The Podluck

It's Advent y'all!

Each week during Advent I'm ending the episode with a blessing I wrote, text is included below for reference:

When the World is Ending...or Beginning

Blessed are you who sit in stunned silence in the driveway or parking lot, on the curb for just a moment too long because the illusion has broken yet again

And you remember that twinkling lights strung on gutters and trees are illuminated by power plants belching smog and making life on this planet as tenuous and flickering as the tiny incandescent bulbs.

You remember the empty chairs at family gatherings, due to health or death or because someone who claimed to love you actually loves their idea of you more than the glorious human before them. 

Blessed are you, sitting, fingers growing cold as the warmth fades from your now idle car, but unable to will yourself inside where you have to go back to pretending. 

At least, until you remember that we contain multitudes. 

The illusion shatters, then you pretend things are fine, then things are fine because while the ice caps are melting, so is your heart for those you love. 

While relationships and families fracture and split, so do the ice crystals as they drift to earth, picking up all manner of dust and dirt along the way, and it’s the splitting and the grime that turns each pristine water drop into a beautiful, unique snowflake. 

You chuckle bitterly, breath fogging the air. 

Perhaps it would be best if we did not contain multitudes. 

You trudge inside, to whatever gathering or empty house or workplace or appointment lies beyond you. Waiting for your hands to warm up and for the buoyancy of hope to return. 

The red wing of a cardinal catches your eye. 

The sun peaks from behind the ever-present clouds. 

A child laughs. 

A stranger shares a quarter with you to get a cart at Aldi. 

There are a million assurances that we will be okay, and they do not negate the severity of the danger and rupture we are surrounded by. 

But this season, of all seasons, we remember that the way the Divine answered the fearsome, the reductive, the shattering, was with birth. 

The most vulnerable. 

Flesh bearing and breaking open to bring forth new flesh. 

All tenderness. All strength. 

And at the moment you believe you will break, you actually do. 

And you go on living, New. And more abundantly. 

This is the way the world begins again. 

Blessed are those who wait for it, with hope and trepidation, sitting slightly too long in the car, before walking inside. 

Support the show

Quotes this week from the Luke commentary of the Belief series, by Justo González and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. 

Support the show

Quote taken from Justo González's commentary on Luke from the Belief Commentary Series. 

Also, a few impact words toward the end of this episode, so be mindful if you're listening at work or with young children around.

Support the show

Support the show

I'll be on Instagram live this coming Thursday evening (October 6th) at 7pm Central with Kelley Nikondeha talking about her new book The First Advent in Palestine. 

Support the show

Sources cited in this episode:

You Can Talk to God Like That by Abby Norman.

Luke commentary by Justo González as part of the Belief Commentary series.

Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder's chapter on Luke in True to Our Native Land.

Support the show

This week I gleaned a lot from the notes in my New Oxford Annotated Bible, which is my favorite study Bible. Highly recommend if you're not quite ready to buy a bunch of commentaries, but you'd still like more background info on the text as you read. 

Support the show

Sources engaged in this episode are The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann, Short Stories by Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine and Clarice J. Martin's chapter on 1-2 Timothy in True to Our Native Land. 

Support the show

Sources mentioned in this podcast include, Dr. Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder's commentary on Luke contained in True to Our Native Land and concepts from Dr. Scot McKnight's commentary on Philemon in the New International Commentary series.  I can't remember which episode it was in, but adrienne maree brown talks about the wisdom of mushrooms on her podcast How to Survive The End of The World, which I highly recommend as well. 

Support the show

Support the show