prayerful waiting: the "O Antiphons"
The seven days of Advent leading up to Christmas Eve and the proper celebration of Christmas are sometimes called the "Golden Nights" and are marked with an additional set of prayers in the Vespers (Evening Prayer) service. These prayers are sometimes called the "O Antiphons" because of how they begin and mark a . . .
on advent and waiting
why we need it and how to practice it
Of late, I have been particularly observant that people are picking up this Advent season on the subject of waiting. Bonhoeffer especially is known in his devotional for writing about Advent as a time of waiting. During the season of advent we practice waiting by not letting Christmas 'out of the bag' too quickly. We focus . . .
"he came to save"
If we do not believe in the power of evil, we cannot fully understand Jesus. It cannot be denied that he came to save people. But unless we understand that the main reason for his coming was to join the fight between God and Satan – to destroy the works of Satan – we cannot fully understand the need for an atonement-death on . . .
advent: training ground for the Christian life
In a letter to his fiancee Maria von Wedmeyer from prison in December 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:
Celebrating Advent means being able to wait. Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten...Whoever does not know the austere blessedness of waiting—that is, of hopefully doing without—will never experience . . .
renewed focus and return to writing
I want to start writing again. I sincerely do. Whatever flow I had regained after traveling to Japan in the spring of this year was entirely washed away by Hurricane Harvey this August. Many of my possessions were drowned and washed away in the floodwaters. Honestly, for a long time, so was my desire to write.
The enjoyment . . .
life after Harvey
on recovery, faith, and moving on
I don't really even know where to begin writing after being away from it so long and having experienced so many things. In the last three weeks we have lived through a record-setting hurricane, unprecedented rainfall amounts and rates, the flooding of our home and neighborhood, evacuating through flood waters by wading on foot / boat . . .
