As the father of a 3-year-old girl, I’m always struck by the way she engages in imaginative play. Rooms and furniture around the home often take on new roles as forts and tents. The world around her can be transformed in a variety of ways. I often find myself dwelling in her world of imagination … Continue reading Christmas Imagination
Advent of the Impossible
When Mary explains to the angel Gabriel that this is madness, that she could not possibly be with child, the angel . . . tells her that with the unconditional, all things are possible, even the impossible. The name of God has from time immemorial been the name of the possibility of the impossible.[i] Why … Continue reading Advent of the Impossible
The Liminal Space in Between the Holiday Rituals: When None of the Festivals Really Fit
I live in Melbourne, Australia. We don’t have such a strong culture of the “holidays” (plural) as in the United States and other places - our language is still about “Christmas” and the undercurrent of colonial Christianity endures in an unconscious privileging of the Christian rituals. A “secular” Christmas is most commonly imagined as a … Continue reading The Liminal Space in Between the Holiday Rituals: When None of the Festivals Really Fit
In the Shadow of the Possible: Reconstructing the Journey Between Bethlehem and Golgotha
The significance of the birth of Jesus logically rests upon Calvary. This is not just the logic of faith. It builds from the logic of human lived experience. Is it not in the face of death that we tend to contemplate the value of the life that was lived and thereby ascribe new meaning to … Continue reading In the Shadow of the Possible: Reconstructing the Journey Between Bethlehem and Golgotha
The Secret Gift of Christmas
You can listen to a reading of this essay here. “A secret always makes you tremble.”[1] Christmas seems to tantalize my imagination like no other holiday. I can’t explain it, but there’s something I find enticing about this time of year. There’s a joy in waiting, in anticipating something I know arrives every year, and … Continue reading The Secret Gift of Christmas
Liminal Theology 