? Practice Confession.  Acknowledge your choice of deception over truth.  Invite yourself to return to the original goodness God created you with.  How can you sit in the tension of those two things this week as you reflect on what's happening in our world and what's happening within you? Examine your discomfort.  Examine the moments and seasons of discomfort that you have encountered.  Be curious about how the Spirit might be inviting us to change and transformation in that discomfort. Resources Podcast: On Being (Louis Newman) https://onbeing.org/programs/louis-newman-the-refreshing-practice-of-repentance/   MWG Discussion Questions What facilitates spaces of truth-telling for ourselves?  When have you experienced a meaningful moment of truth-telling? How might the experiences and seasons of discomfort be opening opportunities for change and transformation?  Why might it be difficult to recognize the Spirit’s work in those moments? How has your understanding and practice of repentance and confession been driven by guilt and shame?  How might God’s unconditional love and our invitation back to our original goodness change our experience of repentance and confession? 

A New Way of Being

Jeff Chu reflects on God's grace and how our gratitude for that grace is the driving force for whatever work we do in the world [Isaiah 61].   Reflection Where do you see evidence of God's grace in your life? How can you cultivate a discipline of holy gratitude?   Practice Spend time in the presence of oak trees.  Reflect on God's craftsmanship and grace that allows oaks to grow.  Reflect on how oaks can survive in isolation, but they thrive in community and how that informs our invitation to live a life of righteousness and justice together in community.   Resources Book: The Hebrew Bible https://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Bible-Translation-Commentary-Three/dp/0393292495/  

The Planting of the Lord

Weylin Lee reflects on the hope of restoration as we come to the end of this heavy year through the contemplative practice of Lectio Divina [Isaiah 61:10-62:3]. Reflection In light of this past year, what are the things we hope for in this coming year? How might we be open to a new way of being? Resources Photos: Year in Photos (NY Times) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/year-in-pictures.html Lectio Divina https://voxveniae.com/lectio-divina/  

Hope of Restoration

As we continue in the Advent season, Matt Inman reflects on the Christmas story from the perspective of Mary and how we are invited to be grounded and not overlook the divine in our lives [Luke 1:26-38].   Reflection Where in your life does love tend to get overlooked in your life? What memory of Christmas sticks out to you as loving and intimate? How did love grow in your life to help make such a beautiful moment come into being?   Practice Where do you find yourself managing acceptance and reflection in your life right now? Notice what stories and emotions come up for you. Pick an aspect of life you struggle accepting and work through Tolle's suggestion of doing on oof the three actions: 1. Remove it (let it go)  2. Change it  3. Fully embrace it (accept it) 

Mary and the Incarnation

As we continue in the Advent season, Weylin Lee reflects on the things that God is and has been revealing about ourselves and others and God this past year [John 1:6-8, 19-23].   Reflection What are the glimpses of divine light we have seen even in our moments of darkness? How might we live more from our authentic self and embrace who God has made us to be? What are the voices we are hearing that are crying out in the margins for God's justice and mercy?   Practice Lighting candles. Gather some tea light candles. Remember the glimpses of hope and comfort and guidance that you experienced in darkness. Light a candle for each glimpse of comfort. Reflection of personal actions. Examine an action or choice or decision that involved other people. “Was I living out of my ego or was I living out of my rooted and fully loved authentic self?”   MWG Discussion Questions What has this past year revealed to you about yourself and the world around you?  What was expected?  What was unexpected? What has been a glimpse of divine light in your experiences this past year?  How have you seen God’s comfort, guidance and hope in the moments of darkness? How has the pandemic removed the exterior layers that we tend to live from?  What parts of your authentic self has been revealed to you this past year?  How have you been holding the tension of living out of who God has made you to be? 

Advent: Revealed

As we continue in the Advent season, Nic Acosta reflects on what it means to experience the deep comfort that God promises [Isaiah 40:1-5].   Reflection What kind of comfort do we long for? What would it take to live as though our lives are God’s home, and to consider God as the most hospitable, comforting host?   Practice Compile a list of what God’s comfort means to you.  List reflections under one column for “What is comfort in God like?" and another column for "What keeps me from this comfort?   Resources Song: Come On Up to the House (Tom Waits) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFrqclcm8pU   

Comfort Ye

As we start the season of Advent, James Alison reflects on what the Holy Spirit is seeking to prepare us in this season [Mark 13:33-37].   Reflection What did Jesus mean by talking about a “coming” and then setting up a parable about a “going”? Why is it so difficult for us to understand the ancient Hebrew way in which the Prophet is not so much asking for some blanket forgiveness from God, but begging God to make possible a human way of finding ourselves able to forgive and be forgiven – even blaming God for God’s failure to do that so far? 

Training Our Eyes for the Coming

Virginia Cumberbatch considers a reframing of what a radical and relentless grace is asking of us especially in the season we are living in [Ezekiel 34:11-16].   Reflection How can you extend grace to yourself in this season and in reflection of this year, as a part of your healing? As we navigate discord, challenge one another in love, and continue to disrupt injustice to work toward shalom / equity what does active, radical grace look like this week and in the weeks to come for those I’m in community with?   Resources Song: Love is a Miracle https://youtu.be/MRkZj0UoK4A   

Even in the Midst

Judy Peterson reflects on how Jesus invites us to love our nearby neighbors with whom we have conflict with [Luke 10]. Reflection You are sheep and not a wolf. How would you approach your nearby neighbors with whom you have conflict differently if you believed not only that you are sheep, but also that there is a Good Shepherd involved? How might you consider letting Jesus turn your "Fire" into "Woe"?   MWG Discussion Questions Who are the nearby neighbors in our lives that we have conflict with?  Who do we hold a grudge towards and how holds a grudge against us?  What is the source of the conflict that comes between us and our nearby neighbors? When Jesus invites his disciples not to take any possessions with them as they are sent out, what would it look like practically for us not to take our ideologies, theologies, and loyalties to defend when we interact with others?  How might that impact our conversations? If the one who shows mercy is a true neighbor, what would showing mercy look like with our neighbors we have conflict with?  How might we begin to break down barriers that have been put up over time?  How can we rely less on their response and more on our invitation to love and extend peace? 

Loving Nearby Neighbors

The work of the people. Our weekly rhythm of being together as a larger community to WORSHIP and CONFESS, to engage SCRIPTURE and PRAYER, to celebrate EUCHARIST, and to be sent back into the city with a BENEDICTION each and every week.

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Vox Veniae Podcast

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