I’ve mentioned before that I lead a fully online faith community focused largely on healing from church trauma. This past weekend, we had our first ever in-person retreat! Twenty of us gathered in Stony Point, NY, at the PC(USA) retreat center there—and my goodness, the weekend blew me away. This community that has only met each other in Zoom windows brought their abundant joy, curiosity, and vulnerability (and tears!). It reminded me that what we do matters when we build faithful, loving communities.
Then I hopped a plane straight to another Presbyterian haven in Montreat for the Worship & Music Conference. I must admit that this sort of thing—traditional church music in traditional church settings—I’m a little more skeptical about. But after sitting in a majestic cathedral and hearing a seemingly angelic choir, I can attest that there is real spiritual beauty here.
“Metaphor is born. That’s how the story goes. In Eve’s act of disobedience, something new is birthed: literature and poetry, storytelling and the power of fiction to create worlds.”
“Erin Raffety gleans examples from her fieldwork to demonstrate how ableism operates in churches today, including through interpretations of scripture.”
