Vox Veniae Podcast

Where are Miracles When We Need Them?

David Wallace reflects on our invitation to perceive the miracles in our lives that aren't possible from a human perspective [Luke 9:28-43].

Reflection:

• What are "old stories" in your lives that you're holding on to?
• What would new versions of these stories look like if you could perceive them differently?

When God Leans Toward Us

Gena St. David reflects on how God is leaning toward the ones in need and suffering rather than the powerful [Luke 6:20-22].

Reflection

• What mistaken notions of God might we have inherited?
• Who are we being called to lean toward?
• What does a Christ-like response to violence look like?

Resources

• Book: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

All Rise

Christopher Mack reflects on how resurrection hope invites us towards the redemption of our world and partnership with God through an embodied life [1 Corinthians 15:12-20].

Reflection

• How have you been longing for transformation or groaning against injustice this week?
• How does Jesus’ embodied life challenge you to see the image of God anew in creation, community, or in your own beloved body?

Practice

• Breathing exercise (by Cole Arthur Riley). Inhale: This body is good.  Exhale: I will not abandon it.  Inhale: The sacred is in the physical. Exhale: There is wisdom in this breath.

Resources

• Book: God is a Black Woman (Christena Cleveland)
• Writer: Cole Arthur Riley

Moving Toward Christ

Weylin Lee reflects on our invitation to move toward Christ in this season of disruption and disconnection even in the midst of fatigue and uncertainty  [Luke 5:1-11].

Reflection

• How are you creating space for the mystery and presence of God?
• What is Christ inviting you to consent to in this season?
• How is your calling being shaped right now?

Practice

• Welcoming mystery and presence.  How are we making space for both the mystery and presence of God? How are we making space for non-dualistic conversations and interactions?
• Lowering friction in our lives. Identify the sources of friction that keep us from consenting to the way of Christ.  Consider how to lower the friction in our response to Christ’s invitations

Resources

• Game: Wordle
• Book: The Cloud of Unknowing
• Video: Sky Brown Skates Mega Ramp
• Podcast: Hidden Brain (Creatures of Habit)

Power and Peacemaking

Christopher Mack reflects on how Jesus confronts power and violence by inviting us to consider what peacemaking looks like [Luke 4:21-30].

Reflection

• Where or what within your internal world are you struggling to be present?
• How might you be invited to exercise power through peacemaking this week?

Meditation of the Heart

Kelly Cutbirth reflects on how we might facilitate meditation of the heart especially in the challenging circumstances we face [Psalm 19].

Reflection

• What kind of song is your heart singing this morning?
• In what area of your life do you feel the need to hide parts of yourself? How does it feel to imagine yourself being fully known in that space and with God?

Practice

• Listen to a song or meditate with music.
• Write a psalm and send it to a trusted friend.

Resources

• Book: The Jesus Storybook Bible (Sally Lloyd-Jones)
• Audio: Frio River Audio (Laity Lodge)

The Unifying Gifts of the Spirit

Weylin Lee reflects on how the gifts of the Spirit invite us to a practice and experience of unity with each other [1 Corinthians 12:1-11].

Reflection:

• How would a lens of revelation impact how you see the gifts in others?
• What is an outlet where your gifts might contribute to the common good?
• Even in this challenging season, what might collective participation look like for you?

Practice:

• Examine and adjust our lens. How might we be looking through a lens of rivalry? How might we adjust towards a lens of revelation? List out how we experience God through the gifts of others.
• Consider an outlet for your gifts.  What are some outlets where your gifts might contribute to the common good?

Resources

• Film: Encanto

Walking Through Fear

Gena St. David reflects on some helpful images of what God's comfort might look like when we're walking through fear [Isaiah 43:1-3].

Reflection:

• How does your body respond to imagining God speaking your name?
• What fear feels most overwhelming right now?
• What superficiality in life might be starting to burn away?

Resources:

• Film: Death to 2021
• Film: 14 Peaks

Wisdom and Word for Exiled Lives

As we begin a new year, Christopher Mack reflects on how wisdom and word are embodied with us through Christ and how that opens us up to grace [John 1:10-18].

Reflection

• How are you feeling at the start of this new year?  
• How does the image of God moving into our messy and complex lives open us up to grace?

Dressed in Love

Weylin Lee reflects on what we are putting on ourselves that centers us around and embodies the love of God through the contemplative practice of Lectio Divina [Colossians 3:12-17].

Reflection:

• How might you clothe yourself with more compassion and kindness in this coming year?
• What would it look like for you to practice more gratitude in the coming year?

Resources:

• Photos: Year in Photos (NY Times)
• Lectio Divina

What Does it Mean to Be Holy?

As we continue in the season of Advent, Gena St. David reflects on how experiencing embodied peace more often may lead us to sacrifice fewer things that are alive both inside and outside ourselves [Hebrews 10:5-10].

Reflection:

• What forms of sacrifice still tempt you today?
• Where are you learning to distinguish between the artificial and the real?
• How are you being “made holy” through embodied trust?

Practice:

• Discernment.  Distinguish between what’s real and artificial through Scripture, listening prayer, our own bodies.

Joy in Distress

As we continue in the season of Advent, Weylin Lee reflects on what practices might invite us to embody joy as we continue to navigate distress and disruption both in and outside our lives [Philippians 4:4-7].

Reflection

• Who are those in our lives that we might need to embody gentleness towards?
• How might we hold the tension of practicing gratitude in the midst of difficult circumstances?

Practice

• Joy. How might our reflection on the full story and life of Christ become a source of joy in our lives?
• Gentleness. How might we imagine a posture of empowered gentleness would look like with those who are a source of distress in our lives?
• Gratitude. What experiences and people can we express gratitude for in the past year as we have navigated a challenging season?

Shedding Skin

As we continue in the season of Advent, David Wallace reflects on how we might be driven by obligation and what our invitation is to shed the false skin that covers our true selves [Luke 3:7-18].

Reflection

• Reflect on the difference you feel when you say or do something out of obligation instead of a willingness in your heart?
• What "programs for happiness" are you attached to? How do they keep you covered with a skin that is not your true self?

Practice

• Reflect on what programs of happiness you might be attached to. (a. safety and security; b. affection, esteem, and approval; c. power and control)

What Does it Mean to Be Shaken?

As we enter the season of Advent, Gena St. David reflects on what is helpful for us to keep in mind and remember when things are being shaken loose inside us and how we can help one another hold onto hope [Luke 21:25-36].

Reflection

• What is being shaken loose inside you this advent season?
• How are you experiencing Christ in the presence of loved ones?
• After the shaking process, what are you hoping will remain?

Practice

• Reflect on your experience of being shaken.  What is being shaken loose inside you? What is being removed because it no longer serves us? What do we imagine will remain which cannot be shaken?

I Am Anything

Sarah Berson reflects on the story of Hannah and her experience through the movements of I am nothing, I am something, and I am anything [1 Samuel 1:4-20].

Reflection:

• What is your suffering stripping from you? What does your nothingness feel like?
• What belief grounds you in “I am something?” What space is created with your belief that I am something?

Resources:

• Poem: Untitled (by Jason Ikpatt)

Confronting Oppression

Weylin Lee reflects on how we are invited to confront the different forms of oppression that Jesus warns about and how some may even be expressed by our own community [Mark 12:38-44].

Reflection:

• What are the ways we can be consumed with ourselves?
• How might we be able to lay down power in exchange for mutuality?
• Who are the vulnerable that we need to draw attention to and advocate for?

Practice:

• Identify our expression of narcissism.  What are the ways that we can be consumed with ourselves?  What are the ways we might embody the humility of Christ that doesn't carry entitlement?
• Releasing power for mutuality.  What do we do with the power and influence that we might have in our own circles and systems? What would it look like for us to lay down our power and engage in mutuality?

Resources:

• Book: When Narcissism Comes to Church (Chuck DeGroat)

God‘s Reign of Love

Christopher Mack reflects on what it means to no longer see ourselves and others as monsters and enemies and find ourselves on the border of more fully entering into and being transformed by God’s love [Ruth 1 & Mark 12].

Reflection:

• What haunted ways are you tempted to view yourself or a challenging situation in your life?
• How does being “not far” from God’s Reign of Love invite you to see yourself or situation differently as we come to the table? 

Resources:

• Liturgy Interview: Christopher Mack

How Do We Take Refuge in God?

David Wallace reflects on our practice of prayer and our invitation to contemplative prayer [Psalm 34:1-8].

Reflection

• How might you see prayer as a relationship with God?
• What specific areas of life require you to seek refuge in God?
• Why does silent prayer seem inviting or fearful to you?

Resources

• Vox Workshop: Introduction to Centering Prayer

The Point(lessness) of Pain

Nic Acosta reflects on pain and trauma and how we’re invited to explore and engage the tension and mystery that comes with it [Job 38].

Reflection:

• How can we bring our full selves to the table, both our joy and our pain, and still seek connection?
• What does it look like to lean into the mystery of Christ, leading us on our bright days and in our darkest hours?

Resources:

• Video: Doctor Distracts Baby from Shots
• Book: Hillbilly Elegy (JD Vance)
• Podcast: The Bruenigs

What Does it Mean to Be Saved?

Gena St. David reflects on the center of the Christ story and what it means to be saved. What are we saved from? How are we saved? What are we saved for? [Mark 10:17-31]

Reflection

• How does your body respond to the image of nonviolent forgiveness in Jesus?
• What or who was Jesus trusting, and how did that trust enable him to respond nonviolently?
• What might become possible for us if we spent more time in embodied trust?