I must confess, it is really tempting to run headlong into the Christmas season this year. I mean, who doesn't want more light, more joy-filled music, more decorations, more "tidings of comfort and joy"? The world feels so heavy right now. There days are shorter, yet somehow each one seems to last forever. Every 24 hours is full of more Covid cases, more hospitalizations, and more death. The news cycle is an incessant metronome of infection numbers, overburdened systems, and political drama. And yet simultaneously, each day seems to be an almost exact carbon copy of the day before, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before . . . Yes, we all desire the "good news of great joy for all the people". I know I do. However, what I think I really need this year is Advent. I need the waiting. I need the liminal space of the almost but not yet. I need the anticipation of something new. I need it because that is exactly where I am living every s
I grew up in Marion, Indiana. Even though I haven't lived there for over 30 years, I still call this Central Indiana town home. One of my favorite parts about growing up in Marion was the opportunity to play organized sports from a very young age - PAL Club basketball, T-ball, and flag football. But in Marion, basketball has always been and likely forever will be king! Hoosier Hysteria can be seen in all of its glory in Bill Green Athletic Arena. Even the water tower used to list all of the State Basketball Championships won reminding one and all of what was of ultimate importance. I often say that the most prominent tree in Marion was the basketball goal. Every block had at least two or three. It seemed as if every little girl and every little boy grew up dreaming of one day becoming a Marion Giant donning the purple and gold. Before I got to Marion High School, I went to McCulloch Junior High from 1980 through 1983. Our mascot was the Bears, and our school colors were purple, gol
We create a universe every time we tell ourselves, we tell one another, we tell our children, we are told a story. Our examination of the stories heard, overheard, created, told, must be deep and may even cause us discomfort. Let us ask our stories, our storytellers, our selves these questions and more. Who are the protagonists? Who are the enemies? What are the worlds that are built, defended, reformed, destroyed? What is the quest? Who comes out the victor? Who dies at the hands of the conquering hero, at the hands of the dominant culture? Who “needed” to be “saved”? Who is the “savior”? Where do we discover self within the narrative arc? What are the stories behind the stories that inform the stories we tell, that inform the stories we are told? What are the mythologies that are called truths embedded in our psyches and hidden in our stories? And then we must not fail to follow each question with a necessary why. If we are to grow, to understand self, to learn our emb
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