Final Send Offs! | Saying Goodbye to our Students
This past week we've been saying goodbye to our students as they head off to exams, summer and beyond - through our annual Reading Day Lunch as well as our final Perkins & Horizons Fellows gatherings. Enjoy seeing photos and a send off prayer that we read over our Fellows:
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
-Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw in honor of Archbishop Oscar Romero
Where is God in my hardship? Reflection by Harmony LaJeunesse '22
A question I often ask myself is “Where is God in my hardship?” This question often leads me to more questions like, “Does God ordain suffering and pain?... Or is hardship a result of the brokenness of our world?... Can it be that suffering is a result of sin but God uses our suffering to draw us closer to Him?”
At our Easter week Vintage Lunch a few weeks ago I was struck by the idea that God grew the very tree on which Jesus was crucified.
God knew that that tree would bear the burden of his one and only son’s death yet he allowed that tree to grow. He knew full-well what would happen but he still orchestrated it. This made me grapple with the reality that it was always in God’s plan for Christ to suffer. But that suffering was holy. It was necessary. It was good. I’d never before considered how suffering could be good. God allowed that tree to grow because even though he knew it would bring suffering, that suffering was necessary to achieve His greater purpose of redemption.
Sometimes I feel like that tree. I wonder, why is God allowing painful things to happen to me? While I’m still trying to wrestle with this thought, what I’ve learned so far is that God allows me to endure hardship, not because he wants me to endure pain, but because it is a crucial element of His redemptive story for my life.
A verse I have clung to recently is Psalm 37:23 - 24.
“A person’s steps are established by the Lord, and takes pleasure in his way. Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, because the Lord supports him with his hand.”
The phrasing “though he falls” is oddly comforting for it implies that it is inevitable that we will fall. We will all fall, no matter how strong we think we are. This psalm validates our hardship and suffering; it confirms that our faith does not rid us of pain on their earth. It validates our sorrow and lament and encourages us to view it as an opportunity to lean on God even MORE for dependence on him. It is an opportunity to focus more fully on Him and not on our circumstances.
“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pastures. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37: 3-4)
To dwell. What does that mean? I think it means to rest. To let go. To just be.
Suffering is an opportunity to dwell in Him. Not in his blessings nor his gifts, just Him. In His character that stays the same no matter what I’m feeling, experiencing, doubting, processing, or fearing. His goodness is not shaken even when I am.
I am learning to dwell; to not run away from Jesus in my sorrow, questions, and confusion but rather cling to Him for He knows suffering more than anyone else and he is gentle and lowly (Matthew 11:29). I am learning to trust that God knows what I need more than I ever will.
I am learning to float.
To lay there, with my face towards the clouds, in awe of God’s beauty and goodness, with palms open wide to His plan, allowing myself to drift and sway into whatever is in store for me because no matter what comes my way, Jesus is right there by my side, holding my hand.
May Prayers | At the end of the Academic Year
"Then Samuel took a stone, set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and said, ‘The LORD has helped us all the way’ --and he named it 'Stone of Help.'”
1 Samuel 7:12
Good News Translation
GREETINGS, FRIENDS.
This month we say goodbye to many beloved students and celebrate the important milestone that is graduation. These rituals for both endings and beginnings and the in between times are so vital to a life of faith. What milestones or memories of God's faithfulness can you pause and celebrate this month?
-Christy Yates, Associate Director
At The End Of The Year
As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.
The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.
Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.
The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.
The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.
We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
(c) John O’Donohue To Bless The Space Between
2 days before the breakthrough: A semester in testing my faith by LaNija Brown '22
At the beginning of this semester, I was refreshed and ready to follow God to discern my vocation and next steps after graduation. I was motivated to apply to every job under the sun, network, spend time with God and do everything I wanted with my suddenly freed up schedule ( I mean, 14 credit hours down to 7?! A dream come true). However I had this deep feeling in my spirit that I was gonna be tested in my faith and that maybe it wouldn’t be all sunshine and rainbows..
Six tangible job rejections and countless unanswered applications later, here I am. Mere weeks away from graduation with my only instruction being to “trust Me” (God). Have I tried to add to this word myself? Yes. Have I tried to negotiate these terms? Yes. Have I tried to intentionally misinterpret what God told me? Of course. Does it ever work? Not at all.
I continue to recall all the flowery testimonies about when a person was stuck in a situation that seemed hopeless and God delivered them and it was okay. I feel like I am 2 metaphorical days before the breakthrough. Where the fervor from the beginning has died down the struggle of putting it all in front of God has fully set in.
It’s not all bad though. Even though God hasn’t come through in the way I have been expecting, He has also shown me new components of His character through this period of intentional stillness. I feel like the time spent with Him over stressing about the next step has paid off tremendously in terms of my relationship with God and myself. I’m actually seeing the fruit of the Spirit grow within me ( especially patience) as I navigate this time.
Most importantly, I have learned that my walk with God, my time in this season, the answers to my questions about vocation and what to do next… None of it is fueled by the comparison I had become accustomed to. That God’s timing in my life was never, and never will be determined by what the next person has. That was the hardest thing to let go of, especially being surrounded by other future graduates who seem to have it all figured out.
So whether these two days translate to two actual days or weeks or months (I'm still scared to say years so I won’t), God will do what He does regardless of my expectations.
Students, fill out our TH survey!
Students, we’d love to hear about your experience with Theological Horizons!
As the academic school year comes to a close, we invite all students to take our end-of-year survey! This survey will help us to better understand your needs and experiences. Ultimately, this survey will equip us to continue serving you well.
All students who fill out the survey will entered into a raffle for one of 3 $15 Grubhub Gift Cards. We will be drawing a new winner each Friday until May 20th.
The survey should take about 5 minutes to complete. Your responses will be kept private and secure. You are welcome to skip any questions that you prefer not to answer. Your survey will be anonymous if you choose not to enter your name or email at the end of the form.
Thank you for your responses!
Meet our Board!
We are deeply grateful for the talented, faithful and generous community leaders who make up our board of directors. Our last board meeting surrounding our inaugural Scoper Lecture with Kate Bowler was a wonderful time to get to know new board members and become re-energized for Theological Horizons’ work of connecting faith, thought and life. We concluded our time together with a tour of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers on the Grounds of the University of Virginia.
WE ARE HONORED TO INTRODUCE THESE MISSION LEADERS!
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Alexa Andrews | Past Development Officer at UVA | Charlottesville, Virginia
Nancy Beane, Board Chair | Former Associate Director of College Counseling at The Westminster Schools, Past President of SACAC and NACAC & Former Member of the Board of Trustees for ACCIS | Atlanta, Georgia
Liz Carraway | Architect, Carraway Architects | Birmingham, AL
Emilia Gore | Fender Play Foundation Program Director | Washington, DC
Jane Anderson Grizzle | Writer and Doctoral Candidate | Charlottesville, Virginia
Carolyn Mitchell Dillard | University-Community Liaison in the Division for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Pastor, Zion Hill Baptist Church | Keswick Virginia
Kate Harris | Consultant with Sapienne, LLC | Falls Church, Virginia
Betsy Hutson | Attorney with the Dept of Justice, Adjunct Professor of Law | Washington, DC
Heidi Metcalf Little | Experienced Non-profit Founder & Director | Richmond, Virginia
Charles Marsh | Professor of Religious Studies at UVA | Charlottesville, Virginia
Matt McFarland | Corporate Development & Venture Capital at Carmax | Charlottesville, Virginia
Penny Peebles | Experienced Nonprofit Leader and Educator | Richmond, Virginia
Nathan Walton | Co-Lead Pastor, East End Fellowship Church | Richmond, Virginia
Melissa Wright | Designer and Community Leader | Atlanta, Georgia
Not pictured is: Emilia Gore.
Easter Sunday | Breathe
The Word
“This is the resurrection! It is the announcement that life cannot ultimately be conquered by death, that life is bottomed by the glad surprise. Take courage, therefore!” - Howard Thurman
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. — John 20:18-19
“If Christ is to come in order to dwell in me, [it must happen this way]: ‘Christ enters through closed doors.’” — Søren Kierkegaard, age 24
The Wondering
A massive stone. Locked doors. The first dark hours of Easter find the disciples traumatized by Jesus’ crucifixion, devastated by his entombment, terrified that they are next.
Much like those first fearful grieving disciples who locked themselves into an upper room, young Søren Kierkegaard felt separated from God, unable to open the doors of his own resistance. How many of us huddle in fear, anxious about ourselves, distrustful, our doors locked, even as our hearts desire peace and trust? Even in our determined faith, we fail to find our way to freedom.
The Gospels tell us that the disciples were hiding in paranoia, wanting only to protect themselves, when Christ came through their locked doors, the doors of their fear and self-protection, and breathed peace into them.
This Easter day, may we breathe anew. Breathe grace. Breathe peace. Breathe hope. When we cannot help ourselves, we can still be helped; when we are powerless to reach out, the resurrected Christ can come through locked doors and roll back any stone that entombs us.
For the Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Where do you sense a locked door in your life? Close your eyes and image the risen Christ coming through that door. What does he say to you?
What would it feel like today to “breathe again, sent forth, forgiven”?
The Wisdom
“This Breathless Earth”
by Malcolm Guite
We bolted every door but even so
We couldn’t catch our breath for very fear:
Fear of their knocking at the gate below,
Fear that they’d find and kill us even here.
Though Mary’s tale had quickened all our hearts
Each fleeting hope just deepens your despair:
The panic grips again, the gasping starts,
The drowning, and the coming up for air.
Then suddenly, a different atmosphere,
A clarity of light, a strange release,
And, all unlooked for, Christ himself was there
Love in his eyes and on his lips, our peace.
So now we breathe again, sent forth, forgiven,
To bring this breathless earth a breath of heaven.
April Prayers | Good Friday Edition
“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
GREETINGS, FRIENDS.
April finds us journeying through Lent collectively as well as the lents in our own lives or those we love - a sudden illness, a job loss, the death of someone close, the war in Ukraine… May you find in these dark moments, when perhaps you can't even pray, that, if nothing else, God is present in your pain and will not leave you alone.
IX Jesus falls the third time
He weeps with you and with you he will stay
When all your staying power has run out
You can’t go on, you go on anyway.
He stumbles just beside you when the doubt
That always haunts you, cuts you down at last
And takes away the hope that drove you on.
This is the third fall and it hurts the worst
This long descent through darkness to depression
From which there seems no rising and no will
To rise, or breathe or bear your own heart beat.
Twice you survived; this third will surely kill,
And you could almost wish for that defeat
Except that in the cold hell where you freeze
You find your God beside you on his knees.
-Malcolm Guite
Lent 6 | Festivity
The Word
“The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him. They shouted, “Hosanna!
Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessings on the king of Israel!”
“The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
The Wondering
“Festivity,” a word with a slight antique ring, announces a weave of thanksgiving and celebration – of something completed, something survived, something brought to fruition – and hope.
Yet the festivity of Palm Sunday is shaded with irony. You and I well know that the crowds who lay down their cloaks shouting hosannahs for Jesus will, in just five days, be clamoring for his execution. And then, a second irony: that very execution will make way for resurrection.
Our celebrations of Palm Sunday happen in ritual time, a time out of time that blurs the distance between then and now, gathering all of us into one sacred moment when what has been revealed is revealed, new again. We are drawn into the recurrent pattern of the Bible: hope crests, is dashed, and rises again, chastened, tested, taught, more complex, more mature, wider in its vision.
Gathered (in body or in spirit) on this festal day, may we discover our own story in God’s larger story. May we glimpse one another as members, fellow travelers, people sent on journeys, people found and loved, people given to one another as companions. “Here,” the Spirit seems to say, “enjoy one another. Enjoy the moment, even when you know darker days are coming. May you never forget your chief end: to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”
*adapted from Where the Eye Alights: Phrases for the Forty Days of Lent by Marilyn McEntyre
The Wisdom
“Leaves Underfoot” by Phuc Luu
He rides into the holy city
entering its gates, as king
Proclaiming victory
Branches of palms laid at the feet
Not over conquered people
Not over claimed lands
Nor vanquished enemies
But ending the enmity between God and others…
Bringing them back into the holy house
The temple made not by stones
But by the flesh and bones
Of the one who in his body absorbed the hatred
the sickness and sin
the diseases and despair
And gave back love and tenderness
wholeness and healing
compassion and commitment
The Prince of Peace who enters our hearts
Into the depths of our souls, the holiest of holies
Seeing who we are
Knowing every part of our being…
So what is beneath could come to the surface
To face the light and love
To see ourselves as we truly are
Allied with the one who saw himself
Rejected and despised
Disposable
But remade and rebuilt
Into a holy house, a sacred temple
Body rebuilt, renewed, restored
As the cornerstone
The foundation of God’s hesed,*
God’s tenacious and everlasting love
Extreme love that endures forever
* a sense of love and loyalty that inspires merciful and compassionate behavior toward another person
Lent 5 | Riven
The Word
“I will tend My flock and make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bind up the broken, and strengthen the weak.
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead…But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. ”
The Wondering
riven: split, cloven, rent, torn asunder, broken, distressed
Life in this world is a “riven thing” for the many who live among cracked and distressed countries, families, selves, dreams. The poet promises that God goes into it, belonging. This Lent may we reconsider our understanding of “healing” and “wholeness” as we ponder the inevitable learning that a fairy tale ending, completion, closure, is rare.
Yet God gives us an abundance of beginnings – beginnings that happen in the middle of things, sometimes in moments when we trip on the potholes and fissures that lie between morning rush hour and the return home. Hurrying on our way from Jerusalem to Jericho, we are likely to see “a man lying by the side of the road” and discover ourselves at the beginning of another story. Which might be a parable.
As this Lenten journey wears on, let us look for that “storm of peace” to come upon us: a moment of rest that doesn’t depend on resolution but on trust that can give us courage to set out, again, even when the road is riddled and riven.*
*Richard Baxter in John Baillie’s A Diary of Readings, Day 310
The Wisdom
“Every Riven Thing” by Christian Wiman
God goes, belonging to every riven thing he’s made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why
God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he’s made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where
God goes belonging. To every riven thing he’s made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see
God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,
God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.
Lent 4 | Mercy
The Word
“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to Your steadfast love;
According to Your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Surely goodness & mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
The Wondering
Through these long days of Lent we may feel that we have lost our way in the darkness, tempted to given up on our lives. We forget that all this while the heart of God has been “so much on us.” When at last we cry out, “Mercy, God, mercy!” our prayer is received not by a distant Divinity reluctant to forgive but by a loving, longing Parent who has never, not for one moment, forgotten us.
“Christian, dost thou not perceive that the heart of God is set upon thee, and that He is still minding thee with tender love, even when thou forgettest both thyself and Him?” writes Puritan Richard Baxter, “Is he not following thee with daily mercies, moving upon thy soul, providing for thy body, preserving both?” Newly aware of God’s mercies, may we reach out and “let our souls get up to God, and visit Him every morning and our hearts be towards Him every moment.”* May we come home again.
What draws your attention away from God’s daily mercies and toward fear and despair?
Can you adopt a practice by which you “let your soul get up to God” today?
*Richard Baxter in John Baillie’s A Diary of Readings, Day 310
The Wisdom
“The Garments of God” by Jessica Powers
God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul.
He is God alone, supreme in His majesty.
I sit at his feet, a child in the dark beside Him;
my joy is aware of His glance and my sorrow is tempted
to nest on the thought that His face is turned from me.
He is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous garments
not velvet or silk and affable to the touch,
but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch,
and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.
Here is my cry of faith, my deep avowal
to the Divinity that I am dust.
Advertisement
Here is the loud profession of my trust.
I will not go abroad
to the hills of speech or the hinterlands of music
for a crier to walk in my soul where all is still.
I have this potent prayer through good or ill:
here in the dark I clutch the garments of God.
On Lament - A Reflection by Horizons Fellow Haley Stocks '22
Growing up, I remember my grandmother's house decorated with small cross-stitch pictures and pillows with Bible verses such as "He has made everything beautiful in its time," Ecclesiastes 3:11, or "Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the day time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life," Psalm 42:8.
While these verses and verses like them are pleasant, loving, gentle, are undeniably true, there are a variety of other verses that I have yet to see decoratively displayed in a home. Now, I don't know about you, but I have never seen a throw pillow with "Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long?" Psalms 6:2-3.
While I don't think this verse pairs as well with pastel flowers placed around it as the other two do, I think it reveals another aspect of our human nature and God's divine nature. Life, this side of Heaven, will be fraught with moments of pain and suffering, even for those who are followers of Christ (John 16:33). So if there is to be suffering, what are we supposed to do with that?
For a long time, I thought it was to pretend that everything was fine. To move on from moments of pain as if they had never happened. To be nice, happy, and pleasant because, after all, "Life is Good." For a while, this worked; minor problems could be skimmed over and moved on from relatively quickly, but then I got older, the problems got bigger (or perhaps I started to realize that they were there). Suddenly it wasn't as easy to skip past things that happened, hurts in the world, or the uncertainty of what goodness practically looked like in a fallen world.
The world had many more problems than an argument with one of my siblings or something I had broken. I knew I was supposed to not be angry and to forgive and do all of those other things that were offhandedly mentioned to you as a kid. But forgiveness and joy seem a little harder when you see the look of grief in one of your friends' eyes at her mom's funeral, or you realize someone you care about is probably not going to get better, or something happens to someone who undoubtedly did nothing to deserve it. Suddenly, joy and forgiveness felt a lot farther away.
What was once something that felt very simple seemed a lot more complicated and a lot harder of a hill to climb. How do you pray for your enemies (Matthew 5:44) after everything they've done to hurt people and who show no remorse for ever having done so? Or the people you don't know anything other than what they've done wrong? How can you trust that God is good when everything in the world seems to be so tainted?
But brokenness and grief are not new, they're concepts that humankind has been wrestling with since the fall from Eden. There was perfection that no longer exists in this world due to the entrance of sin, and so we lament.
Lament. A somewhat loaded word. One that for a long time felt like a "churchy" word, something that we learned about because it was in the Bible but didn't have a lot of bearing for people living here and now. Lament was a far-off concept for people who either had trouble trusting in God's plan or had problems much bigger than the ones I was wrestling with. After all, I didn't know anyone in war or experiencing famine or any of the other Old Testament trials.
However, as I began to read more of the passages of the Bible of people calling out to God in times of trial, I realized that these were the pain-filled words of ordinary people who, yes, were facing huge problems, but more so were wrestling with the notion that something in their life seemed amiss. Lament is the heart's cry that things are not as they should be; something somewhere has gone wrong.
The brokenness of sin is not a solvable problem by human means. It took the willing sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to cover that debt, and so why should I expect to be able to solve or move past sin-filled problems in my life without the help of God. Lament gives us an avenue from which to approach God with heavy hearts filled with the world's grief and offer them to the only one who truly understands how truly weighty those problems are.
Lament is sadness, but it's sadness before God. If God wants us to be honest with him, that means being honest with this. Because God doesn't just want me in my happiness or the high after a great worship night. He wants me when I'm crying about problems too big for me alone to handle. When I'm too angry to articulate words, he wants me to bring that before Him.
That's a scary thought because lament is not surface level; it's deep and hurts, but we serve a God who can use that heart and turn it into a way to love His people better. Lament is our hearts crying out that something is broken. It's the recognition that something is not as it was designed to be, recognizing where sin has entered the world.
When we love big, we grieve big. The world is broken, and there will be a pain, and there will be suffering; that much has been promised. We would be remiss not to have an emotional response to this reality. But lament goes beyond that reality. It calls us to bring our struggling and emotional wreckage before God because while we may be small in our suffering, God is big in His love. Christ knows suffering like none of us do because he bore the pain of each of our suffering on the cross for our sakes, and so there's no form of pain that we can bring before Him that He has not overcome.
Maybe one day I'll have a throw pillow with Psalms 6:2-3 on it; I think it would be an interesting conversation piece and, more importantly, a striking reminder of the universality of us feeling lament and who we are called to bring it before.
Lent 3 | Unfolding
The Word
““The unfolding of Your words give light; it imparts wisdom to the simple.” - Psalm 119:30
“How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and, in the freedom, bold.”
The Wondering
Here in Charlottesville, spring unfolds, more lovely each day, lending an assurance that beneath the surfaces of fearsome events in the world and our lives, God is moving by means we don’t fully fathom. To live in deep hope requires patience: a consideration that what unfolds is already there, hidden and waiting for soil, sun, water, the fullness of time, the propitious circumstance, the appointed moment.
All of this natural, seasonal unfolding is testimony to how the Spirit works within us and among us, urging, allowing, opening a way, nudging us forward, inviting, preventing, making us willing to stretch and open and receive and reveal what unfolds. Yes, sometimes we decide and determine. But sometimes we simply have to witness and receive.
So let us seek out God’s illuminating words, words made new in each circumstance, and train them, like lamps, on what we face or fear. And then let us watch for what unfolds.
What signs of spring remind you of the Spirit’s work?
What words from Scripture might help you face your fears?
*adapted from Marilyn McEntyre in Where the Eye Alights: Phrases for the Forty Days of Lent
The Wisdom
“Spring Forward” by Abigail Carroll
The crocuses have nudged themselves up
through the snow, have opened, never
are opening,
always daring. Ephemeral prophets,
first of the sun's spring projects, purple-
throated chorus of will-have-beens--
year after
year, their oracles outlast them. Cold's
empire has not yet been undone, but
the cardinals have begun to loudly declare
its undoing
which is as good as the thing itself, as good
as the gutters' wild running, the spilling
of rain down the tar-slick roof, the filling
and pooling,
the annual re-schooling of earth
in the vernal properties of water. A bud
both is and is not a flower: furled flag,
curled-up
tongue of summer, envelope of fire--
What is this world but a seed of desire
some dream-bent farmer sowed in a field
waiting for
the end of winter, waiting to be getting on
with the business of timothy and clover?
Light sends itself, a missive from the future:
it's shining,
a definite shined, a bold, unquestionable
having shone--this because of the paths
it travels, the distance it flies. The crocuses
shiver; still
they will not be deterred from their singing,
from the sure and heady prospect of their
having sung. The notion of green has not
yet occurred
to the ground--twig tips, bulbs, cattails,
bark: all stuck in a past perfect of gray--
but green has occurred to the sun. A kingdom
is in
the making--and in the making has come.
TH Leadership Associate Position - Accepting Applications for '22-'23
Hear from our current Leadership Associate, Grace Medrano, about what it’s been like to be a Leadership Associate this past year.
What has been your favorite thing about your experience as TH’s Leadership Associate?
It has been such a joy to work alongside the TH staff team to serve students and the larger UVA community. I’ve loved getting to help plan and implement programs including Deeper Dialogues, Vintages Lunches, our 2022 Scoper Lecture series, and more. It’s so special to have the opportunity to provide a welcoming space for Christians and seekers to explore the intersections of faith, thought, and life.
I’ve also really enjoyed the many unique personal and professional growth opportunities that have been available to me through TH. This semester, I’ve been taking a seminary course called “The Mosaic of Christian Belief'' with renowned professor and theologian Roger Olson. This course has been such a valuable opportunity to learn more about the diversity of the Christian tradition. I also regularly meet with Christy, TH’s Associate Director, who has been an awesome mentor as I step into post-grad life. Additionally, I’ve gotten to attend Upper House’s Higher Pursuits Project Summit in Wisconsin and FTE’s Virtual DISCERN Retreat – both really special opportunities! Lastly, this spring I’m looking forward to continuing to strengthen my nonprofit administration skills by taking a workshop through the Center for Nonprofit Excellence. There is no shortage of personal and professional growth opportunities at TH!
What makes the Leadership Associate position unique?
As TH’s Leadership Associate, I’ve been able to witness firsthand and be a part of all the hard work that goes into running a nonprofit. In this role, I have gained practical skills in program development, event management, fundraising strategy, strategic planning, marketing, and donor communications. Honestly, I’ve had the opportunity to try a little of everything! It’s been such a blessing to gain a multifaceted skill set and learn more about myself and my gifts.
Another thing that makes the Leadership Associate position unique is the supportive work environment. The one-on-one mentorship and coaching I have received at TH has been such a gift. Each member of the staff team has been genuinely invested in my personal and professional growth – and I couldn’t be more grateful!
What do you have to say to potential Leadership Associate applicants?
Definitely consider submitting an application to the Leadership Associate program. This program has given me space to explore my interests and strengths as a young grad. The Leadership Associate position has been hugely impactful as I expand my horizons, develop long-term career goals, and discern God’s call on my life. If you have an interest in non-profit administration or ministry, this might be just the opportunity for you!
Email karen@theologicalhorizons.org to apply!
Lent 2 | Repentance & Rest
The Word
“But now, now, says the LORD, ‘Come back to me with all your heart’…. Return to the LORD your God again, who is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness and ready to forgive.
The Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.’”
The Wondering
To many, the old call to “Repent!” rings with threat and thunder. Yet biblical beckonings bring promises instead. When John the Baptist cries, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” he proclaims a present reality that is right here, right now. Will we turn around to notice it?
“Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:32) Repentance is an opportunity – a door waiting to be opened. Perhaps if you and I turn away from what is besetting, distracting or diminishing, we may see the gifts that await us: wisdom, restoration, healing, a taste of the life we’ve been missing.
Where regret and wrestling leave us stuck, repentance offers release – and a measure of rest. Repentance allows us to rest in forgiveness, regroup, and float for a while, upheld while we learn to swim in the current, or walk unburdened, or do a dance of deliverance, day by day letting go of the past and entering fully, with an open heart, into the present, where an open Heart longs to receive us.*
Where do you sense regret and wrestling in yourself? What might repentance look like today?
*adapted from Marilyn McEntyre in Where the Eye Alights: Phrases for the Forty Days of Lent
The Wisdom
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
The grace of the gospel, which is so hard for the pious to comprehend, confronts us with the truth. It says to us: you are a sinner, a great, unholy sinner. Now come, as the sinner you are, to your God who loves you. For God wants you as you are, not desiring anything from you – a sacrifice, a good deed – but rather desiring you alone. God has come to you to make the sinner blessed. Rejoice! This message is liberation through truth. You cannot hide from God. The mask you wear in the presence of other people won’t get you anywhere in the presence of God. God wants to see you as you are, wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and to other Christians as if you were without sin. You are allowed to be a sinner….
from Life Together
Lent 1 | Wilderness
The Word
““Then the Spirit led Jesus up into the wilderness so that the devil might tempt him. After Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights, he was starving. The tempter came to him and said, ‘Since you are God’s son, command these stones to become bread.’ Jesus replied, ‘It’s written, People don’t live only by bread but by every word spoken by God…’””
The Wondering
The invitation into the wilderness of Lent sparks anticipation and, perhaps, a pang of dread, in us. Where will the Holy Spirit lead us in these coming days? Up rocky trails that confound us with our own transgressions – and break our hearts over the sufferings of brothers and sisters in a world of war? Might the Comforter take us, too, along the psalmist’s paths of righteousness that promise still waters, green pastures?
Jesus, after his baptism, was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit – as if by a familiar Guide who showed him the way to an appointed place of solitude and encounter. Jesus, already one with the Spirit, knew where to go and went willingly, without hesitation, and once there, was shown what to do.
For you and for me, this is how the Spirit often works: by showing up in the guise of another creature—a dove, a whale, a friend—and by summoning, directing nudging, driving, revealing, and along the way, comforting and sustaining us. The Spirit meets each of us in our particular season of life and in our particular needs, and helps us to learn, as the poet Roethke says, by going where we have to go.*
Where do you see the Spirit showing up on this first Sunday of Lent? Will you follow?
*adapted from Marilyn McEntyre in Where the Eye Alights: Phrases for the Forty Days of Lent
The Wisdom
“The Waking” by Theodore Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
from Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke.
Reproduced for educational purposes only.
Ash Wednesday | An Invitation
The Word
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your hearts, with fasting, with weeping, and with sorrow; tear your hearts and not your clothing. Return to your God, for God is merciful and compassionate, very patient, full of faithful love, and ready to forgive.
-Joel 2:12-13, Common English Bible
The Wonder
I feel it. Don’t you? Prone to wander, we drift away from our true home. We forget that we are God's beloved. We forget that we are not God. We succumb to the temptations of money, sex and power. We ignore the cries of our brothers and sisters. We focus only on ourselves.
During Lent -- these forty days before Easter -- God calls us home. God invites us to remember who we are. To let God be God in our lives. To respond to our suffering neighbor. To begin again with God.
Only when the fierce love of God, fully revealed in the Crucified One, pierces our hearts, will we truly return to the God who longs for us. And so let us begin. {adapted from Trevor Hudson}
The Wisdom
Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day…
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.
This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises,
of forgotten children and frightened women,
we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.
We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.
On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
you Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.
We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.
- Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933)
Mary Brissett on Tending to our Mental Health
We so enjoyed having friend and counselor, Mary Brissett share at a recent Vintage Lunch. Below are some resources she recommends as well as a video of her talk.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Adam Young's Podcast - The Place We Find Ourselves
Dan Allender's book - To Be Told is a great place to start
The Allender Center Podcast . They also do a lot of story group workshops that could be beneficial.
Brene Brown's books - Daring Greatly and Atlas of the Heart
Curt Thompson's books and podcast (Being Known)
Also, in addition to individual counseling, New City Counseling offers a number of groups. Some around sexuality, anxiety, the body (these are both didactic and interpersonal) but they also do interpersonal groups with about 5-6 other people.
Mary Brissett is a counselor at New City Counseling and has a master's degree in mental health counseling from the University of Virginia. She has clinical experience serving a broad clientele and enjoys working with university students, couples, women, and multicultural clients. She has worked in private practice in Virginia and Colorado and overseas, including Ethiopia, where she served with Women at Risk (WAR), providing counsel to women who are heads of households and struggling to overcome lives involving poverty, prostitution, and addiction. Mary was born and raised in Ethiopia to an Ethiopian mother and an Indian father. When she is not counseling, she loves spending time with her large extended family, traveling, hiking, reading, and working on house projects.
Presence & Gratitude | March Prayers
GREETINGS, FRIENDS!
Spring is sending its first signs to us here in the Northern Hemisphere which is always such a powerful promise of hope amidst the dark. Even with these late winter storms and now global unrest, we know the light perseveres. This month, may you take some moments to bask in the warming sunlight, to stop and caress a new crocus or sit and listen to the gathering chorus of migrating birds.
“We pray that you will grow strong with the strength that comes from the honor and shining-greatness of his power. Then you will be able to stand firm in a calm and unhurried manner, as you give thanks with glad hearts to the Great Spirit who is our Father from above.”
A Blessing for the Life you Have
Blessed are you who look
wide-eyed, maybe timidly,
at the present moment,
gazing at those things that
are gently, actually within
the reach of your fingertips.
Blessed are you amid the
ordinary details that define
what life is for you, right now.
And as you see them,
greet them—each one—
as you smile and
call them by name.
Everyday joys. Small pleasures.
Birds chirping. Cat cuddles.
A cold glass of water.
A little child calling your name.
The breeze on your cheeks.
The ocean rhythm.
The perfect pillow.
The kindness of a friend.
Loves that are and were
and ever will be.
May they seem even lovelier,
even more delicious because
they become gifts offered anew.
May gratitude fill you,
reaching all of the spaces within
you that disappointment
left behind and fear has gripped.
May something rise in your heart
that feels like a strange
new kind of contentment.
Because this isn’t what
you had planned, but it
surprises you that even here
it can be good. Satisfying.
In a way that you know you
can come back to. A place that can
sustain you through
whatever may come.
Blessed are you,
finding that life is good
because it is enough.
Kate Bowler will be speaking here at the University of Virginia on April 3rd! Click here to reserve your ticket or learn how to watch after!
** This blessing can be found in Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection
*** Learn more about the First Nations Version of our scripture verse.
Lenten Resources
Here are some of our favorite resources for Lent. Send your own recommendations to us at info@theologicalhorizons.org and we’ll add them!
ONLINE
The Lent Project 2022: art, video, Scripture & reflection from Biola College. See past collections
Sacred Space for Lent 2022: a book of daily Scripture & points for reflection
Pray as you go: a daily Scripture and music podcast. Download the app, too.
“God of Sorrows: A Lenten Prayer” by Cole Arthur Riley of Black Liturgies
Wonderful collection of poetry for Lent and Easter
BOOKS
Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter a favorite Lent and Easter book
Lent In Plain Sight: A Devotional in 10 Objects by Jill Duffield with digital resources, too
Between Midnight & Dawn: A Literary Guide to Lent, Holy Week & Eastertide by Sarah Arthur
Where the Eye Alights: Phrases for the 40 Days of Lent by Marilyn McEntire
Pauses for Lent: 40 Words for 40 Days by Trevor Hudson
Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent by Richard Rohr
Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings by Henri Nouwen