For those who take the time to come to the table, both for ritual and for meal, the community of God is nourishing. It brings health. This is not always happiness. Just ask anyone who has ever come to the table hoping for cake and found cauliflower. Sometimes community requires patience, love, endurance, imagination, and courage. But, in return, Jesus promises nourishment.
Read MoreIn the sacrament of table and community, there lies the healing power of presence and the movement of the Spirit.
Read MoreThree ladies have prepared the food, two from Syria and one from Iran. They’ve been in The Mix Kitchen for the afternoon, preparing for this meal. A tasty assortment of rice, marvelously seasoned meat, fried kibbeh, and a light mix of greens; we are preparing to feast on this Tuesday afternoon.
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Read MoreI am not a table setter. I want to be. I really like having a place set for me. I like the sense of sitting down with everything I might need within reach. I like the sense that there was one who went before me, anticipating those needs. I like the sense that I might meet the needs of those at my table.
Read MoreWhen I think of the things that consistently draw me into relationship with Jesus, and those things that have been anchor points for that relationship throughout my life, the notion of table fellowship is beyond doubt the most consistent theme throughout my life.
Read MoreThe lamp smoke smudged the walls. Jesus was standing in the corner, his forehead on the wall, peering out the window from the corner of his eye.
Read MoreWaiting can shape, sharpen, and make us more sensitive to that which sustains us.
Read MoreTake me to the water
Waves snuggle the shore
Teaching to breathe
Ashes represent a reduction, a simplification, an equivocation of all things. Garden rose and wayside weed both burn to calcium carbonate—the stuff of egg shells and pearls.
Read MoreChrist is Life
Advent, Week 4
by Andrea Lingle
I just spent three hours cleaning up the room shared by my second and third children. I begged, threatened, and cajoled my children to help me. I lost my temper when I found a basket of washed, dried, and folded clothes carelessly upended onto the floor. Every time I clean up my home, I am filled with grating antipathy for the world of physical science. Could we not have been dropped into a universe that tended toward order?
Read MoreChrist is Mystery
Advent, Week 3
by Andrea Lingle
If Paul was a Jew among Jews, I am a first-born among first-borns. I live my life religiously. About twenty years ago, I went hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina with my family and some family friends. The place where we were hiking crossed a rocky bald where there were patches of sensitive lichen. A helpful sign instructed hikers to follow a trail of yellow painted dots to minimize the ecological impact of hundreds of booted feet. After a few minutes of ambulatory dot-to-dot, we sat down to look at the view. My mother, always aware of her children, had seen my careful attempts to minimize my lichen-impact, and teasingly asked if I was sitting on a dot.
Read MoreChrist is Love
Advent, Week 2
by Andrea Lingle
The flow of the love of Jesus is the atomic signature of the Christ. An atomic signature is a unique array of electromagnetic waves or signals that every atom emits and absorbs that allows persons with the right equipment to identify anything on an elemental level. The body of Christ, in all its diversity is known by love. I do not mean only love given or received in the name of Christ, but love. The love of the Jew, the Greek, the Muslim, the agnostic, the addict, the sex worker, the evangelical, or the Pope is the signature of the living Christ, incarnate in us, come again.
Read MoreWhat is Christ?
Advent, Week 1
by Andrea Lingle
What is Christ?
Jesus lived two thousand years ago and was called Christ. So, it seems clear that we could infer things about Christ from Jesus.
Read MoreCome, Thou Long Expected Jesus
by Andrea Lingle
The leaves are falling from the trees here in the western North Carolina mountains. There have been piles of people flowing through our little town as people pause their lives to come experience the spectacle of gold and red against a cerulean sky (that’s a fabulous blue color).
But I didn’t.
That's a Wrap
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 10
by Andrea Lingle
It is a monumental thing to begin. It is a gentle grief to end.
We have a lovely little spreadsheet that helps organize the themes for this newsletter. The weeks are tallied, the authors write, the blog roll—well, it rolls. But, what isn’t recorded in those little boxes is the wrestling.
Does This Make Sense?
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 9
by Andrea Lingle
There is a petition going around Facebook in my area. A power company has been cited for excessive disgustingness at their coal plant, and they are being required to clean up. To defray the cost of said clean up, they have proposed an upcharge to their customers.
Read MoreSola Reason
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 8
by Andrea Lingle
Five hundred years ago a priest hurried along the streets, trailing papers and worry. He was late. It was All-Saints’ Day and he was late. He would be reading the gospel message. He tugged his jacket over his shoulder and stooped to grab a handful of papers that had fluttered loose. As he rounded the corner to the church, he skidded to a stop.
Read MoreOur Common Experience with God: Beyond Buildings
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 7
by Adam White
“The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is a people.”
We all have heard this familiar song.
Ironically, and let me know if I am off base here, we only hear this song sung in churches. Today, as a collective body seeking to experience Christ together, the “church” is having an identity crisis.
Our Individual Experiences: Landscapes or Flowers?
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 6
by Adam White
One of my favorite things to do is going to visit museums. Now that I am married, I get to drag my partner Blair along with me. Recently we visited the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, which, if you are ever in Fort Worth, you should go and check out (fo’ free!).
Read MoreA Common Story for the Church
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 4
by Adam White
Stories are important; they help inform us about who we are and where we are going.
Any good story will likely have dynamic characters, a strong plotline, interesting subplots, a visually captivating setting, and well crafted details.
