Vox Veniae Podcast

Forfeiting Our Peculiarity

How can we overcome the adversity of our divided times without losing a radical love for those on the other side? On the third Sunday after Pentecost, Christopher Mack notices parallels between anxieties about political leadership in the time of Samuel and our own. He offers practical tools for how to co-create understanding and connect across differences. [1 Samuel 8:4-9, 19-22 ].

 

Reflection

• Where might you acknowledge your own understanding as partial and incomplete? 
• Have you experienced co-creating understanding with someone?
• What might it look like for you to take one step closer to someone important to you, who you disagree with this week?

Resources

1. Book: I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times by Mónica Guzmán
2. Video: Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides by Geoffrey L. Cohen
   1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shqgkOTeS6U 
3. Video: How to Understand and Be Understood by Dr. Ruchi Sinha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU7Dg8VP3dA

God Our Mother

When you hear someone say, “God is not just our father, but also our mother,” what comes up for you? On the third Sunday after Pentecost, Vanessa Maleare walks us through passages throughout scripture, to birth maternal images in our imagination and experience of God [John 3:3-8].

 

Reflection

• Is there a part of yourself you need to reintegrate for wholeness?
• How can you imagine God as your mother comforting you today?

 

Resources

Book: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

Pentecost

What might we need to let go of in order for our community to be reborn? On Pentecost Sunday, Eugene Kim invites us to experience God in each of us, churches as relationships rather than institutions, and to understand our main job as love  [Acts 2:1-4]

 

Reflection

• What do you see and hear of God within you?
• What do you see and hear of God in the people around you?
• What do you see and hear of God in community — the space between us?

Resources

1. Article: Letting Go of What We Have Known by Barbara Holmes
   1. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/letting-go-of-what-we-have-known-2023-05-04/ 
2. Book: The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle
3. This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

The Path Less Traveled

In our journey to move towards flourishing, what are the less traveled paths we’re invited to walk on and through? On this seventh Sunday of Easter, Weylin Lee companions us down a spiritual path that delights in freedom, consents to the Creator, and is revealed over time.  [Psalm 1]

 

Reflection

• Where might you practice delight in the pursuit of liberation and freedom?
• What is a practice of consent that you are sensing in your journey?
• How are you invited to travel a path that the divine is still revealing?

Resources

Book: An Asian American Theology of Liberation by Wong Tian An

Make Yourselves at Home in Love

What might it mean for you to make a home in God’s Love? On this sixth Sunday of Easter, Christopher Mack wonders what it means for us to make an intimate, safe, and revolutionary home by mirroring Christ’s Love. [John 15:9-16]

Reflection

• In what ways do Jesus’ words meet and stretch you during our divisive, violent, and overwhelming times?
• Are there creative yet practical ways Jesus’ example inspires you to selflessly love your neighbor and enemy? 
• What hope or empowerment might come from knowing Jesus shared everything he heard from God?

Resources

Book: Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice: Experiments in Spiritual Transformation  by Dallas Willard and Jan Johnson

Washed Clean

When you think of baptism, what comes to mind? On this fifth Sunday of Easter, Kimberly Culbertson explores the inner commitment, public declaration, and the mystery of baptism in Christian spirituality . [Acts 8:26-38]

 

Reflection

1.  Are there areas in your life where you need to practice agency, repentance, or return?
2. How does the embodied experience of baptism fit into your story? How might you incorporate kinesthetic rituals into your spiritual practice? 
3. Where might you need to lean into community for witness, support, or celebration? Where might you step up to provide this kind of community?

Resources

Book: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories Make Us  by Cole Arthur Riley

Familiar & True

Who is someone who makes you feel safe? On this Good Shepherd Sunday, Kelly Cutbirth leads us through practices that ground us in the goodness of God’s companioning presence. [Psalm 23]

 

Reflection

• What familiar advice do you often ignore?
• What practices help you find a sense of safety and rest?
• How does the Shepherd’s promise of mercy and goodness, even in the midst of life’s challenges and hardships, feel to you?

 

Resources

1. Book: Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie
2. Book: What Is God Like? by Rachel Held Evans and Matthew Paul Turner

Embodying the The Tension of Resurrection

Embodying the Tension of Resurrection

As we consider the significance of an embodied resurrection, what tensions are we invited to carry and embody on our journey of faith? On the third Sunday of Easter, Weylin Lee looks at the challenge and richness of an embodied spirituality. [Luke 24:36-48]

Reflection

• How are we invited to live from our vulnerabilities and scars?
• How might we embody peace to make room for our full range of emotional responses?
• What is our embodied life bearing witness to and what story are we telling?

 

Resources

• Book: This Here Flesh:Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Ust by Cole Arthur Riley

Oil and Dew

Oil and Dew

What are barriers we perpetuate to keep ourselves and others from experiencing belonging? On the second Sunday of Easter, Christopher Mack delves into the very good experience of unity and the messiness that ensues as we work toward it. [Psalm 133:1-3]

 

Reflection

• How might you feel delight in your body this week?
• Where is an oppositional identity persistent in how you understand and react to the world?
•  If in revenge we imitate the one who wronged us, then how might reconciliation be an invitation for you to reflect God?

 

Resources

1. Book: Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? by Brian McLaren
2. Book: The Psalms  by Robert Alter
3. Poem: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry
   1. https://allpoetry.com/poem/12622463-Manifesto--The-Mad-Farmer-Liberation-Front-by-Wendell-Berry

Being at Home

Being at Home

What does it mean to be at home? On this Easter Sunday, Gena St. David centers our resurrection hope in our embodied experiences. Allowing the good news to be something that shows up in our bodies, emotions, and relationships. [Mark 16:1-6]

 

Reflection

• What would be different if I felt “at home” in my body?
• How might I practice “name it to tame it” with my emotions?
• Who do I wish to tell or express my love to this week?

 

Resources

1. Book: Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley
2. Video: “That’s Emotions, Mama!”: 4-Year-Old Has Heartfelt Conversation About His Feelings by Jonisa Padernos via Storyful
   1. https://video.storyful.com/record/27877 
3. Book: Old Path White Clouds by Thich Nhat Hanh
4. Book: Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

Anticipating Someone You Love

Anticipating Someone You Love

What’s in the box? On this Palm Sunday, Vanessa Maleare heightens anticipation about experiencing and participating in life with God. Through the acts of Palm Sunday we see Jesus as the sort of king who came to serve everybody else and who doesn’t like to see even his enemies get hurt. [John 12:12-16]

 

Reflection

• When you picture Jesus back in the day what does he look like?
• When you picture Jesus in heaven with God what does he look like?
• Is Jesus someone you wouldn’t be able to wait to see?

Upside Down Glory

Upside Down Glory

Where have you seen systems of oppression benefiting from the glorification of suffering? On this fifth Sunday of Lent, Christopher Mack glimpses an Upside Down Glory of God that does not require the renouncing of our Divine Image; sets us in solidarity on a path of downward mobility, and reveals the violence of othering and casting out. [John 12:23-32]

 

Reflection

• Are there deforming religious ideas of denying your humanity you are invited to name & renounce? 
• What might it look like to embody a self-giving love that honors your personhood as well as others?
• How might we become more aware of where our own impulse to cast ‘others’ out drives us?

Resources

1. Book: The Wisdom Way of Knowing by Cynthia Bourgeault
2. Exhibit: The Archaeology of Silence  by Kehinde Wiley at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston
3. Film: X-Men: The Last Stand  Directed by Brett Ratner Written by Simon Kinberg & Zak Penn
4. Book: Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown

Shifting Our Gaze

Where might you be misperceiving God’s intent in your life? On this fourth Sunday of Lent, Kimberly Culbertson considers how we navigate challenging seasons by looking at the story of the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness. [Numbers 21:5-9]

Reflection

• How has God carried you through times of trouble?
• Where might you be “looking at snakes” and misperceiving God’s intent towards you?
• How might God be steadying you through a season of change even now?

Letting Go of Harmful Power

What is your relationship to power and authority? On this third Sunday of Lent, Weylin Lee invites us to disrupt oppressive systems, embody our anger through protest, and reimagine decentralized power in light of the story of Jesus' confrontation in the temple. [John 2:13-22]

 

Reflection

• How are we revealing and disrupting oppressive systems?
• How are we connecting with and expressing our passions as a form of protest?
• How are we reimagining ways of decentralizing power and removing gatekeeping?

 

Resources

1. Book: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
2. Film: Origin Written and directed by Ava DuVernay

Book: Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh

Reorienting Our Rule of Lent

How might we name the need for and create a different set of practices, as well as theological and communal pathways according to our uniquenesses? On this second Sunday of Lent, Christopher Mack interrogates a one-size fits all spirituality and invites us to “begin again, again” this season. [Romans 4:13-15, 18-22]

 

Reflection

• What might respecting how the Divine Creator has made you look like on this lenten journey?
• How might you incorporate learning from someone else’s perspective into your lenten experience?
• Where might you need healing from a one-sized fits all approach to the spiritual journey?

Resources

1. Book: Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun
2. Article: Faith: Instead of giving up something for Lent, what if we gave something to the community? by Josh Kulak https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2024/02/20/faith-give-something-to-the-community-for-lent/72661308007/
3. Webpage: Ash Wednesday & Lent Resources https://voxveniae.com/2024/02/ash-wednesday-liturgy-resources/

A Movement of Faith

What have you embraced with your time and attention that is weighing you down? On this first Sunday of Lent, Vanessa Maleare compares the poetic psalms to the stories we tell and how each of us uniquely hears them in light of the story of our Christian faith. [Psalm 25:1-10]

Reflection

• Is there something to which you give your time and effort, that hurts you?
• What is something that would bring you more life, that could occupy that space instead?

Ash Wednesday

On this Ash Wednesday, Christopher Mack, Caroline Cody, Vanessa Maleare, and Weylin Lee invite you into a practice that is an amalgamation of a sacred reading and an examen. After a short reflection, they read a few verses of our passage at a time as we intentionally listen to the conversation between the text and our lives as we begin this 40 day journey of Lent together. 

 [2 Corinthians 6:1-10]

 

Reflection

• We are God’s co-workers, not the Most High’s minions nor the Almighty’s underlings. We participate in God’s salvific liberation with a posture of  “power with” rather than “power over.” How might you, as a Divine co-laborer,  reflect this participatory power this lent?
• What might this Divine co-laborer relationship be asking of us? What might it cost us in this season?
• We are invited here to participate in work in all states of being alongside our divine partner. This work can be joyful and strenuous. What might that consistent labor look like for you in this season? What emotions does this bring up in you?
• Where are the glimpses of hope that we are noticing that are emerging alongside the seasons of loss and grief?  How are we invited to hold both of those simultaneously in tension with each other?

What is Your Voice?

What is possible when we speak boldly, listen intently, and connect expectantly? On the sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Brandon Kinder facilitates a panel discussion with YanHao Wong and Emily Galusha to reflect on their artwork in our Vesper art show “What Is Your Voice?” They discuss connections to spirituality and how artistic creativity is an exploration of finding our voice in the world. [Mark 9:2-8]

Reflection

• Is there a piece of art that inspires you to find your voice?
• How have awe and wonder inspired your own creativity? 
• How does creativity fuel our inner healing and outer work of peacemaking and justice bringing?

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Despite the evidence around us, how can we awaken to God’s posture of love and liberation for the earth? On the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Virginia Cumberbatch names the disruption, disappointment and injustice we face, while guiding us to the liberation movements of acknowledging, awakening, and anticipating God’s loving presence all around us and our world. [Isaiah 40:21-31]

Reflection

• How might we renew our strength, our faith, in the midst?
• How can the uncertainty or mystery of our human condition embolden us in our collective purpose for equity and liberation?
• How can we entrust the big, the unknown, the scary to God’s hands?

Resources

Book: Shoutin’ In the Fire: An American Epistle by Dante Stewart

 

What is Our Discernment Rooted In?

How has pride in our knowledge limited our ability to love? On the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Weylin Lee invites us into a practice of discernment rooted in mutuality that respects difference, embodied contemplation, and a freedom that protects the vulnerable. [1 Corinthians 8:1-6]

 

Reflection

• Where does knowledge limit and hinder our posture and practice of love and mutuality?
• What is our invitation to consider meaningful relationships with those beyond our own comfort and alignment?
• What does a nonviolent practice of empathy look like as we hold space for difference?

Resources

Book: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley