In my faith community, we have had two discussions so far this Advent season. The first was about waiting, and the second was about wandering. (The discussion this week will not cover a topic that starts with a w—we’re not trying that hard.) I was amazed at how resonant these Advent-related themes were for folks in our community. It turns out that many of us are wanderers who are waiting for some important things.
A recent piece from Century publisher Peter Marty speaks to churches, perhaps filled with empty pews, that are waiting to return to a sense of pre-pandemic normal. An editorial from our team suggests that sexual abuse survivors are waiting for more than a hashtag movement can provide them.
No video this week, but a really cool bonus article! Last week I sent you a piece by Elizabeth Evans about clergy mental health issues; here is a fascinating follow-up about many faith leaders who are turning to Dungeons & Dragons to experience community and creativity. Plus more great content below.
Email me: Are you wandering in some way? What are you waiting for?
“Organic social media movements are good at building solidarity—and ineffective at producing broader, lasting change. Survivors need living, local communities to accompany them.”
“Across the country, the game is bringing ordained Christians and Jews together in a fantasy world in which good and evil sometimes seem clearer and choices more obvious than in murky, real-life, pandemic America.”
“Rejecting fascism because it isn’t sufficiently sophisticated seems rather to miss the moral point. At the same time, it would be an error to assume that T. S. Eliot was indifferent to civilization’s unmooring.”
“Naive as Armstrong and his colleagues may have been about the social importance of the moonwalk, a corporate orgy on a burning planet couldn’t possibly be the historic leap he had in mind.”
