Chickmonks

Shannon Hillenmeyer, LCSW is a counselor at Rooted Counseling Center in Nashville, TN, a powerful and gentle spiritual leader, and is one of the most formative yoga teachers I’ve ever experienced, so I can’t wait for you all to hear from her todayOur conversation was thwarted by internet connection issues, which means we sometimes talk over each other and the flow is a bit unnatural—but honestly if that isn’t your new normal right now, I don’t know if we’re living in the same reality. I...

This conversation with Rachel Zolensky, and this will stir up all the things in you. Rachel is a social justice activist by trade and by conviction, but she’s also one of the most thoughtful, introspective people I’ve crossed paths with, and she has a gift for seeing and understanding the way things work and then explaining it to the rest of us.Rachel and I talk about change and transformation. Societal Transformation is only a hopeful ideal until it takes root at an individual level. One wor...

A homily based on the daily office lectionary reading from the Book of Common Prayer:1 John 3:9-18The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deed...

This conversation with Allie Utley (PhD candidate in homiletics and liturgy at Vanderbilt University, professor at Presbyterian Theological Seminary) is very much about the Church as a whole—you’ll probably even learn some new vocabulary. But this conversation is also about what we do as members of the Church—or any worshipping community, for that matter—when we can’t gather.Spoiler alert: it hurts. It calls for grief. And it calls for something new and creative from Christian circles.Allie a...

A homily based on the following daily office reading from the Book of Common Prayer:Matthew 7:1-12“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of you...

Delaney McBride is a massage therapist, registered yoga teacher, and personal cook, and has combined her skills and passions in an instagram account called Hand to Heart Wellness, where she promotes a balanced approach to health and wellness through connecting your mind, body, and gut. Definitely give her a follow—@handtoheartwellness.We talk about creative work, our relationships with food and exercise, and really, all of life as a way of knowing ourselves and being freed from our egos into ...

A homily based on the following reading from the daily office lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer:John 15:1-12 (HCSB)“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vineyard keeper. Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine...

Betsy Coughlin is an adjunct faculty member in the department of theology and religion at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, where she also earned her Bachelors in English and Religion, and received her M.Div from Boston University. In this conversation Betsy and I talk about her evolving faith and religious practice, pain and healing associated with growing up in the conservative church of the South, and the role emotions play in our faith and understanding of God. There are so many g...

A homily based on the following daily office reading from the Book of Common Prayer:Mark 9:30-41 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.Then they came to Cap...

A homily preached from the following reading from the daily office lectionary from the Book of Common Prayer:Mark 1:1-13 (NRSV)The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way;the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaim...