by Talita Jolene
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The natural flow from music to ear to heart to embodied response is so innocently exhibited in childhood humanity. When what we hear connects with us deeply, in the heart, there is an inner spiritual resonance that, if allowed, will find outward embodied expression, reciprocating and amplifying the original signal.…
by Alex Strohschein
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Across the West, Christianity is in decline. Some welcome this change – a smaller Church means a purer Church (this might be most indicative of H. Richard Niebuhr's "Christ against culture" paradigm). Even Pope Benedict XVI, writing in 1969, prophesied that "From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much.…
by Matthew Steem
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“There is a noise that is different to grief. Sadness wails and cries and lets loose a sound to the heavens like a baby calling for its mother. That kind of noisy grief is hopeful. It believes that things can be put right, or that help can come. There is a different kind of sound to that. Babies left alone too long do not even cry. They become very still and quiet. They know no one is coming.”…
A poem by Sharon Fish Mooney…
by Phillip Aijian
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This unique contribution provided by the artist and poet Phillip Aijian demonstrates not only the skill of an experienced craftsperson gifted with detail and vision, but beautifully reveals how art and theology can meaningfully contribute to each other.…
by Rev. Yohanna Katanacho
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My Palestinian family gathered around our Christmas tree where we live in Nazareth. The biblical figures were made from olive wood from Bethlehem, the ornaments on the tree were from China, and the lights were made in Israel. The kids were looking at the gifts in front of the tree and I…
by Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson
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George MacDonald (mentor of C.S. Lewis; inspiration of G.K. Chesterton, Madeleine L’Engle, and so many more) loved to celebrate Christmas – and necessarily for him part of that celebration was to pull others into the celebrating. He did this in person by feasting and festivities, charades and theater, story and song; by decorating his children’s walls and caroling with them through the streets; by inviting strangers into his home for all of the above, sometimes in groups of a hundred or more!…
by Ron Dart
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The year 2020 signals both the sixtieth year since Boris Pasternak died and the one hundred thirtieth year since he was born (1890-1960). There is much to the literary and political life in the midst of Stalinist Russia that Pasternak endured and wrote about, but this two-part article will focus on Pasternak himself, his epic novel, Doctor Zhivago, and Thomas Merton.…
by Ted Lewis
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There is certainly no shortage of fear these days. We hear of it on all sides and sometimes feel it within our own hearts. We encounter people who fear the possible loss of personal freedoms, and we encounter people who fear the possibility of catching the Covid19 virus or spreading it to others. Fear is basically a function of what’s possible in the near future. But, interestingly enough, faith is also a function of what is possible.…
