The winter ahead feels certain to be long for lots of reasons: fatigue, disconnection, loneliness, loss. And the reactions we may have to all this are those often associated with grief: anger, denial, bargaining, and feelings of depression or defeat. Special guest Erica Coates, professional counselor and friend of BLC, offers some spiritual/mental health principles that can help us grow hope within us so we can grieve our losses well, rather than pass on our pain to the next person.
Read MoreFor some of us, America's political divide hits very close to home. BLC's Christina Culver and Kyle Hanawalt discuss how faith can offer a way to feel hope about the future even if we never experience someone changing their mind. When is it right to say something, and when is it right to not? What are healthy boundaries to protect that hope?
Read MoreOptimism is great! It's what we feel when external signs point toward a better future. But hope is internal (spiritual even); it's not dependent on external good news. Hope is more resilient. Many Advent reflections point to two figures from the Bible who had profound experiences of hope being sparked inside them: Simeon and Anna. How might they encourage us this year?
Read MoreBLC stakeholder Elizabeth reflects on finding comfort from God in the midst of grief. Part of our value on emotionally healthy spirituality is trying to provide meaningful experiences of ceremony or ritual for people who otherwise wouldn’t have that, so once a year we set aside a Sunday to remember and grieve loved ones lost by people in our community. Jesus, the God acquainted with grief, is an incredible help in this.
Read MoreWe are not bad or faulty for needing to brush our teeth everyday; it's just good hygiene. Likewise, we are not bad or faulty for having to lay down the same burdens continually, for having to pray regularly for the same resolve again and again, for needing the same thing we did yesterday; that's just good spiritual hygiene.
Read MoreWhat is caring for our spiritual health as a community that feels a mix of relief (that Trump did not win), moved (to have our first ever woman of color vice president), AND hurt or disappointed (that the message delivered by the election results was not as resolute as hoped)?
Read MoreIt’s no surprise that white American Christianity has chosen Donald Trump as its leader when for decades its prevailing use for Jesus on the Cross has been “motivation by fear of punishment from a strongman, violent God”. What an unhealthy, worthless picture of God! BLC stakeholder Abby Dye helps us discover Jesus on the Cross as a totally different (and inspiring) picture of God that models a totally different kind of leadership: self-sacrificial love.
Art: Ethiopian painting of the Crucifixion, ca. 2000
Read MoreWith last week's news about so many families still separated on the US-Mexico border we feel a renewed need to educate ourselves on what we can do and find hope for change in Jesus, the God who identifies with outsiders. Special guest Sami DiPasquale, who works on the border in El Paso & Ciudad Juarez, is interviewed by friend of BLC Val Buchanan, as we continue try to shift the American narrative about God away from white, conservative, Trump-backing evangelicalism.
Art by Tim Vermeulen.
Read More#DefundCPD's message is "the safest neighborhoods have more resources, not more police." Yet, one day of Chicago's budget for police ($4 million!) accounts for 32 months of its budget for Violence Protection Programs. BLC stakeholders Laura & Leicester Mitchell share with us about "Jesus, the revolutionary" and their work with #DefundCPD, as we continue to try to shift the American narrative about God away from Trump-backing, white, conservative evangelicalism.
Art by Alexander Smirnov.
Read MoreConstant movement instead of strict adherence, defending those without power instead of those with power -- Special guest (and BLC's old friend) Joey Rodil shows us how Jesus' descriptions and modeling of his own mission can help shift our narrative about faith (and our experience of it) away from typical white American Christian notions.
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