Vox Veniae Podcast

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

The Gospel is a Message Best Served Whole

How might we creatively embody good news toward our enemies? On this third Sunday after Epiphany, Christopher Mack glimpses Divine Love enveloping our pain, extending toward our enemies, and shifting our perspective through the story of Jonah.  [Jonah 3:1-5, 10]

Reflection

• Is there somewhere pain has you locked in a cycle that isn’t working? 
• Where might God’s Love invite you to shift your perspective?
• What might it mean to show up wholly for yourself and others?

The Good Work

Homily: The Good Work

What stories and beliefs did you inherit about sexuality? On this second Sunday after Epiphany, Kimberly Culbertson invites us to question and explore our inherited beliefs and practice, in light of Paul’s paradigm of the good and beneficial.  [1 Corinthians 6:12-13]

 

Reflection

• As you consider the work of being human, can you begin to prayerfully ask God, “Is this beneficial? Or is this destructive in some way?” 
• How can you lean into community as you discern right actions for your life? 
•  We are members of one another. How is your life helping your communities to thrive

The Epiphany Society

Can you recall a life realization that in retrospect appeared glaringly obvious? On this first Sunday after Epiphany, Lilly Ettinger invites us to wonder at God’s radical inclusion and how it invites the formation of a Beloved Community experiencing rescue and restoration.  [Isaiah 60:1-6]

Reflection

• Where might you “lift your eyes” and see the world around you?
• Is there a place where you once felt like you didn’t belong but now do?
•  What changed? What needs to change?

 

You Belong Here

Who do you know that gives really good hugs? On this Fifth Sunday, Vanessa Maleare leads the Wonder Moment for our New Year’s Eve liturgy and brunch. She invites children of all ages to remember and reside in our beloved belonging. [Galatians 4:4-7]

Advent: Glimpses of Grace

What are the glimpses of hope, peace, joy, and love that we are invited to notice and hold with us? On the Friday before Christmas, Weylin Lee looks back on our year through both a global and local lens, before inviting us to practice sacred reading or lectio divina to glimpse grace in our own lives. [Luke 2:13-20]

Resource

• Practice: Vox Lectio Divina Guide 
• https://voxveniae.com/lectio-divina/

Advent: Joy of Being Remembered

Homily: The Joy of Remembering

When have you been surprised by joy? On the third Sunday of Advent, Christopher Mack ponders how Mary and Elizabeth found deep joy in challenging circumstances through gratitude, kindness, peacemaking, and solidarity. [Luke 1:46-56]

Reflection

• How might I cultivate joy by practicing gratitude this week?
• Is there a person or situation where I might choose kindness and generosity?
• Where can I seek out community and practice solidarity for the road ahead?

Resources

Commentary: Luke 1-9 (Wisdom Commentary Series)  by Shelly Matthews and Barbara Reid

Advent: Preparing for Peace

How are we preparing to embody the peace of Christ and live as peacemakers? On the second Sunday of Advent, Weylin Lee connects peacemaking to the practices of rehumanizing others,   Being present to decentered places, and adopting a posture of consent. [Mark 1:1-8]

 

Reflection

• How is love helping me hold on?
• Which parts of life feel like caterpillar soup?
• How am I inviting my community to come near? 

Resources

1. Article: Welcoming Prayer  by Contemplative Outreach  https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/welcoming-prayer-method/
2. Poem: Shalom, Her Magnetic Heart Than by Kaitlin Curtice https://www.kaitlincurtice.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Curtice_poems.pdf

Advent: Hope

What helps you hold on? On the first Sunday of Advent, Gena St. David wades into the wilderness to grasp onto hope in these challenging times. [1 Corinthians 1:3-7]

Reflection

• How is love helping me hold on?
• Which parts of life feel like caterpillar soup?
• How am I inviting my community to come near? 

Resources

1. Instagram: @blackliturgies by Cole Arthur Riley
2. Article: The Three Elements of Self Compassion by Kristin Neff https://self-compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-self-compassion-2/ 

 Podcast: Swearing Is More Important Than You Think by Freakonomics https://freakonomics.com/podcast/swearing-is-more-important-than-you-think/

Indivisible from Justice for All

How might we re-imagine God’s justice in a restorative framework rather than a primarily punitive one? On Christ the King Sunday, Christopher Mack reexamines scriptures on God’s justice and judgment through a lens of nonviolent theology and restorative justice. [Matthew 25:31-40]

Reflection

• Where are you struggling to see God at work in our divisive, violent, over-consumptive, and destructive world?
• When you long for God to be at work in the world, what values or actions do you hope for?
• How might our hunger for justice reshape our baggage of images of God’s judgment?

Resources

• Book: Raising Abel: The Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination by James Alison

Finding Wisdom

Finding Wisdom

What does wisdom mean to you? Gena St. David glimpses the wisdom of nature as shared through life, trees, and rain. We are invited to consider how we might find spiritual wisdom in the cycle of connection, disconnection, and reconnection embodied in nature and the life of Jesus. [Proverbs 3:13-20]

Reflection

• What wisdom have you learned by observing patterns in nature?
• Where am I currently working against the wisdom of nature?
• What does nature teach me about the wisdom of Love?

Resources

• Book: On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old by Parker Palmer
• Meditation: “Personal Weather Report” from Sitting Still Like a Frog by Eline Snell

Let’s Not Do This

Let’s Not Do This

When you think about your story of faith, is there a season where you felt especially burdened by the teachings and ideas around you? Kimberly Culbertson follows up her October 1st message, “Rethinking Priesthood” with a reminder of three areas, Problematic Sexual Ethic, Religious Responsibility, and Disregard for Self, where we should reconsider how religious leaders have set limitations to reinforce their own power instead of offering mercy to the marginalized. [Matthew 23:1-5]

Reflection

• What burden might God be trying to lift from your shoulders this morning?
• What burdensome expectation for others might God be calling you to release?
• How might you lean into the “rest for your soul” that Jesus promises?

God Loves Every Part

God Loves Every Part

What does a hug from God feel like? On this Fifth Sunday, Vanessa Maleare, leads our entire community, including our younger ones from Greenhouse and Zamyn, in a wonder moment. She reminds us that God loves us holistically, including our being, thoughts, and feelings [Genesis 1:1-5, 26-27, 31]

 

Reflection

• Which song or breath practice might you deepen?
• Where do you desire to feel more free?
• How might song or breath help you decide to wait or move?

Resources

• Film: Inside Out by Disney’s Pixar
• Poem: Broken Record by Michael Moynahan SJ

Theology of Making

Marcus Clarke, Resident Artist at Vesper, enters into a conversation with Weylin Lee exploring how art articulates and forms us along our spiritual journey, and encourages us to see our various callings as part of exercising our God given creativity. [Genesis 1:1-5, 26-27, 31]

Reflection

• How are we invited to practice creativity and co-create with Creator?
• How might our practice of making invite healing and restoration?
• How might we explore our own expression of creating and making?

Resources

• Website: Studio Delmar.  The artistic practice of Marcus Clarke

 https://www.delmar.work/

What is Collective Discernment?

What is Collective Discernment?

How do we create a community of equals that resists becoming a cult of personality… that resists celebrity culture? Gena St. David wraps up our fall series on non-hierarchy by inviting us to recall the wisdom we’ve gained from each of our teaching team’s perspectives and practicing collective discernment by listening deeply to the Spirit, our bodies, and to on another as we navigate community conversations and practices. [Philippians 2:1-2]

 

Reflection

• What questions are alive inside me today?
• How might I practice listening deeply to the Spirit, my individual body, and others?
• Which voices do I tend to elevate above others?

Dreaming in League with God

How do we exercise power effectively and holistically? Christopher Mack examines different organizational models and what characteristics might characterize a faith community moving beyond non-hierarchy. [Philippians 4:1-7]

 

Reflection

• In a crisis, where do you tend to look for safety, control, or influence?
• How might you seek a “loyal companion” to help facilitate an  impasse in your life?
• Is there a practice for right-sizedness you feel drawn to this week?

 

Resources

• Book: Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations by Frederic Lafloux

Rethinking Priesthood

What hesitancies do you have when you consider yourself in relation to priesthood? Kimberly Culbertson explores how we are invited to be hope carriers, resource facilitators, and sacrificial relators as we live out a shared calling. [1 Peter 2:4-5, 9]

 

Reflection

• How have you been called out of darkness into marvelous light? 
• How has God wired you to be part of creating spiritual space for others?
• How does interdependence change the way you view priesthood?

 

Resources

• Book: Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans

Engaging Tension with Humility

How can we grow from engaging tensions in our world? Vanessa Maleare shares her story of being shaped by tension in living out her calling, while reflecting on the story of Peter living in the tension of past failure and present affirmation.  [John 21:18-22]

 

Reflection

• Where in your life are you fleeing from tension?
• Which of these unresolvable tensions calls to you the most??
• Which of the unresolvable tensions feels most pressing to engage in personally? Corporately?

Resources

• Book: Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown