CC content just in time for the holiday. God as a baby, prayers of protection, new poems, and more.
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** Merry Christmas
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I write you this email from a house—my house—full of in-laws. When my wife and I agreed to 16 consecutive days of hosting her family from out of town, did we make a terrible mistake? Time will tell, my friends. Pray for us.
Jokes aside, we are grateful to spend time with family over the holidays. I’m also always grateful this time of year for those moments when the busy schedules slow down and there is room for contemplation. And so I’m excited to introduce you to some of our new thoughtful content. First, the two articles featured in last week’s Going Deeper discussion resource (sign up for free here ([link removed]) ): Rachel Mann’s exploration of what it means for us to consider an infant God ([link removed]) and Stephanie Perdew’s reflection on the prayers of protection she uttered ([link removed]) during the US election season.
Scroll down for even more great new content. Our video of the week is a follow-up to our December cover story—I chat with Ragan Sutterfield about human gut biomes and Jesus’ incarnation ([link removed]) . Plus two new seasonal poems, one about Christmas in Bali ([link removed]) and one about winter excavation work ([link removed]) .
Merry Christmas to you and yours from all of us at the Century!
Jon Mathieu
Email me (mailto:
[email protected]?subject=What%20I%E2%80%99m%20grateful%20for&body=Jon%2C%20) : What are you grateful for this Christmas?
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Click to find Jon ([link removed]) on (X/Twitter alternative) Bluesky
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** Festival of the child ([link removed])
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“Christmas, with its focus on vulnerability and gift, can be not only a corrective to an overweening sense of the goodness of being an adult but specifically a reminder of God’s hallowing of that most dependent mode of being human: infancy.”
by Rachel Mann
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** My protector was not on the ballot this fall ([link removed])
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“In the days when I served a progressive-identified, White suburban congregation, I got in some trouble when I proclaimed from the pulpit that neither candidate would be our savior and that was OK, because we already had one.”
by Stephanie Perdew
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** VIDEO: Merry microbial Christmas! ([link removed])
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Jon chats with Ragan Sutterfield about human microbiomes, Christ’s incarnation, and how it all fits together.
** In the Lectionary
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Dec. 24/25 (Nativity) ([link removed]) : When does tonight become tomorrow? Is it the first glint of daybreak? The first breath of the baby?
Dec. 29 (Christmas 1C) ([link removed]) : Twelve years into this parenting gig, Mary knows there’s not much she can do to keep her son safe.
both by Lee Hull Moses
Nativity archives ([link removed])
Christmas 1C archives ([link removed])
Get even more lectionary resources with Sunday’s Coming Premium, an email newsletter from the editors of the Christian Century. Learn more ([link removed]) .
** Faces of Grace ([link removed])
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“the song ‘White Christmas’ wafts down.
My friends start singing about sleigh bells
as we bask in the warm morning of a foreign
December.”
poem by Anna Elkins
** Excavator ([link removed])
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“Today it comes, man and machine,
bright yellow on the crusted snow,
driver in the cab aloft directs the arm”
poem by Sarah Rossiter
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