Mary Oliver: Poet and Teacher

January 17, 2019 1 Comment

American poet Mary Oliver passed away into the Great Unknown. While it is sad and we grieve her death, she leaves behind a plethora of lessons for all of us. Progressive Christians have found in Mary Oliver a teacher, a guide, and a coach. She has gifted us with her words, but also with her spirit of curiosity, her vulnerability, and her steadfast insistence on the goodness of the created world.

Although her poems are vast and each one bears its own gifts to its hearers, we want to highlight a few of her poems and the import they have on our lives and our spirituality.

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5 Mansplainers in the Bible

January 16, 2019 2 Comments

Whether you identity as male, female, or somewhere in-between, you’ve probably encountered the dreaded mansplainer. He’s often a cis-hetero man who is white and oozing with privilege. He’s used to telling people what he thinks, whether they seek his opinion or not. He likes offering unsolicited advice and thinks that he is God’s gift to the world.

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4 Lessons from the Spiritual But Not Religious

January 15, 2019

While many churches have been afraid of the SBNR as if they are witches (what’s wrong with witches, after all), progressive people of faith could learn a lot about religion and relationships from the SBNR. Their critiques of institutionalized religion shine a light on places that people who are loyal to the institution may not see. The spiritual but not religious have a lot to teach all of us about faith and religion.

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5 Ways to Find God Today

January 14, 2019

There’s a story in the Hebrew Bible where one of the main characters, Jacob, had a crazy dream. He dreamt that there was a ladder that came down from the sky and angels were going up and coming down the ladder. When Jacob awakens from this dream, he says, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.” It is easy to walk through life and not realize that God is indeed present. It is easy to not pay attention. As progressive people of faith, we have an opportunity to encounter the Divine presence in diverse people, experiences, and settings. If only we wake up.

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Loaded Religious Words

January 12, 2019

Do you get frustrated talking to Christians because they use such trite, flowery language? Does it bother you when fundamentalist Christians take over language that has such possibility? We’ve noticed the way that some Christians have hijacked certain words, making them lose their roots in a revolutionary movement. These words have been domesticated and made to be misleading.

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