Episodes
Thursday Nov 10, 2022
Recounting Goodness
Thursday Nov 10, 2022
Thursday Nov 10, 2022
As we recount God’s goodness, what are the ways we’re invited to embody that goodness for others? Weylin Lee explores how we might embody the goodness of Christ in seasons of disruption and challenge. [Psalm 145: 1-5, 17-21]
Reflection
- In what ways are we invited to participate in restorative justice?
- How might we practice proximity with the most vulnerable?
- What is our work in advocating for the liberation of those who are marginalized?
Resources
- Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation by LaTasha Morrison
- The Power of Proximity: Moving Beyond Awareness to Action by Michelle Ferrigno Warren
- This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Embodying an Ecology of Participation
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
What is our connection to the environment, our faith, one another, and our bodies? Christopher Mack closes our series on participation by leaning into our call “to care for and serve the earth we belong to.” [Romans 8:19-23; 12:18]
Reflection
- Where do you see creation groaning for renewal?
- How does the lament of creation show up in you?
- How might right-sizedness toward creation invite hopeful participation?
Resources
- Dr. Robert Bullard: Father of Environmental Justice
- Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth by Randy Woodley
- Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Vox Veniae’s Values
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Poured Out
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
How do we navigate the messiness of our humanity together? Kimberly Culbertson reflects on messages of codependency versus interdependency in our faith community and beyond. [2 Timothy 4]
Reflection
- When have you been tempted to carry other people’s loads? When have you been tempted to let others carry your load?
- Can you make space this week to practice interdependence? To do so, will you lean toward offering care or asking for care?
Resources
Friday Oct 14, 2022
Cultivating Our Soul
Friday Oct 14, 2022
Friday Oct 14, 2022
What is the movement that we are invited to as we cultivate our souls? Weylin Lee explores how tending our souls centers us around love, invites us into harmony with others, and forms us in humility. [Romans 12:9-16]
Reflection
- When it comes to our participation, how are we invited to tend our soul and create space for others?
- How is spiritual formation, both individually and collectively, an act of our participation?
Resources
- Vow of Nonviolence by Eileen Egan and Rev. John Dear, S.J.
- Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times by Bishop Michael Curry
- Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
- Vox Veniae’s Values
Friday Oct 14, 2022
Participating in a Creative Body
Friday Oct 14, 2022
Friday Oct 14, 2022
What does it mean to be the body of Christ? What places inside my body are crying out? Gena St. David reflects on how we embody participation, as we continue our series. [Romans 12:1-5]
Reflection
- How is your body unique?
- How is God creating transformation through our bodies?
- How is Vox participating in Christ's body?
Resources
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
Cultivating the Common Good
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
What is our communal interpretation and incarnation of the life of Jesus? Christopher Mack continues our series on Participation by reflecting on how we might navigate enduring hopelessness with our beloved belonging and collective creativity. [1 Corinthians 12:1-3, 27-31 and Jeremiah 32:17]
Reflection
- Is there someplace you have been silent where you can begin praying for wisdom on how to speak out?
- How might you find your true self by grounding yourself in community ?
- Where is cruciform love leading you to consider offering your gifts for the common good?
Resources
- Moonage Daydream Director Brett Morgen on Meeting David Bowie and Capturing the Artist’s Spirit by Luke Hicks
- Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community by Pádraig Ó Tuama
- Vox Veniae’s Values
- Partnerships
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
Work of the People
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
How does liturgy (“the work of the people”) invite us towards Christ’s embodied vision of the church community? Weylin Lee continues our series on Participation by considering collaboration that is expansive, inclusive, sustainable, and mutual. [1 Corinthians 12:12-26]
Reflection
- What presence and voice can each of us bring to litury?
- What might sustainable participation look like for us in this season?
- How might we facilitate mutuality through “the work of the people?”
Resources
- One Church Many Tribes: Following Jesus The Way God Made You by Richard Twiss
- Vox Veniae’s Values
Thursday Sep 15, 2022
Participating with Us
Thursday Sep 15, 2022
Thursday Sep 15, 2022
What does it mean to be invited to participate? Gena St. David begins our six week series on Vox’s value of Participation by reflecting on where we have been to imagine a collective future where each of us is essential. [1 Corinthians 12:4-7]
Reflection
- What makes you essential to our community?
- What does a covenant of participation mean to you?
- What “common good” is the Spirit inviting Vox to participate in?
Resources
- Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo
- Vox Veniae’s Values https://voxveniae.com/values/#.Yx1rfOzMK85
Friday Sep 09, 2022
Sacredly Striking
Friday Sep 09, 2022
Friday Sep 09, 2022
All of our life is participation in the Divine, which means all of our life is in participation with creation & community. Christopher Mack reflects with the psalmist for communal comfort & challenge this Labor Day weekend. [Psalm 139:1-6; 10-18]
Reflection
- How does it feel to be fully seen by God and companioned by One who knows you so completely?
- Where are you tempted to play it safe by not moving beyond mimicking others’ brilliance?
- What invitation to collective action is there for you in glimpsing God’s grandiosity?
Resources
- New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
- Life Abundant by Sallie McFague
- Shoutin’ In The Fire: An American Epistle by Danté Stewart
Friday Sep 02, 2022
Facing Our Fears
Friday Sep 02, 2022
Friday Sep 02, 2022
How does relating with God impact your fear? Gena St. David explores how the focus of our fears often fail to materialize, and how we might navigate the challenges that do emerge. [Hebrews 13]
Reflection
- How does your relationship with God impact your fear?
- How are you feeling afraid, and how can you empathize?
- What would you do differently if you felt less afraid?
Resource
Friday Sep 02, 2022
Stand Up in Solidarity
Friday Sep 02, 2022
Friday Sep 02, 2022
On Austin Pride weekend, Christopher Mack looks through the Gospel of Luke’s portrayal of a woman bent down to ponder what it looks like to stand up in solidarity for the marginalized. [Luke 13:10-17]
Reflection
- How might you allow your formation in the Divine Womb to shape your identity?
- Where might our habitual patterns and comfort zones be pressing down on the marginalized?
- How might we confront the powers of resentment and rejection with steadfast joy?
Resources
Pride 2022 Research & Resources
Books
- “Beatitudes for a Queerer Church” from The Backwater Sermons: Poems by Jay Hulme
- In the Margins: A Transgender Man’s Journey with Scripture by Shannon T.L. Kearns
- Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World by Henri J.M. Nouwen
- Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin
- “Who Said It Was Simple” from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde
Prayer
Documentary
Friday Sep 02, 2022
A Contemplative Life
Friday Sep 02, 2022
Friday Sep 02, 2022
Lauri Raymond reflects on how embracing contemplative prayer opens us to the Love, Wisdom and Wholeness of God that transforms us individually and collectively. [Ephesians 3:14-19]
Reflection
- What is getting in the way of vulnerability and trust?
- How can I spend more quiet time with God?
- How can I bring contemplation into my life and relationships?
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
Does Fear Keep Us From Heaven?
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
Title: Does Fear Keep Us From Heaven?
How might fear keep us from experiencing heaven here and now? David Wallace examines how our commonly held fears impact our spirituality. [Luke 12:32-40]
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
What’s God Like?
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
God’s Love gets on eye level with us and God’s Liberation lifts up the marginalized. Christopher Mack shares how Hosea pictures God as a loving caregiver who we can mirror in our own life through steadfast solidarity and working for the common good. [Hosea 11:1-11]
Reflection
- How might you reflect on who you are called to be in the world and who we as a faith community are called to be?
- Is there an invitation for you to act as you consider God bending down in Love and lifting you up in solidarity?
Friday Jul 29, 2022
Learning How to Ask
Friday Jul 29, 2022
Friday Jul 29, 2022
Praying can be an act of naming that invites us into creative responses of redistributive justice. Gina Bastone-Trevino wrestles with the Lord's Prayer and a familiar parable in ways that stretch us during times of crisis. [Luke 11:1-10]
Reflection
- What surprising strangeness can you find in re-reading the Lord’s prayer?
- What desire do you need to name to God, and what creativity do you find in this practice of naming?
- Where is God calling you to pray for redistribution and justice?
Resources
- Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community by Pádraig Ó Tuama:
- “Prayer is words and shape and art around desperation, and delight and disappointment and desire. Prayer can be the art that helps you name your desire. And even if the desire is only named, well, naming is a good thing, surely. Naming is what God did, the Jews tell us, and the world unfolded. Or perhaps naming is what the Jews did, and God unfolded. Either way, I’m thankful. Naming things is part of the creative impulse. Naming the deep desires of our heart is a good thing, even if those desires are never satisfied.”
- New Zealand Anglican Lord’s Prayer | He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa
Friday Jul 29, 2022
Making the Invisible Visible
Friday Jul 29, 2022
Friday Jul 29, 2022
If we understand Jesus as making the invisible, visible, then how might that reshape our faith and lived experience? Gena St. David invites us into a conversation about how the incarnation impacts our own bodies and upsets patterns of retribution. [Colossians 1:15-20]
Reflection
- What impact does reflecting on the incarnation have on your body?
- What qualities of God are reflected in Jesus?
- What’s the story about God we’re telling through our relationship with one another?
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Plummeting in God’s Love
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Title: Plummeting in God's Love
This week’s Old Testament reading talks about setting a plumb line as a measurement against an unjust nation. Nicolas Acosta explores living a life rooted in prayer as a plumb line to anchor us in a chaotic world. [Amos 7:1-7]
Reflection
- How can I find little moments to sink into God's love live this week?
- How might God’s love anchor us in place amid the chaos of the world?
Resources
- The Prayer of Examen:
Friday Jul 08, 2022
What Gods We Trust
Friday Jul 08, 2022
Friday Jul 08, 2022
In a world enamored with violent power over others, ensuring security for only some, Christopher Mack shares an alternative empire defying wisdom from those on the margins. [2 Kings 5:1-14]
Reflection
- Where might you glimpse God in the surprises, setbacks, and ordinary moments of your life?
- How might you listen to the wisdom of the marginalized this week?
- How can you mirror Jesus’ relationship to power and the powerless?
Resources
- Poem: Start Close In by David Whyte
- Visual Art: Stars and Bars by Hank Willis Thomas
- Prayer: The Romero Prayer by Bishop Ken Untener
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
The Face of Nonviolence
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
In a time of upheaval and in a culture of violence, Gena St.David guides us to consider how our spiritual community might become known for its immunity to violence through acts of creative confrontation, surprising defiance, and disruptive humor. [Luke 9:51-58].
Reflection
- What have we been taught about Jesus’ nonviolence?
- How does a passive understanding of “turn the other cheek” serve the oppressor?
- Where might we utilize creativity, surprise, and humor to interrupt patterns of violence?
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
Lamentations: An Act of Love and Liberation
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
On Juneteenth, Virginia Cumberbatch invites us into practices of acknowledgement, confession, and lament on our collective journey of liberation [Romans 5:1-5].
Reflection
- What might the church need to acknowledge before sojourning on its journey of reconciliation and justice?
- How might we individually and corporately consider lamenting racial injustice and collective harm?
- How can you lean into God’s definition of righteousness and justice (Romans 5:1) to inform your communal practice ?