Movie Night's unlikely pilgrims
From Rev. Saranell Hartman, Assistant Director of Theological Horizons:
On a summer evening in Charlottesvillewe gathered at Open Grounds Studio at UVa to watch the ‘The Way’. This movie showcases two themes I love: community & spirituality. When Dr. Tom, played by Martin Sheen, learns that his son has died while trekking around the world, his own journey begins. He decides to complete what his son started El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James). El Camino is a pilgrimage that takes pilgrims across the top of Spain to a cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.
Pilgrimage was once a common spiritual practice, along with prayer, fasting and retreat. For many years only a few walked El Camino but in recent years 1,000 pilgrims a day receive their “compostela” (certificate of completion). Why such an influx? Pilgrimage requires disconnection of our daily routines our iphones, ipad and lists of appointments and offers connection to humanity and the world. It allures those seeking greater meaning in life.
The movie's website says this: The Camino, by its nature, serves as the ultimate metaphor for life. Footsteps along a well-trodden path may be our guide, but do not shield us from the questions that most of our busy everyday lives prevent us at times from fully recognizing. The road offers very little to hide behind. The process of life is life along whichever road, path, Camino, or Way we find ourselves on. Our humanity toward ourselves and others, our history and our future is what defines us. Take the journey of life. Buen Camino!
Through unexpected and oftentimes amusing experiences along "The Way," Dr. Tom discovers the difference between "the life we live and the life we choose.” The quartet of misfits, each walking ‘the Way’ for a different reason, become a community. Slowly Dr. Tom realizes that he doesn’t walk life’s journey alone- metaphorically or literally. And neither do we!
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Experiencing Agape
Encounters with Jesus change the lives of each character we studied throughout the Breakfast Bible Study this semester. Grace is like that. Grace is what God does for us -- that which we could not do for ourselves. Grace changes our hearts, souls and minds. Grace empowers us to live as the people God created us to be. People created to love: love God, our neighbor and ourselves. Our semester study of 'The Way of Grace' concluded with an Agape meal or love feast. The feast is a simple, ritual meal. Hymns are sung, Scripture is read, and testimonies and stories of faith are shared. John Wesley instituted the Agape meal after the Moravian pattern to symbolize the unity and fellowship of love in Christ.
One of our resident artists, Morgan, shared three original paintings to accompany each of the three courses. Through color, light and subject, each piece illuminated for us a dimension of grace.
In her memoir, Out of Africa, Isak Dineson wrote, "We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and shortsightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite. For this reason we tremble...But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite." The pile of bread on the table at the center of the room focused our attention on the abundance of grace that is offered to us in Christ. It is out of God's abundant grace that we live. Grace calls us to life. We are invited to live confidently, trusting in God's presence while we work, play and sleep. Matthew 6:33-34 says, "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
Dallas Willard says, "Grace not only cleanses us (from sin), but it is the fuel that propels us forward as we bring the presence and love of God into the world each day. As we live for Jesus and bring his love to the world, the kingdom is near."
As followers of Jesus we live by grace. May God's presence continue to bless and keep us on this journey of ever deepening faith.
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Spring Institute on Lived Theology, May 22-24
“Theology’s Crippled Imagination” is just one of several subjects to be discussed at a three-day conference next week and hosted by the University of Virginia’s Project on Lived Theology.
The project’s goal is to understand the social consequences of religious beliefs, said project director Charles Marsh, a U.Va. professor Religious Studies and founding director of Theological Horizons.
Charles says that the heart of the project’s mission is encouraging younger theologians and scholars of religion to embrace theological life as a form of public responsibility. “Among an emerging generation of teachers, writers and researchers, we are discovering a hunger for the opportunity to reconnect the theological enterprise with lived experience, and it is our privilege to provide a public space in which that task can be pursued.”
This year's conference, “Lived Theology in Method, Style and Pedagogy,” features public lectures by three keynote speakers: Rev. Willie James Jennings, associate professor of theology and black church studies at Duke Divinity School; Rev. Traci C. West, professor of ethics and African-American studies at Drew University Theological School; and Ted A. Smith, assistant professor of preaching and ethics at Candler School of Theology.
All three speakers are accomplished authors. Each will give a free public talk at the Solarium in the UVa Colonnade Club.
An active Baptist minister with research interests including liberation theologies, cultural identities, and anthropology, Willie James Jennings will speak on “Theology’s Crippled Imagination” May 22 at 4 p.m.
Traci West has written extensively on violence against women, racism, clergy ethics, sexuality and other issues of justice in church and society. She will speak May 23 at 9:45 a.m. on “Waging Ethics through Community.”
Ted Smith works at the intersections of practical and political theology, with special attention to the forms preaching and worship take in modern societies. He will speak May 23 at 2 p.m. on “Eschatological Memories of Everyday Life.”
Housed in U.Va.’s Department of Religious Studies, the Project on Lived Theology hosts meetings at U.Va. and in community centers across the country as well as in congregations across the ecumenical spectrum.
Thomas Merton: Discovering Ourselves in Christ
On this glorious spring day, students gathered in the garden at the Bonhoeffer House for the last Vintage of the semester. It’s hard to believe that the year is almost over! We celebrated the end of the year with a picnic outside and feasted on Helen’s homemade pasta salad, fresh fruit, and cookies. Today’s reading and discussion was on the monk and writer, Thomas Merton. Merton was born in France in 1915 to an American mother and an artist father. He lived a sensual life as a teenager and young man, attending Columbia and becoming an intellectual activist. In his 20s, Thomas experienced a profound conversion to Christ and even joined the Roman Catholic church at age 26. He became a monk and moved into a hermitage. He spent his life with a “dual career as a cloistered monk and prolific writer.” While traveling to Bangkok to meet with Eastern religious leaders, he died in a freak accident at age 53.
At Vintage today, we read a passage by Thomas Merton on the idea of finding meaning in life and discovering ourselves. We all live life searching for the meaning of it. According to Merton, finding this meaning and living according to it is our purpose in life. Thomas also speaks on the desire to discover ourselves. Although we often look to ourselves, the only way we can truly discover ourselves is through others and in Christ. For the Bible says, “If any man would save his life, he must lose it.” Merton writes: “this discovery of ourselves is always a losing of ourselves—a death and a resurrection. ‘Your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Our discussion ended with reading various quotes by Thomas Merton. Students chose quotes that spoke to them, and shared their thoughts. One quote seemed especially relevant while we enjoyed the beautiful spring day: “By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.”
-Caroline Parsley, UVa '2014
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Karl Barth
On this rainy day, students gathered at the Bonhoeffer House for a lunch of Karen’s chicken & wild rice casserole and a discussion of the famous theologian, Karl Barth. Barth was born in Switzerland in 1886, and at age 22 he became a Calvinist pastor like his father. Karl was passionate about the study of theology, which he called “that beautiful science.” He went on to teach theology at Goettingen and Bonn. In 1933, Barth wrote the Barmen Confession, which was an anti-Nazi protest that claimed autonomy of the church from all temporal power. Because of this, he was found guilty of “seducing the minds” of his students. Barth returned to Switzerland and wrote 600 theological works. For the theologian, faith was not an idea about God, but was man’s humble and total acceptance of God brought on by God—“the consequences in man of the action of God himself.” Karl attacked liberalism, in which the Bible was an inspiration to Christians on how to live a good life rather than a record of God’s unique intervention in history. In his sermon we read today, Karl Barth discusses the resurrection of Jesus, which he describes as “the centre around which everything else moves.” “Because this event took place, there is no reason to despair, and even when we read the newspaper with all its confusing and frightening news, there is every reason to hope.” Yet Barth acknowledges that we often fail to understand the significance of this event. Some students talked about how our doubts and difficulties can make it difficult to grasp the reality of the resurrection. On the other hand, perfectionism and ambition can lead to shame and imprisonment. But Karl Barth reminds us that Jesus’ resurrection is the answer:
“Yes, truer than your sin, truer than all your experiences and your thoughts, truer than all your doubts and afflictions, truer than death, graves hell. This freedom God will gladly give you, this freedom to breathe in His atmosphere, even though you have a thousand griefs; this freedom to rise from the dead in the victorious power of Christ, even though you are a sinner and a mortal. This is the Easter message.”
Vintage Recap: Sadhu Sundar Singh
It’s officially spring in Charlottesville, and the Bonhoeffer House celebrated the new season with angel food cake and a fascinating discussion. Today’s Vintage was focused on the vintage Christian, Sadhu Sundar Singh—the “St. Paul of India.” Sundar Singh was born in 1889 and grew up to be a pious child. When Singh was only 14, his mother died. Feelings of grief led to deep anger toward God, and he began to publicly burn the Bibles of Christian missionaries. Sundar Singh’s despair was so great that he challenged God by deciding he would commit suicide unless God revealed himself to him over three days and nights. Singh did, in fact, encounter God. According to him, Jesus appeared and said, “How long are you going to persecute me? I died for you. For you I have my life. You were praying to know the right way; why don’t you take it? I am the Way.” This event was life-changing, and Sundar Singh was quickly baptized at age 16. Despite being denounced by his father and almost poisoned by his brother for his new faith, Singh lived a life devoted to Jesus. He believed that Christianity could penetrate India only through an Indian way, so he wore a turban and the yellow robe of a Hindu sadhu. Singh spend much of his life travelling extensively and ministering to others. He is believed to have died in 1933 on a journey to Tibet.
Students were moved by Singh’s account of the time he felt compelled by God to travel to a neighboring village and tell them about his experience with Christ. Singh had been suffering from a physical illness. His body was telling him to stay behind, but his soul compelled him to go despite the pain. Eventually, he overcame and dragged his sick body to tell the people what Christ had done for him. The people were aware of Singh’s illness and were moved by this display of perseverance. Though Singh was unable to explain all that Christ’s presence had done for him, his actions spoke louder than his words. Sundar Singh wrote that, “where the tongue is lacking, life, through action, reveals reality.” Ironically, it was Singh’s weakness that was most powerful for the people. Students admired how Singh refused to give up and feel useless. Instead, he allowed God to use him in the midst of weakness and illness.
Today at Vintage, we also read an exercpt by Sundar Singh on desire and thirst. Instead of eliminating desire and “the deep longing in our soul,” Singh believes these feelings should be seen as “a clear sign of hope that spiritual peace exists.” He writes: “To drive out thirst without quenching it with life-sustaining water is to drive out life itself. The result is death, not salvation.” This passage resonated with many students. It is often easy to bury these feelings of longing and thirst for spiritual peace. Yet Singh reminds us that these feelings are valuable, and they remind us of the truth that there is someone who can and will satisfy our thirsty souls.
-Caroline Parsley, UVa '2014
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St. Francis of Assisi
On this beautiful spring day, Vintage was privileged to have Theological Horizons board member Molly McFarland as a guest today. Not only did students enjoy her homemade barbeque chicken sandwiches, but they were also able to hear a little about Molly’s experience with Theological Horizons both as an undergraduate and now as a board member. Molly spoke about the impact it has had on her life, and she encouraged students to give back, whether through the UVa class gift donation or other ways. After listening to Molly speak, we jumped right into reading and discussing St. Francis of Assisi. Francis was born into a nouveau rich family and lived from 1181-1226. He grew up to become a rowdy teenager; he travelled, learned French, and troubadour poetry. Francis lived in a violent era, and he was imprisoned for a year after fighting with Assisi against Perugia. At age 25, he rejected his family’s wealth, and he instead embraced lepers and joined those who were abandoned. He formed a community of poverty, humility, and service with the “brothers” that God gave him. Francis was known to be extroverted, eccentric, and cheerful despite living in poverty. His order of brothers expanded to Germany, France, Hungary, Spain and the Middle East. He lived his last days in a hermitage, suffered from illnesses, and died at age 45.
Students began the discussion of St. Francis by bringing up a famous quote that is attributed to him: “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.” This quote is a reminder of the impact our actions and the way in which we live can have on others. Yet students were careful to not disregard the importance of words. Even when it might be uncomfortable to do so, preaching the gospel verbally is often necessary as well. Today at Vintage, we also discussed what St. Francis had to say on forgiveness and reconciliation. We read the story of “Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio,” which tells the miracle of how Francis saves the town from a ferocious wolf that is terrorizing the people. He is able to tame the wolf and make an oath with it through the power of God. Francis saw the need beneath the fear of the people and the fierceness of the wolf, and he mediated an agreement where both sides gave up something to bring about reconciliation. This story is a picture of the need for forgiveness and reconciliation throughout the world.
To hear Molly McFarland speak on Theological Horizons, check out the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD0p0HAHQF0&list=HL1365451795&feature=mh_lolz
Recipe Post: Creamy Carrot & Chickpea Soup
Today at Vintage, Helen made a carrot & chickpea soup so delicious that it deserves its own post. The recipe was created by Mark Bittman: Creamy Carrot and Chickpea Soup
Makes: 4 servings
1⁄4 cup olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 pound carrots, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
Salt and black pepper
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons pimenton (smoked paprika)
6 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water, plus more as needed
1 cup dried chickpeas, rinsed, picked over, and soaked if you have time (or 3 cans of chickpeas)
1 cup orange juice
1⁄4 cup chopped almonds, for garnish
Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
1. Put the oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat; a minute later, add the onions, carrots, and garlic and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally and adjusting the heat as needed to keep the vegetables from burning, until the onions and carrots have colored, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the cumin and paprika and cook, stirring, for another 30 seconds or so.
2. Add the stock and chickpeas. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down so the mixture bubbles gently but steadily. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the chickpeas are very soft, at least 1 hour; add more liquid as necessary so the mixture remains soupy. (Or you can use 3 cans of chickpeas, which cuts down the cooking time)
3. When the chickpeas are very tender, add the orange juice, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Carefully puree the soup in batches in a blender or in the pot with an immersion blender. (You can make the soup ahead to this point. Refrigerate for up to 2 days or freeze for months; gently reheat it before proceeding.) Serve garnished with the almonds and parsley.
Enjoy!
-Caroline Parsley, UVa '14
Stations of the Cross
In honor of Good Friday, students came to Vintage today for a special time of music and meditation on the death of Christ. We read and reflected on the “way of the cross” through the fourteen Stations of the Cross. This set of stations are shrines that originated from the earliest of days, when followers of Jesus told the story of his passion, death, and resurrection. Pilgrims came to Jerusalem to see the sites where Jesus once was and to follow in the footsteps of the Lord along the way of the cross. Because it became more difficult or even impossible to visit the holy states, the Stations of the Cross, as we know them today, were created as “replicas” of the sites in villages all over Europe. Shrines were placed along the routes, which became the set of 14 stations we now know and were placed in almost every Catholic Church and many other churches in the world. Praying through the Stations of the Cross is a powerful way to contemplate, and enter into, the mystery of Jesus’ gift of himself to us. It isn’t an intellectual exercise, but an imaginative one. It allows Jesus to touch our hearts deeply by showing the depth of his love. This prayer leads us to both gratitude and a sense of solidarity with all our brothers and sisters.
To go through the fourteen stations yourself, click on the link
-Caroline Parsley, UVa '14
LENT readings & resources
“Lent” comes from an old English word for spring, when the days lengthen on the way to Easter, a season which may also bring springtime to the soul.Forty days to clear the spiritual cobwebs, to uncover what remains when all old comforts are gone. Forty days to remember what it is like to live by the grace of God alone, not by what we can supply for ourselves. Forty days to return to God with all our hearts.
We invite you to visit this page often--and we'll be posting daily on twitter and facebook.
EASTER
The essence of Easter is this: Jesus is victor! No not a miracle, but the miracle, the miracle of God -- God's incomprehensible, saving intervention and mercy, the all-inclusive renewal that leads from death to life that comes from him, God's life-word, resurrection from the dead...
Resurrection -- not progress, not evolution, not enlightenment, but a call from heaven to us: "Rise up! You are dead, but I will give you life." --Karl Barth
Now let the heavens be joyful--John of Damascus
HOLY WEEK
"The Last Words of Jesus" by Rev. Saranell Hartman, assistant director, Theological Horizons
GOOD FRIDAY
An introduction to the stations of the cross
the stations of the cross with african art
As we recall Christ's crucifixion on this day, we join with believers throughout the centuries. One way of entering into the story is an ancient practice of telling the story through the 'stations of the cross.' At Vintage lunch here at the Bonhoeffer House, students will be experiencing this way of the cross together. We attach the readings here so that you may join us!
MAUNDY THURSDAY
O Jesus, my feet are dirty. Come even as a slave to me, pour water into your bowl, come and wash my feet. In asking such a thing I know I am overbold but I dread what was threatened when you said to me, ‘If I do not wash your feet I have no fellowship with you.’ Wash my feet then, because I long for your companionship. And yet, what am I asking? It was well for Peter to ask you to wash his feet; for him that was all that was needed for him to be clean in every part. With me it is different; though you wash me now I shall still stand in need of that other washing, the cleansing you promised you said, ‘There is a baptism I must needs be baptized with’. --Origen
Origen, one of the earliest Christian theologians, was born in Africa, probably at Alexandria, toward the end of the 2nd century. He endured terrible tortures for the faith after his arrest in 250 during the Decian persecution. Many of his writings, which provoked great controversy during his lifetime and after his death, have been lost but we do know that he was a great scripture scholar who worked to secure a more reliable text of the Old Testament by careful comparison of Hebrew and Greek versions. from An African Prayerbook by Desmond Tutu)
WEDNESDAY
Don't let Holy Week go by without responding to the invitation to be with Christ right now. Here are a few of our favorite online sources. Click and begin!
Take 30 minutes for this Online Lenten Retreat which guides you through scriptures and prayer. The reflections point you towards the depth of love revealed in the person of Jesus.
Click on each day's date for a 1o minute podcast of music, Scripture and questions to lead you into prayer.
Echo the praise of God through this video setting of "Sanctus" ("Holy!") Turn up the volume!
View paintings depicting the traditional Stations of the Cross in a way you've never seen them before. For background on this tradition and more sources for art, go here.
TUESDAY
When Christians meet together to break bread and share wine in his memory, they are taking part in an act which helps them to live. Through this act the distant figure from first-century Galilee and Jerusalem becomes a living presence and source of life. The re-membering of Christ, the movement of his passion into human history, is one of the most striking, most baffling and yet most clear features of the human story. For when people contemplate this crucified figure, they do so not as a solitary and tragic martyr but as a source of strength and grace, and as a way of deepening solidarity in pain and struggle. To remember Christ in his dying is to become his members, his limbs and organs, to be his body crucified and risen. it is to reawaken his memory as a contemporary source of strength and illumination. Or so Christians claim.
So in contemplating the passion, we look back to the event of Christ’s death, not only as a historical memory, but as a source of life, of freedom, of nourishment, of renewal. In that crushed and broken victim, we see our hope, our only hope, in a world which continues to crush and break the children of God.
--Kenneth Leech, We Preach Christ Crucified
MONDAY
The maker of man was made man, That the Ruler of the stars might suck at the breast; That the Bread might be hungered; The Fountain, thirst; The Light, sleep; The Way, be wearied by the journey; The Truth, be accused by false witnesses; The Judge of the living and the dead, be judged by a mortal judge; The Chastener, be chastised with whips; The Vine, be crowned with thorns; The Foundation, be hung upon a tree; Strength, be made weak; Health, be wounded; Life, die. To suffer these and suchlike things, undeserved things, that He might free the undeserving, for neither did He deserve any evil, who for our sakes endured so many evils, nor were we deserving of anything good, we who through Him received such good.
Augustine, from The Confessions
LENT 6: PALM SUNDAY
From Frederick Buechner's sermon, "The Things That Make For Peace"
We call it Palm Sunday because maybe they were palm branches that were thrown into the road in front of him as he approached the city-a kind of poor man's red-carpet treatment, a kind of homemade ticker-tape parade. Just branches is all the record states, but maybe palms is what they actually were, and in any case it's as palms that we remember them; and all over Christendom people leave church with palm leaves of their own to remember him by on the anniversary of his last journey, to pin up on the kitchen bulletin board or stick into the frame of the dresser mirror until finally they turn yellow and brittle with age and we throw them out. Some of the people who were there were so carried away by what was happening that they took the clothes off their backs and spread them out on the road in front of him along with the branches, so that the clip-clop, clip-clop of the hooves of the colt he was riding was muffled by shirts, shawls, cloaks spread out there in the dust as maybe even you and I would have spread ours out too if we'd been there because it was a moment with such hope and passion in it. That's what the palms are all about….
"Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord," the cry goes up. There is dust in the air with the sun turning it gold. Around a bend in the road, there suddenly is Jerusalem. He draws back on the reins. Crying disfigures his face. "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace." Even today, he says, because there are so few days left. Then the terror of his vision as he looks at the city that is all cities and sees not one stone left standing on another - you and your children within you - your children. "Because you did not know the time of your visitation," he says. Because we don't know who it is who comes to visit us. Because we do not know what he comes to give. The things that make for peace, that is what he comes to give. We do not know these things, he says, and God knows he's right. The absence of peace within our own skins no less than within our nations testifies to that. But we know their names at least. We all of us know in our hearts the holy names of the things that make for peace - real peace - only for once let us honor them by not naming them. Let us name instead only him who is himself the Prince of Peace.
"He shall judge between the nations and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." That is our Palm Sunday hope, and it is our only hope. That is what the palms and the shouting are all about. That is what all our singing and worshiping and preaching and praying are all about if they are about anything that matters. The hope that finally by the grace of God the impossible will happen. The hope that Pilate will take him by one hand and Caiaphas by the other, and the Roman soldiers will throw down their spears and the Sanhedrin will bow their heads. The hope that by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the love of Christ, who is Lord of the impossible, the leaders of the enemy nations will draw back, while there is still time for drawing back, from a vision too terrible to name. The hope that you and I also, each in our own puny but crucial way, will work and witness and pray for the things that make for peace, true peace, both in our own lives and in the life of this land.
Despair and hope. They travel the road to Jerusalem together, as together they travel every road we take - despair at what in our madness we are bringing down on our own heads and hope in him who travels the road with us and for us and who is the only one of us all who is not mad. Hope in the King who approaches every human he art like a city. And it is a very great hope as hopes go and well worth all our singing and dancing and sad little palms because not even death can prevail against this King and not even the end of the world, when end it does, will be the end of him and of the mystery and majesty of his love. Blessed be he.
LENT 5
"But we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles."1 Cor 1:23
Why is it that Paul describes the gospel as a folly and a scandal and that worldly wisdom feels so repelled by it? Swiss theologian Emil Brunner tells us that the wisdom of this world makes us proud of our own achievements, even our spiritual ones. We act as if it is we who must do the decisive thing to win the good pleasure of God. "But the message of the cross proclaims to each one of us, even the best and most pious: You are a sinner, you are in a wrong relationship with God and hence with your neighbor also. You are seeking yourself. You wish to appear clever, and to attain the highest by means of your own intrinsic powers." Where do we go from there?
"The message of the cross goes to the root of our ills, and it alone can cure them radically. Just for that reason it spells folly & scandal. How? In the Bible it is not we who find a way to God; it is God who comes to us.... It is not a question of our own performances and exercises as a result of which we might hope to become pious and well-pleasing to God. The central point of the scripture is that God has mercy on us who are stuck so fast in the mire...that we cannot help ourselves...
Has not the thought come to you: Well, what remains for us to do? What room is there for our own exertions, our own sense of responsibility? Consider once more what it is that God bestows upon us. He imparts his love, communion with himself, and that fact that sin, which causes the deepest, most inward separation from him, is done away. How could a person who truly appropriates that gift become frivolous and irresponsible? Can one really receive the love of God without henceforth living in the strength of that love?
All man-made religion stands in opposition to the gospel. It is an ascent toward the eternal, perfect God. Up, up--that is it its call....But God in his mercy has shown us a different way. 'You cannot come up to me, so I will come down to you.' And God descends to us human beings. This act of becoming one of us begins at Christmas and ends on Good Friday.
God goes to the end. He reaches the goal... Jesus Christ has gone into hell to get us out of there. For with everything he does, that is his goal, that he may get us out, reconcile us with God, and fill us with God's spirit. "
Emil Brunner (1889-1966) from "The Divine Scandal" in The Great Invitation
LENT 4
Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands. Psalm 138:8
O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly. I entered into it with fear, but also with great expectations. I hoped for a great breakthrough, a powerful conversion, a real change of heart; I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light that not even a trace of darkness would be left in my soul.
But I know that you do not come to your people with thunder and lightning. Even St. Paul and St. Francis journeyed through much darkness before they could see your light. Let me be thankful for your gentle way. I know you are at work. I know you will not leave me alone. I know you are quickening me for Easter - but in a way fitting to my own history and my own temperament.
I pray that these last three weeks, in which you invite me to enter more fully into the mystery of your passion, will bring me a greater desire to follow you on the way that you create for me and to accept the cross that you give to me. Let me die to the desire to choose my own way and select my own desire. You do not want to make me a hero but a servant who loves you.
Be with me tomorrow and in the days to come, and let me experience your gentle presence. Amen.
--Henri Nouwen
LENT 3
"Lachrimae Amantis" [tears of the lover] by Lope de Vega Carpio, 16th. c
What is there in my heart that you should sue so fiercely for its love? What kind of care brings you as though a stranger to my door through the long night and in the icy dew seeking the heart that will not harbor you, that keeps itself religiously secure?
At this dark solstice filled with frost and fire your passion's ancient wounds must bleed anew. So many nights the angel of my house has fed such urgent comfort through a dream, whispered, 'your lord is coming, he is close,' that I have drowsed half-faithful for a time bathed in pure tones of promise and remorse; 'tomorrow I shall wake to welcome him.'
LENT 2
"The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God." Psalm 51:17
"Forgiveness of sins is what the gospel is all about. Forgiveness of sins is what Christ’s death upon the cross is all about. The purpose of Lent is to arouse. To arouse the sense of sin. To arouse a sense of guilt for sin. To arouse the humble contrition for the guilt of sin that makes forgiveness possible. To arouse the sense of gratitude for the forgiveness of sins. To arouse or to motivate the works of love and the work for justice that one does out of gratitude for the forgiveness of one’s sins.
To say it again — this time, backward: There is no motivation for works of love without a sense of gratitude, no sense of gratitude without forgiveness, no forgiveness without contrition, no contrition without a sense of guilt, no sense of guilt without a sense of sin.
In other words, a guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul. Therefore, an age without a sense of sin, in which people are not even sorry for not being sorry for their sins, is in rather a serious predicament. Likewise an age with a Christianity so eager to forgive that it denies the need for forgiveness. For such an age, therefore, Lent can scarcely be too long!
'I have found only one religion that dares to go down with me into the depth of myself,' wrote G. K. Chesterton. And it is true. No other religion dares to take me down to the new beginning. Hence Lent is not a tediously long brooding over sin. Lent is a journey that could be called an upward descent, but I prefer to call it a downward ascent. lt ends before the cross, where we stand in the white light of a new beginning. So fresh and new.." Edna Hong in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter
LENT 1
"Worship the Lord your God and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness" Matthew 4:10
Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) was a French Christian who lived in the Sahara desert with the nomadic Tuareg people, where he died a martyr. In de Foucauld's desire to "shout the Gospel with his life", he wrote, "I would like to be sufficiently good that people would say, 'If such is the servant, what must the Master be like?'" His prayer expresses beautifully the spiritual attitude I want to have--though I can never make this prayer come true by my own efforts. The spirit of Jesus within me can help me pray it as I grow toward making it my own:
"Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you; I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender into your hands, without reserve and with boundless confidence. For you are my father."
I know that true joy comes from letting God love me the way God wants, whether it is through illness or health, failure or success, poverty or wealth, rejection or praise. It is hard for me to say, 'I shall gratefully accept everything, Lord, that pleases you. Let your will be done.' But I know that when I truly believe my Father is pure love, it will become increasingly possible to say these words from the heart. Henri J.M. Nouwen
ASH WEDNESDAY
“Yet even now, says the Lord, repent and return to me with all your heart” Joel 2:13
"Now is the time! God's reign is present. Change your life and believe some very good news." Mark 1:15
"We too easily forget our Maker and Redeemer; replacing God with things and ambition. Lent is the season that does something about this situation. It calls us back to God, back to the basics, back to the spiritual realities of life. It calls us to put to death the sin and the indifference we have in our hearts toward God and others. And it beckons us to enter once again into the joy of the Lord---the joy of a new life born out of a death to the old life. That is what Ash Wednesday is all about: the fundamental change of life required of those who would die with Jesus and be raised to a new life in him."
Robert Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year
Rend Your Heart A Blessing for Ash Wednesday by Jan Richardson
To receive this blessing, all you have to do is let your heart break. Let it crack open. Let it fall apart so that you can see its secret chambers, the hidden spaces where you have hesitated to go.
Your entire life is here, inscribed whole upon your heart’s walls: every path taken or left behind, every face you turned toward or turned away, every word spoken in love or in rage, every line of your life you would prefer to leave in shadow, every story that shimmers with treasures known and those you have yet to find.
It could take you days to wander these rooms. Forty, at least.
And so let this be a season for wandering for trusting the breaking for tracing the tear that will return you
to the One who waits who watches who works within the rending to make your heart whole.
"We sometimes think of 'repentance’ as being about going back: going back, wearily, to the place you went wrong, finally making a clean breast of it, and then hoping you can start again. But John the Baptist's message of repentance was essentially forward-looking…
On Ash Wednesday, the point is this: you need to get ready. When God arrives; when the king knocks on your door; when you're about to be plunged in the holy spirit: what is there in your life that most embarrasses you? What are you ashamed of? We are on a pilgrimage this Lent, to the place where God has come into our very midst: to the cross of the Messiah. It's time to get ready." from NT Wright
Therese of Lisieux
“Jesus does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty as at the love with which we do them.” These words were written by Therese of Lisieux, an inspirational nun who lived in the late nineteenth century. This week at Vintage, students gathered at the Bonhoeffer House for a time of reading and discussing passages from Therese’s autobiography. Therese of Lisieux was born in 1873, and she lived a life of complete devotion to God until her early death at age 24. When she was just two years old, Therese decided that she would one day be a nun. Despite being refused at age 9 for her young age and again at age 15 for her illness, Therese never gave up. At age 17, she appealed directly to the Pope and was finally admitted to the monastery. This young woman faithfully followed the monastery’s daily routine of 2 hours of prayer and 5 hours of liturgy along with cleaning and serving. Because of her profound love and quiet devotion, Therese became known as “the Little Flower of Jesus.” At age 22, she wrote her autobiography The Story of a Soul, which became a popular spiritual book. At just age 24, Therese died of tuberculosis.
In the passages of The Story of a Soul that we read today at Vintage, Therese writes about the importance of “simple” and “small” souls, which she claims herself to be. She believes that these souls are just as significant and loved by God as the “excellent” souls that exist in the world. Therese explains that she often wondered why some souls seem to be given more graces by God than other ones. While comparing the world to a garden of flowers, she came to the conclusion that God’s love is revealed as perfectly in the “little violets” of the world as the grand roses and lilies of the world. According to Therese, “if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers.”
Today at Vintage, Therese reminded students of the truth that “perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.” Jesus does not demand great deeds, but rather love, self-surrender, and gratitude. Therese claimed that “if people who are as week and as imperfect as I am only felt what I feel, not one of them would despair of scaling the summit of the mountain of love.” Therese of Lisieux’s words are a reminder that true significance is found in loving and surrendering to God rather than focusing on ourselves.
Grad Students! 2013 Goodwin Writing Prizes
The Richard and Louise Goodwin Prizes in for Excellence in Theological Writing is a Theological Horizons competition that recognizes the finest theology graduate students from around the world.
Submissions are due by June 1, 2013. For more information about the competition, click here. To find submission guidelines, click here.
After four rounds of readings of the exceptional essays submitted from across 60 schools, the board of directors of Theological Horizons chose the Goodwin Prize winners for 2012.
The $2,000 prize was awarded to Frank "Smith" Lilley of Vanderbilt Divinity School for his essay “Resurrection, New Creation and Economy: A Study of the Economic Life of the Church and Person”. His advising professor, Douglas Meeks, received $500.
The $1,000 prize went to Jessica Hawkinson of Princeton Seminary for her essay, “Ordinary Mystery: Seeking the Divine in the Face of the Other”.
The $500 prize was given to Lincoln Rice of Marquette University for his essay, “St.Thomas Aquinas’s Theology of Poverty as a Scripturally-Based Resource for Addressing the Sustainability Crisis”.
Abstracts of the winning essays and biographies of the writers are posted on here on our website.
We are greatly encouraged to see young scholars of such promise and commitment. We thank all of the 2012 participants for their terrific work and look forward to seeing a new round of submissions for 2013.
Ignatius of Loyola: Finding God in All Things
Ignatius of Loyola was born of nobility in the Basque Spain, prepared to become a courtier and soldier. Growing up, he reveled in gambling, dueling, and romance; he even had a police record for nighttime brawling. But at age 30, Ignatius’ life changed when a cannonball shattered his leg, and he found himself trapped in the family castle because of the accident. He was unable to walk and only had books on Jesus and saints to read. The stories of saints in these books stirred his imagination, and Ignatius soon traded his military ambitions for spiritual ones. During his life, he formed the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and he wrote the famous The Spiritual Exercises, a manual for a 4-week meditation on the life of Jesus. Today at Vintage, we focused on Ignatius’ daily examen, a prayer from The Spiritual Exercises. St. Ignatius believed this reflective prayer to be invaluable in the Christian life. Praying in this manner “opens our eyes to God’s self-revelation” and leads to spiritual clarity. It allows us to see where God was present in our day as well as the ways in which our need of Him is especially great. This prayer—the daily examen—consists of five parts:
- Giving thanks to God for the graces we have received during the day.
- Asking for the grace to see where God had been with us during the day.
- Reviewing the entire day and remembering when we had accepted God’s grace and where we hadn’t.
- Finally, asking God for forgiveness of our sins and for the grace to do better the next day.
During our time of reading and discussion, students also had the opportunity to pray the daily examen themselves. The group was guided through each step of the prayer by a podcast played in the background. Students remarked after how the prayer allowed them to slow down and see the ways in which God was working even in the small, mundane parts of the day. Our busy lives often consist of rushing from one activity to another, and it’s easy to overlook both God’s grace and our sin. Reflection is crucial in our spiritual lives, and it leads to thanksgiving, confession, and repentance. Ignatius of Loyola’s prayer is a helpful guide for prayer, and it calls for Christians to be more mindful of the presence of God in our daily lives.
To check out the podcast that guides you through the daily examen, go to: www.pray-as-you-go.org/
For more insights on the examen prayer & the gifts God brings through it, watch the video: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/the-examen-video/
-Caroline Parsley, UVa '14
A Life of Unhurried Peace
Today we read Thomas Kelly’s writings on the busyness and complexity of our lives and the need to slow down in the midst of it. Kelly wrote that “a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power” was “vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence.” He wrote that “the problem we face today [is this]: Our lives in a modern city grow too complex and overcrowded…and before we know it we are bowed down with burdens, crushed under committees, strained, etc…” This man also believed that we often blame our busyness and complex lives on our environment rather than realizing that the real problem lies in our inner life.
Students remarked on how anxiety and busyness are still real problems today. Our culture, especially here at UVa, values busyness so much that it can seem almost impossible to slow down. In his writings, Thomas Kelly asks us “Do you long for Him, crave Him? Do you love His Presence?” He urges us to seek a “God-intoxicated life,” saying that “this life, this abiding peace that never fails, this serene power and unhurried conquest, inward conquest over ourselves is meant to be ours.” Students today were reminded of the importance of rest in the midst of our complex, busy lives. What God desires for all of us is to live lives filled with peace and rest in Him.
-Caroline Parsley, UVa '14
Bonhoeffer Lecture by Charles Marsh
In his lecture, “Who is Christ for Us Today?: The Fierce Urgency of Bonhoeffer's Final Questions," Charles Marsh tells five stories of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life. The ‘first act’ tells of Bonhoeffer’s experiences as the child of a close-knit German family, then follows him to Rome, where the young Lutheran encounters the mysteries of the Roman church. The third act recounts Bonhoeffer’s transformative year in the strange world of New York City. Back in Germany, Bonhoeffer pursues a ‘new monasticsm’ in Finkenwalde, a Christian community living out resistance to Hitler. The final ‘act’ of Charles Marsh’s lecture recounts Bonhoeffer’s final days in a Gestapo prison, suffering at the hands of the Nazis but alive to God’s grace and presence. By telling compelling stories of Bonhoeffer’s personal and spiritual formation, Marsh illuminates Bonhoeffer’s witness in a fresh, new way. Click on the link below to watch the full 1.5 hour long lecture!
http://www.veritas.org/Talks.aspx#!/v/1291
Spiritual Friendship
St. Aelred of Rievaulx once wrote these words: “God is friendship. Those who abide in friendship abide in God, and God abides in them.” Today at Vintage, after a lunch of Helen’s sloppy joes and cherry pie, students read St. Aelred and discussed the topic of friendship. St. Aelred of Rievaulx was born in Durham, England, and was sent to the Scottish court for an education as noble and courtier. He was high in the court of the king of Scotland. At age 24, he left to enter the Cistercian monastery in Rievaulx in Yorkshire, where he eventually became the monastery’s abbot. Here, he was encouraged by Bernard of Clairvaux to write. Today, we read excerpts from his book Spiritual Friendship, a collection of thoughts on friendship—a subject that was of utmost importance to him.
St. Aelred believed that true friendships are eternal. However, as we read today, not all friendships we have and experience are true. St. Aelred wrote that there are three types of friendships: carnal, worldly, and spiritual. In these readings, he describes the differences between them. While worldly friendships begin and are maintained simply for the sake of some advantage, spiritual friendships are born and “cemented by similarity of life, morals, and pursuits among the just.” Today at Vintage, students discussed what such a true and deep friendship looks like. St. Aelred had something to say on this. He wrote that there are four qualities that characterize a friend: loyalty, right intention, discretion, and patience.
We also talked about the real reason why our friendships are so important and meaningful. According to Chris Heurertz and Christine Pohl, our relationship with God is “at the heart of it all,” and “a grateful response to God’s gift of friendship involves offering that same gift to others.” We love others because God first loved us not just as servants, but also as friends.
-Caroline Parsley, UVa '14
Looking From the Top: Amy Carmichael
Today at Vintage, students were welcomed with a lunch of homemade tomato soup and BBQ sandwiches before diving into a discussion about the amazing missionary, Amy Carmichael. Amy was born in Ireland, and she lived from 1867-1951. Her devotion to God was apparent at an early age and by the time she was 24, Amy felt called to be a missionary overseas. Despite suffering from an illness, Amy did not abandon her calling. At age 29, she arrived in India to be an itinerant evangelist, where she lived for the rest of her life. This brave lady founded Dohnavur, a home for young girls taken out of Hindu temples. In a religious tradition, these Indian girls were “married” and dedicated to a deity or to a temple, many of them being forced into prostitution. Amy was so dedicated to her new life that she took an Indian name, wore Indian clothes, and even dyed her skin with coffee. In her lifetime, Carmichael wrote 50 or more books including the devotional book we read today, Edges of His Ways. Although Amy Carmichael’s life was marked by closeness with God, her life in India could also be lonely and challenging. During these times of difficulty, Amy offers insight and perspective with these words: “So the word comes, ‘Look from the top’. Come with Me from all that, come up the mountain with Me, ‘look from the top’. In every-day life this simply means, look from everything up to the Lord Jesus, Who is our Peace, our Victory, and our Joy, for we are where we look. From below, things feel impossible, people seem impossible (some people at least), and we ourselves feel most impossible of all. From the top we see as our Lord sees; He sees not what is only, but what shall be.”
Students discussed the importance of perspective and “looking” in our lives. In fact, Amy goes so far as to say “we are where we look”. We are called to follow Jesus up the mountain to “look from the top,” however unnatural or difficult this might be. For it is here where our doubts and trials are put into perspective. And it is here when we are able to see as the Lord sees—not only what is, but what shall be. When we “look from the top” with Jesus, “our discouragement vanishes, and we can sing a new song.” Amy Carmichael’s life is a great encouragement to us all. She is a true example to us of what it means to live with such a perspective, no matter how difficult life may be.
-Caroline Parsley, UVa '14
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An Interview with Intern Caroline Parsley
Along with the fundraising intern Camille Loomis, Theological Horizons has also welcomed a new communications intern, Caroline Parsley.
Caroline is a third year English major from Tampa, Florida. Aside from the Bonhoeffer House, her involvements here at UVa include Reformed University Fellowship and Pi Beta Phi. Caroline’s internship focuses on the communications side of Theological Horizons. Her main activities include writing for the TH blog, publicizing and promoting events, and communicating with students/alumni.
“I’m blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of such a wonderful organization as Theological Horizons. From Vintage lunch to Bible studies to Karen’s hospitality, the Bonhoeffer House is a place of warmth, encouragement, and growth. It truly is a home away from home for students here at UVa. This semester, I’m excited about the ways in which we’re reaching out to new students on grounds. I hope that more students will learn about the Bonhoeffer House so that they’ll be able to come and experience the amazing things that are happening here at Theological Horizons.” –Caroline Parsley