Holiness undoes the stranglehold of identity. It shifts the locus of identity from the body to the collective, and from the collective to God, Whom Jesus knew as a Father. For me – maybe for you, too – holiness is mostly an invitation to tell a different story and, in doing so, to realize whoContinue reading “Advent Journal: Hinterlands Full of Apostles and Prophets”
Author Archives: Sean
Advent Journal: The Single Note and the Song
I “Suddenly it’s okay I want to disappear.” I wrote that sentence a week or so ago and don’t remember did I use it in anything. I used to wonder about it, the desire to disappear, and worry was something wrong. Is it okay to want to disappear? Nobody talked about it. But it landsContinue reading “Advent Journal: The Single Note and the Song”
Advent Journal: The Way to Freedom for All of Us
There are phases to a life, like there are phases to the moon. Flavors to a season of writing, the way Halloween had a flavor as a child, or Christmas. In Advent, I am happy and a little reckless. When you know the way God is alive and Christ afoot, then the work changes. ItContinue reading “Advent Journal: The Way to Freedom for All of Us”
Advent Journal: In the Country of Sins
Eventually, you reach the sins. You make contact with material that’s so bad even God turns away. I hail from a long line of sufferers, folks who destroyed themselves rather than face the possibility God doesn’t love them. They died bravely but forsaken, hard deaths I don’t wish on anybody. Paradoxically, looking at my unworthinessContinue reading “Advent Journal: In the Country of Sins”
Advent Journal: How Lonely One Becomes in Victory
1 There was a sense that something big was going to happen, something important. Maybe even something miraculous. I was going to do this big thing, or the big thing was going to happen to me. Somehow I was integral to it. Its effects were going to be transformative, world-changing, definitely for the better. PeopleContinue reading “Advent Journal: How Lonely One Becomes in Victory”
Advent Journal: Edenic, Heavenly, Utopian, You Name It
I’m up early as usual. There is no moonlight in the kitchen making coffee. Nor can I pray exactly. Last night I wrote for almost four hours, coming away with seven scrawny paragraphs. Nothing sits well; I feel rough and difficult. “What’s wrong?” he asks gently, there in the darkness. I can’t lie to him.Continue reading “Advent Journal: Edenic, Heavenly, Utopian, You Name It”