What does it mean to belong to ourselves and belong to one another? On the weekend of Juneteenth and Father's Day, we look to the words of writer Cole Arthur Riley as Hayley shares thoughts around being personally and communally well. (Image: cover art for “This Here Flesh” by Cole Arthur Riley)
Read MoreFor our Easter reflection this year, Hayley is struck by the opening line from the Gospel of John's telling of Mary Magdalene's visit to Jesus' tomb on Easter morning: "While it was still dark..." (Art: "42. Resurrection" by He Qi)
Read More60% of American adults believe in the idea of soulmates, according to a recent YouGov poll. But romance can be a fickle, crappy, unforgiving thing to put one’s trust in. Unfortunately, much of American religion reinforces the belief that to be single is to be incomplete. How can a community like BLC counter such beliefs?
Read MoreChristian supremacy is very much linked to the other supremacies our world is talking about (white supremacy, national supremacy), but it’s sometimes given a pass because of an interpretation of Jesus’ words: “no one comes to the Father except through me.” Is there another way to interpret Jesus’ words? Is there a way to wholly give oneself to the tradition of Jesus and not end up a Christian Supremacist? We think so!
Read MoreThere's more to Jesus' three examples of non-retaliation from the Sermon on the Mount -- "turn the other cheek", "let them take your cloak also", and "go the extra mile" -- than it seems on the surface. (Art: "Come Ye Blessed... " from the Sermon on the Mount, by Nathaniel Mokgosi. 1980.)
Read MoreMost of the images Jesus and St. Paul used to describe life are organic things that grow and change -- soil, vines, bodies, families -- rather than manufactured or mechanistic things that follow formulas. There's A LOT of wisdom behind that! (Art by Scott Erickson: @scottthepainter)
Read MoreOn the weekend our country remembers Dr. King, we do a book report on Howard Thurman's "Jesus and the Disinherited" -- reportedly the book Dr. King kept in his pocket during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Thurman is one of the most important theologians in American history, but unfortunately not as well known as he ought to be. (Photo: Book jacket for "Jesus and the Disinherited" by Howard Thurman)
Read MoreThe season of Advent in the church calendar encourages us to annually come back to the theme of "waiting", suggesting how core it is to learn to "wait well" in order to "live well". Hayley and Vince unpack some helpful and some harmful spiritual perspectives on waiting they've encountered (and perhaps you have too?)
Read MoreSpecial guest and old friend of BLC Kristen Daly-Mosier unpacks three movements the Jesus tradition encourages us to make as a capitalistic, materialistic, colonizing culture: (1) From "stewardship" to "solidarity", (2) From "uses" to "gifts", (3) From "classification" to "revelation".
Read MoreJoin us as we attempt to capture and give expression to the many feelings and thoughts and complicated prayers we all might have bouncing around inside us 20 years after 9/11.
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