community – Page 18 – Southwest Conference Blog

Grief and Hope

When I wrote my last blog entry a few months ago, I was “speechless.” So many of us were reeling from the national election results. We were heartbroken, appalled, angry. We were/are grieving.

I have also known deep, gut-wrenching personal grief in my life with the disruption of a cherished relationship. Much of my speech then was moaning and sobbing. Thank Goodness, that dark period turned out to be a womb and not only a tomb. While I looked over the brink into utter despair and lifelessness, I emerged with a spiritual awakening into the indescribable gift of Life.

Valerie Kaur has prompted us to consider “…what if this darkness isn’t the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if America is not dead but a country waiting to be born?” To paraphrase her image, this chaotic, life-threatening period in our communal life could be a tomb and a womb—grief and hope.

The grief may include the death of optimism that missed the depth of fear and pain that always lurks below the surface of what appears to be social progress, that always paints the lives of those suppressed/oppressed, that always tinges the views of those afraid of losing position.

The hope is that we have today—Life has graced us with sun, Earth, breath once again. We get to live, we are indeed from and of Life itself. Regardless of how things turn out, the hope is in this question, “How do I want to express Life today?” —and in how we try to show our answer.

What’s in the Sauce?

by Karen Richter

Sometimes I feel like I write a SWC post for this blog and half of the sentences end with question marks. Today is going to be one of those days.

One of our greatest gifts is the capacity to wonder, to ask questions, to remain curious and open to new knowledge throughout our lives. Right now, at Shadow Rock, we’re talking on Sunday mornings during education and spiritual formation time with activists in the community. It’s great to find out more about different issues, of course, but we’re asking more about their journeys…
what brought them to the field in which they’re active, how they stay motivated, what they do for self-care. I don’t yet know if we’ll find that activists in different fields have common experiences. Maybe we’ll know more by the end of the month; in the meantime, we are listening lots.

Yesterday’s guest, Kelley Dupps from Arizona Planned Parenthood, was passionate and thoroughly engaging (and much appreciated!). He used an interesting word to describe his work in education, LGBTQ equality, and reproductive healthcare: COMPULSION. He gave a sense of something beyond passion for social change: a feeling that he was engaged in this work because he couldn’t do otherwise.

In the same session, a participant relayed their frustration at conversations with closed-off, closed-minded relations and acquaintances. Some people, we all agreed, simply were not able to listen to new information and hold their own opinions loosely. These folks’ abilities to entertain another person’s point of view and consider the long-range effects of their own views were, at the least, disused and rusty from neglect.

How does this happen? What kinds of experiences make us who we are and when do these experiences happen?

This is a fun thought experiment, something that those of us with curiosity about such things like to discuss over coffee. But the stakes are high, my friends.

As our congregations work with children and youth, it behooves us to find that secret sauce that forms our young people into curious, open, faithful humans.

What’s in that secret sauce? I’m working on it, y’all*. I suspect that the recipe includes some of the following, in different ratios for different families and in different congregations:

Training and real practice in discernment
Consistent exposure to spiritual disciplines of meditation and centering prayer
Connection to creation
Involvement of faithful adult mentors
Experience with the joy of service and justice work
Safe space to talk about all of the above!

The world needs our theology of inclusion and grace more than ever. Let’s keep talking about the best ways to pass that gift on to the next generation.

*When I’m feeling particularly earnest, my Southern accent comes out… even in writing.

Our Homeless Neighbors

by Abigail Conley

The Point in Time homeless count happened this week. I was one of the volunteers who gathered before dawn at the fire station. We were offered coffee and doughnuts, watched a video, then were sent out into the city to search our assigned grid for homeless people and homeless camps. We carried bags with food and water, phone numbers, and socks to offer to the people we found. As we left, it was daylight, and the city was beginning to move about.

The homeless count happens each year across the country. It depends on the year if people are counted in shelters or on the streets or both. Most volunteers where I was were partnered with a city employee. I was glad my assigned staff person clearly knew what she was doing.

She drove around streets I knew existed but had never driven on. Our area was small, because homeless people are typically found there. We found fewer people than we anticipated, only one camp and one person sleeping in a park. As we drove, she told me the stories of homeless neighbors, some now housed, some still refusing, some still unknown. We drove past a woman’s home, housed for four years after nearly twenty on the streets. The city had figured out her housing and she’d been paying her own rent for a while now. I found out the name of the woman who is always at the bus stop at a particular intersection.

We made three stops. One was just a teenager, not homeless, but nervous at the adults approaching. We found a man in a park. In broken Spanish and broken English, we asked as many questions as we could. He thought he’d been homeless for about six weeks. By the time our conversation was over, we realized it had been more like six months. Who knows why exactly he had lost track of time. He pulled out the business card of a city employee from his wallet. We weren’t the first people to offer him help.

The most heartbreaking stop for me was behind a row of buildings, on a street that was little more than an alley. No one was home, but someone was staying there along the wall. It jutted back in one place, creating a small room with three walls. It was invisible until someone walked or drove along that dirt road. Two shopping carts were pushed inside, filled with belongings. Children’s items were the most visible. The clear indicator that someone as living there was the feces against the wall. There were several smudges that I would not have recognized unless the person in the car told me what they were; immediately, it made sense. Of course someone would back up to a wall to relieve himself; of course this is part of polite society that no one talks about. This sign wasn’t even in the training video.

My particular city has chosen not to criminalize homelessness. They’re hiring a homeless navigator; that person will be sent out to all these places to look for homeless people, to try and get them housed. They’ve been very supportive of the faith communities that provide emergency shelter for our homeless neighbors. A city in the same metro area instead chooses to pull people off the streets and drop them in a neighboring city; their belongings may or may not be kept by the officers who do this.

I wonder where the holiness in this story is, where the intersection with our faith is. Maybe it’s in the parable of the lost sheep, where there are 99 sheep in the fold, but the shepherd goes out looking for the one. Maybe it’s in Matthew 25 where Jesus commands us to offer food, drink, clothing, and welcome to people in need as if that person were Jesus himself. Maybe the holiness is in the Beatitudes, where Jesus proclaims,” Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Maybe it’s in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, where there are not poor in spirit nor people who hunger for righteousness. Instead, Luke tells us that Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”

Maybe the holiness is in an even more unexpected place, the list of questions we were given to ask people we found. What is your gender identity? Have you served in any branch of the military? Do you have a problem with drugs or alcohol? What is your HIV/AIDS status? It was amazing how impolite the questions were, especially to those of us who are comfortably housed. It was amazing how many points of vulnerability were enumerated on that one sheet.

Maybe you have a different answer to where the holiness in this story is. Whatever your answer is, you can likely enumerate ways that Christians have been called to care for vulnerable populations. If you’re not sure how, begin with seeing your invisible neighbors.

Minor Course Corrections

by Karen Richter

Good morning and happy new year, Southwest Conference friends. Here’s your obligatory New Year blog post. ☺

If you’re passionate (as I am) about the liturgical year, that’s your cue to say, “But wait! The new liturgical year started several weeks ago with the first week of Advent!” Yes, yes it did. I’m not interested in a tired tirade about prioritizing the liturgical year over the secular year. Instead I’m thinking: isn’t it wonderful how our post-modern lives give us so many opportunities for pause and reflection? There’s January, of course. There’s Advent, with its beginning in hopeful anticipation. There’s (for academic types and parents of school-aged children) the school year, with its flurry of supply purchases and new schedules.

And there’s the new beginning of weekly Sabbath and the new beginning of each sunrise. Finally, there’s the new beginning of forgiveness and reconciliation always available to us.

I need every single one of these prompts to begin anew.

So it’s not a bad thing, in this first week of January 2017, when the world is starting fresh along with us, to anticipate and resolve some changes or minor course corrections.

Not diet and exercise. Not writing a book. Not saving money. Not even going to church more often. Again, not interested. We don’t need to squander this beautiful opportunity for newness by simply striving and grasping at becoming better, shinier versions of ourselves. So just cut that out. You are enough. You are loved just as you are.

So I offer here my minor course corrections, not as a stick with which to beat myself up when I fall short, but as a shared guidepost of encouragement:

Do more hard things.
I was just reading this morning about how pushing our limits can protect against the ravages of mental aging. Not just devilishly difficult Sudoku, but really taking on something that is difficult enough to be mentally tiring. Do something that excites you but isn’t easy. Do something at which you might fail spectacularly and publicly.

I’m not sure what this will be for me: more writing perhaps or a new skill.
Rest and celebrate.
Doesn’t it seem strange that we have to remind ourselves to rest? BUT WE DO. Especially perhaps in these trying times of division, global violence, and increasing inequality, it’s hard to pause to rest. Our culture encourages overwork and busy-ness with prevalent figures of speech like ‘putting everything out on the field.’

Two thoughts on this: First, I think our willingness to rest is related to our satisfaction with our work. Hence, ‘rest and celebrate’ is tied to ‘do more hard things.’ Second, our reluctance to stop is a symptom of our collective egos out of control. Our work does not keep the world spinning. I had lunch this week with a friend, a Franciscan friar. He reminded me, “We are not called to save the world. The world already has a Savior in Christ. Instead we are called to work.” We can rest and renew more fully (and thereby work more fruitfully) when we see our work with God’s eyes.
Get real and vulnerable with myself and with trusted companions.
This wouldn’t be a churchy blog worth the name if I didn’t tell you to pray more in 2017 (oops – these are supposed to be MY 2017 course corrections… so I am going to pray more in 2017). Find anything that works for you. I’m a big fan of silence in the car during my commute: no radio, no Sirius, no audiobooks. Walking the dog. Mindful breathing. Journaling. Make any of these into your prayer practice.

We’re not meant to journey alone. I couldn’t have a New Year blog without also suggesting that you find spiritual companionship. Whether it’s a traditional spiritual director, a small group, or an accountability partner, articulating to another person where you are and what’s going on in your spirit will bring you greater insight and tremendous comfort. Check Teresa Blythe’s Patheos blog Spiritual Direction 101 or poke around on Spiritual Directors International.

Whatever you do or don’t do in 2017, know that you are loved. Through God’s grace, may we move together more fully into holiness and wholeness.

Hope in a Child

by Abigail Conley

“I think you have a kid in there,” I said, nodding toward his truck, and taking his empty cart back to the return for him.

“Thank you so much,” he answered, looking relieved.

Both of us were crazy enough to go to Costco in the week before Christmas and just happened to park near each other. I confess, I second guessed taking his cart for him. Mostly, I second guessed because women doing things like that for men in public space isn’t expected. I almost did it as soon as I headed toward the return with my own cart, but walked past him just a little bit. I looked back to talk to him, to offer to take his cart for him. In that split second, I might have seen his hesitation to walk away from the truck where his child was safely strapped in a car seat. I don’t know. I do remember what was expressed more deeply than usual, “Thank you so much.”

I’m quite certain he didn’t know that I’d seen him earlier, along with his son, inside the store. I was sitting at the restaurant, quickly scarfing down a slice of pizza before heading on to my next task. He walked by, between my cart and the wall, pushing his cart with both purchases and son. I noticed him because his son was crying. When I say crying, I mean that horrible version of crying that children do when they’re just done.

I’d taken notice because of the crying, and then I saw a father being a very good father. They had a smoothie, and the child wanted some. As he cried, the father gently coaxed, “Use your words.” Over and over, again, “Use your words.” The phrase is familiar, one often heard spoken by teachers and parents of young children. Those words struck me differently today, though, as the man spoke them to his son.

I thought about them after he left Costco, as I was finishing up my pizza and walking to my car. It’s the week before Christmas; the walk to the car in a Costco parking lot is extra long. I let the please, “Use your words,” roll over in my mind, thinking how different the world would be if we used our words, instead.

My mourning for Syria has been long and deep. A “complete meltdown of humanity” the news says. That might be the best summary imaginable if even half of the news making it to this part of the world is true. I fear we actually don’t know the half of it. My fear as leaders talk of the need for more nuclear weapons is deep, as well. Words, it seems, are always used to cry out for something more, too often, that thing is violence. It seems that’s the go-to answer right now, with no one quite sure how to put a stop to it all.

I don’t know any more about that father than what I just told you. Who knows what he’s like day in, day out. I have hope, though, that this father coaxing his very, very young son to use his words rather than have a tantrum might do even more good with that child in the long run. Use your words, not your fists. Use your words, not a weapon. Use your words, face to face. Use your words first, and finally.

It is the absurdity of the season, after all, that our deepest hope is in a child—a child called the Word, made flesh, and dwelling among us. The child, called Word, brought all sorts of hope along into that manger, including that swords would be beaten into plowshares, and we would not learn war any more. The beauty of that impossibility lingers deep these days, the promise that we will one day put away our many, many tools of destruction.

For today, while I still await the Christ child’s coming, I am comforted a bit by this man and his child. The hopes of this season run deep: the hope for peace; the hope for fear to subside; the hope that our words become enough. To this man who I’ll likely never see, again, thank you so much.

Helpful or Not?

by Karen Richter

I’ve been mulling over the words sacred and secular lately. Just yesterday a member of my congregation described themselves as “a pretty secular person.” I’m sure I blinked, eyes wide because I have zero poker face skills. How could this person – no matter what theology or philosophy – who I have experienced as chock-full of passion and integrity, be secular? And now that I think about it, how could a person whose faith compels them to act in ways contrary to justice, compassion, and peace be sacred?

What do these words even mean? Is the distinction helpful any longer, if it ever was?

In high school choir, we sang sacred music. Just a side note, because surely you were wondering, my favorite piece was John Rutter’s For the Beauty of the Earth.

We also sang secular music. Here’s one I remember that you probably recall as well.

Why is a song about connection and longing and common humanity labeled secular just because God isn’t mentioned? And surely, if we thought about it, we could think of religious songs that are so soaked in nationalism, exclusivism, and fear that the word God sours in our mouths as we sing.

I’m always suspicious about either/or choices, and the sacred or secular choice is no different. Questions worth asking always have more than two potential answers!

In this holiday season, we so often get pulled into irrelevant discussions about what is appropriate as part of our Christmas celebration and what isn’t. Mistletoe and holly, yule logs, decorated trees, candles… these treasured traditions all originated in pagan winter celebrations. Contemporary questions abound as well… Santa during church events? Starbucks cups? Church on Christmas day? How do we choose what to affirm and what to discard? What goes and what stays?

It all stays. It all belongs. If incarnation means anything at all, it means that the false dichotomy of sacred and secular is revealed as illusion, forever broken down, shattered completely, and re-formed as part of a blessed whole.

You belong too! Merry Christmas and peace in 2017!

Are You Simmering?

by Amanda Petersen

I have had a lot of conversations this week about darkness and shorter days. When those I have spoken to are really honest, the inner call this time of year is to pull in and cherish; to spend time with those one is closest to and to spend time nesting. There is a sense of drawing in when the days are short. I am a lover of rhythm and the way the seasons honor the universal expansion and contraction of life.

The shorter days for me are a way of concentrating life. Like in cooking, when I let a sauce simmer down until it is thick and rich. The soul needs these simmering times too. To pull in and concentrate on what is rich and deep. To sit in the dark reflecting and gathering what is sacred in order to cherish them. To take the time to restore the soul and rest just like all the plant life around us. To sit in the silence and be with all that stirs the soul, pleasant or not, honoring all is held in Love.

In a world that is capable of 24-hour daylight, this simmering in the dark can be challenging. Yet from the conversations I have had recently, if one is still enough, one can hear the whisper to simmer, to pull in, and surround oneself with deep relationships, reflection and love. A whisper to simmer or cherish the joy of connecting with oneself, God, and others in a relaxed and real way.

From this deep rich place as the rhythm of life expands again, one will draw on its richness in the activity of our lives. I invite you to spend some time this week sitting in the dark. Lingering under the covers just a bit more. Turning off the electronics when the sun goes down earlier and earlier, even for a little bit, just to recognize the soul’s call to simmer and cherish.

The Three Most Revolutionary Words in the Gospel

by Amos Smith

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. -Galatians 3:28

This verse from Galatians is what made the early church profound – what made it spread like wildfire. In the highly stratified society of Jesus’ time no one could believe that different classes, genders, and ethnicities sung, prayed, and broke bread together. This was unheard of.

In Jesus’ time “acceptable company” was defined very narrowly. For example, it was taboo for a Rabbi to associate with women, Samaritans, or ritually unclean people, among others.

The early church drop-kicked all the purity codes. They learned this audacious behavior from Jesus who “touched the leper” (Matthew 8:3). In my estimation, those are the three most revolutionary words of the Gospel. In Jesus’ time no one ever looked at a leper, much less considered touching one. When lepers came around most people ran, and some pelted them with stones. So for Jesus to “touch the leper” was radical.

Contemporary Christian author Brian Zhand writes “Jesus was trying to lead humanity into the deep truth that there is no ‘them,’ there is only us.”

Most people would say, “Okay I can accept this statement, but there are obvious exceptions, like lepers.” Jesus shattered this exceptionalism of the liberal Jews of his time when he fearlessly touched the loathsome leper. The liberal Jews wanted to minimize factions and to broaden boundary lines of acceptability. Yet, the leper blew away all categories and was out of bounds.

When we experience factions, superiority complexes, power struggles, purity codes, and sibling rivalries, we are mired in the human condition, otherwise known as original sin. If, on the other hand, we stretch the comfort zone and reach out to people on the margins of society, as Jesus did in his time, we edge toward the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, as envisioned by Jesus, stretched comfort zones, even to the point of touching the untouchable.

Someone might have a valid claim to superiority because of nationality, IQ, class, et cetera. Yet, from the perspective of the Gospel, any advantage we may have, should be used to serve the less fortunate. We may possess legitimate authority and power. Yet, according to Jesus, that power is best utilized in service to our neighbors. In other words, the best leaders are servant leaders (Matthew 20:25-28).

The grace the early Christians experienced in their own lives through the radically inclusive love of Jesus they extended to others, not just to their own clan, class, or religious group. The early Christians saw the beauty and God-given worth of each and every person. This made the early Christians extraordinary.

Discrimination against minorities is becoming more common in the United States today. Whenever a minority is discriminated against in America, even a leper, we are called to resist in Jesus’ name.

Discernment as a Visioning Tool

by Teresa Blythe

Many churches and faith based organizations do good work in the present but have difficulty catching a vision for the next chapter in life, be that the next three months or the next three years. Change takes them by surprise, the congregation or group’s anxiety ratchets up, and fear about the future begins to drive decision-making. It feels like a crisis, but is actually an opportunity to rediscover the spiritual practice of discernment.

What Usually Happens

When the crisis-of-change hits, the church or organization sometimes rushes to hire a business consultant for strategic planning only to find the business approach doesn’t quite fit for a group that is—at its core—a faithful gathering of volunteers who want and need to know how to participate in what God is already doing in their midst.

Communities of faith don’t work like businesses, and rarely even work like traditional non-profits.

For visioning in faith communities, I recommend a spiritual director experienced in communal discernment — a guided process involving a group making decisions as one body rather than a group of individuals with strongly held opinions about the future. Faith communities have a lot of experience with the latter! It’s the usual mode for their boards–everyone puts their ideas on the table, pushes for their solutions and then votes so that “winner takes all.”

What is Discernment?

Time-honored principles of discernment help us catch God’s vision. We’re talking about a vision broad enough to allow the community to be agile and move through change with relative ease while also being clear enough to be helpful.

Simply put, discernment is faithful choices. It always centers around a question facing your organization or church. Usually, it is something like, “Where is God leading us in the coming days?”

For that you need a process:

Steeped in prayer and contemplative reflection.
One that considers as much data and information about your history, your present condition and the gifts within your organization,
Weighs the pros and cons,
Listens to the deep desires and intuition of the group, and
Honors the mystical notion of “call” – What do we, at our deepest core as an organization, believe God is inviting us to be or do? The Spirit uses prayer and discernment to ignite the vision.

Process Matters

The discernment process is ideally designed to help you unearth what God is up to in your corner of the world because you want your vision to be in alignment with God’s activity. If you are not clear about what alignment feels like, look at how much energy your organization has for the work it is now doing. If energy is flagging, you probably are not in alignment with what God is already doing and you need some time and reflection on how to recalibrate.

To be honest, this work will be more ambiguous than the standard business practice of strategic planning.

Visioning through discernment involves living with the mystery of not knowing what the outcome will be. A willingness to be surprised at where the community goes as it discerns together is imperative.

Although discernment involves mystery, it is also grounded and concrete, designed to move you through to a conclusion. It is neither “woo-woo” magic nor is it a road to pinpointing, with certainty, the “perfect will of God.” It’s simply your work—it’s how you get to know God better by praying, listening to the still small voice within, listening to others’ experiences and questions and paying attention to intuition.

One of the beauties of this process is that when you gather your visioning group, you will have tasks that everyone can relate to in one way or another. Your artists and prayer warriors will be delighted with the amount of time spent intentionally connecting with God. Your engineers, accountants and business-minded people will feel comfortable with the practical aspects. You will have gathered many different types of intelligence and will have used a variety of spiritual and practical tools to reach unity.

Why bring in an outsider?

Anyone can initiate visioning through discernment, however a spiritual director trained in discernment would make an excellent guide. Spiritual directors have studied discernment processes and worked with people and groups in discernment over time.

Spiritual directors stay out of the way of your work. We have no agenda other than to guide you through the process. When stuck, we encourage you. When sidetracked, we redirect. There may be times in the process where you feel “in the weeds” and nowhere near a vision. The spiritual director’s job is to trust and know that God is faithful. You will get there!

Once you feel unity around a vision, you will develop a short statement that can serve as a guidepost for all the projects, programs and efforts you keep; those you release; and any activity you consider in the future. An example comes from the gospels. “We are fishers of people” would be the disciples’ vision statement and “We follow Jesus” would be their mission.

Much like that example, an image may accompany the short vision statement (a net of fish!). This statement and image becomes a benchmark for all you do as you go forward. You have the tools to determine if proposed programs really fit with the vision, asking, “Are we being faithful to the vision here?” (“Is this what fishers of people do?”)

Your vision statement and image are the groundwork for determining your mission statement–what you do in the world right now–and for any longer statements you may create about your life together, things like organizational profiles, search and call documents, and marketing materials.

Long term benefits

Visioning through discernment has benefits even after the process is complete.

Participating in the process helps individuals learn how to use discernment in their daily lives. They will likely find their relationship with God deepens as a result of doing this communal spiritual work.

The faith community learns what it is like to transform business into an opportunity to live out the faith more intentionally. Once an organization learns how to look at an important question from many different angles and spends time with it in ways they may not have considered before, there is no more “business as usual.”

Discernment will be the only way you will want to work from that point on.

Learn more about it

To learn more about visioning through discernment, a process I use with organizations, contact me at teresa@teresablythe.net. In fact, if you are interested in any aspect of spiritual direction, I’d like to help.

Visit www.teresablythe.net or the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Direction for more information.

Advent in Iraq: An Experience in the Unfiltered Wonder of God

by Owen Chandler

Beloved Saguaro Christian Church,

Greetings! I pray that these words find you well. I continue to lift you in prayer each day, trusting that the power of God’s love, which keeps us connected, rests peacefully within you. For the most part, I am fine. Mercifully, the days pass quickly as we begin the preparations to hand off this mission soon. It turns out that being deployed during the holidays is unideal. Who knew?!? The Army made it look so quaint on the brochure.

Luckily, the mail keeps a steady traffic of support coming into our offices. I wanted to express my gratitude for the two enormous boxes of goodies and the Advent Wreath. It was a huge hit. The irony is that we have all worked so hard to lose weight and get into shape on this deployment. Many of us are risking gaining that weight back eating our holiday feelings with all the stuff coming in the mail. I have started working out twice a day so that I can eat the good stuff with no guilt. There is no way I am going to pass on Christmas cookies.

The Advent Wreath is beautiful. Most of the people who come to our chapel program are part of religious traditions that don’t utilize this worship practice. I must have had twenty questions about it the first week. After so many conversations, I didn’t know what they would think of it. They love it, however. We run stripped-down and simplified services in Iraq, but when I introduce some traditional elements, I have been surprised by how welcomed the practices were. It will be interesting to see if any of these soldiers try to introduce an Advent Wreath into their churches back home.

I will miss the sanctuary of Saguaro CC this Christmas. It is my favorite time of year to worship with you. I tried to recreate some of that ambiance here, but I literally blew up the Christmas tree. It was a pre-lit tree and I forgot to check the wattage requirements. You would have thought that I learned my lesson with the coffee pot from back in June. There are so many things I wish they had taught me in Seminary. I have now added basic electrician skills to that list.

I pray that these next weeks are a true blessing. It is peculiar to lead soldiers during these days as they are conducting the operations of war. There is not a lot of gloss here. This is definitely not a Hallmark setting. In some ways, it has led me to consider Advent anew, free from the presents, parties, and general consumer saturation of the holiday. In the sparseness of this place, I find myself preaching the following theme: Advent is an experience in the unfiltered wonder of God. Within that journey, tragedy becomes the paradox of God’s grace, for out of the brokenness of the world’s despondence the promise of God’s peace is born. It is not the jolliest of sermon series, but there is part of me that thinks it is probably closer to the truth of that historical reality many years ago. Don’t feel too sorry for my chapel goers; I make it up to them by singing Christmas songs instead of Advent songs. It is a little trick I picked up from [our music staff,] Keith Koster and Jeff Myrmo!

I hope to write you one more letter before I leave. If I am not able to do so, then I say with all my heart: Merry Christmas.

Peace,

Owen Chandler