Uncategorized Archives - Anam Cara Ministries

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

Posted on February 18, 2025June 6, 2025 by Tara Owens

by William Stafford

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give – yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

Duke Reflective Leadership Grant 2024-2026

Posted on October 14, 2024October 14, 2024 by Tara Owens

OCTOBER 2024 ANNOUNCEMENT:

Anam Cara Ministries is thrilled to announce that our executive director and founder, Tara M. Owens, has been awarded Duke Divinity’s Reflective Leadership Grant for the 2024-2026 cycle. This grant will allow Tara to take the next step into leadership for the Anam Cara community and provide much-needed writing and reflecting time.

From the grant proposal:

Tara’s work as executive director and founder involves every aspect of the work of Anam Cara, from offering one-on-one spiritual direction to speaking to strategic planning for our ministry partners to staff development to communication to donor relations to budgeting. Her regular tasks involve writing, leading, communicating, analyzing, and developing future models for growth. It goes without saying Tara is stretched thin in multiple ways and needs to find time to step back and evaluate the next phase of leadership and staffing for the organization as a whole. As a multiple heart attack survivor and one who lives with a life-altering connective tissue disorder, Tara is particularly aware that moments of pivot are vital for individuals and communities to engage with wisdom and intentionality.

Over the past year, Tara and the Anam Cara team have realized that the ministry would be better served if Tara stepped back from offering our one-to-one services, such as spiritual direction, and created space for more strategic and communication vision to emerge. After leading a recent pilgrimage on St. Cuthbert’s Way, which culminates in a two-mile walk across the sea bed to the tidal island of Lindisfarne, which has been host to morning and evening prayer since 635, Tara came to realize that the tidal rhythms of the monks (engaging with the broader mainland community in service and support when the tide was out, returning to prayer and reflection when the tide was in) is to inform the next chapter of her ministry and work. This involves acknowledging the tides of her particular work are coming in, even while the larger tide of the work of Anam Cara is currently going out.

Tara is at her best serving Anam Cara Ministries when her time and energy are spent on the following priorities: 1) developing content (writing, teaching, speaking), 2) raising money through relational development (fundraising, donor development and care), and 3) leading the strategy and growth of the ministry (discerning capacity, leading strategy, creating healthy teams and communal culture). As a team of four staff, with Tara as the only full-time employee, Tara is necessarily spread thin with the aforementioned responsibilities, as well as offering services, consulting, community development, and management. Tara needs to step back to gain the necessary executive leadership skills and discern how to move the organization from founder-driven to community-driven development.

We are so excited that, because of this grant, Tara now has the opportunity to benefit from continuing education and conversations with cross-disciplinary experts. In addition to taking time to work on the spiritual direction book project currently being represented by The Bindery, Tara will receive executive coaching and be taking a Harvard Business course in non-profit leadership, among other activities. If you’d like to read the full grant proposal, you can reach out here.

More from Duke Divinity:

Leadership Education aims to create lasting change in U.S. congregations by supporting Christian leaders and the institutions they serve. Leadership Education designs educational services, develops intellectual resources and facilitates networks of institutions that cultivate a coherent vision of Christian institutional leadership and form Christian leaders. Leadership Education is a non-degree-granting initiative of Duke Divinity School funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. and based in Durham, NC.

These individuals have been selected to receive a Reflective Leadership Grant from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. These grants of up to $15,000 support an opportunity for structured reflection for leaders of Christian organizations that are advancing their mission in the midst of today’s rapidly changing context. Fifty Christian leaders from a variety of faith-based organizations are funded in this third year of the Reflective Leadership Grant program.

“The Reflective Leadership Grant at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity recognizes and supports the faithful and innovative work of lay and ordained Christian leaders who find themselves at a pivotal moment in their ministry,” says Mycal Brickhouse, a director of program and grants at Leadership Education. “Using Harvard professor Ron Heifetz’s language, we want to help leaders experience ‘balcony time,’ which allows them to move from the dance floor to the balcony to gain a broader picture of the work, organization, community and trends. We want to encourage grantees to continue to develop their leadership capacities in ways specific to their work and context. For some, this might look like attending interdisciplinary conferences, and for others it might look like observing similar work in different settings. We are excited about the interest in this grant program from both traditional and non-traditional Christian leaders and we look forward to learning alongside them and their communities.”

More from the grant proposal:

Tara M. Owens believes the experience of mature spiritual friendship grounds leaders and lay people alike to become healing, listening presences (non-anxious and non-manipulative) in the Church and the world, bringing God’s redemptive work into the public square. She is the founder and executive director of Anam Cara Ministries, which exists to facilitate and promote the accompanying of others in their journey with God, rooted deeply in Scripture and located in community, encouraging healing, wholeness, and spiritual formation in Christ.

Anam Cara does this meaningfully through three unique processes: 1) providing spiritual direction through a network of grounded, educated, and spiritually mature spiritual directors, 2) training spiritual directors, supervisors, and teachers in relationally-based models of education and transformation, and 3) offering communally-based transformational education opportunities such as Scripture Circles, retreats, pilgrimages, workshops, and ongoing communities of support.

Anam Cara offers support to those seeking spiritual direction through our industry-unique Ostiary role, a sacred doorkeeper who is a spiritual director trained to match incoming inquiries with the appropriate list of spiritual directors, taking into account the individual’s needs, social location, finances, denomination, trauma history, and level of spiritual maturity. We maintain a network of spiritual directors who agree to the Anam Cara Code of Ethics, called the Peregrini
Program. Those in the Peregrini Community are supported socially, educationally, spiritually, and administratively by Anam Cara, allowing them to focus on the work of spiritual direction more freely. We also collaborate with local, national, and international spiritual directors who ascribe to a similarly high code of conduct and education.

Anam Cara also offers the Anam Cara Apprenticeship in Spiritual Direction, a relationally delimited spiritual direction training based on the apprenticeship education model. Three supervisors share the responsibility of teaching and forming individuals and the larger community in the art and practice of spiritual direction, taking into account individual learning styles, educational backgrounds, ethics, and group dynamics. Anam Cara also educates spiritual directors through collaboration in programs such as the Paseo Community’s Stewards of the Mystery program and the Benet Pines Monastery training program.

Anam Cara also offers a communal experience of formation around Scripture through Scripture Circles, a pastoral, theological, and formational time in groups gathered around the text. We currently offer more than ten ongoing study communities (8-15 participants each), both online and in person in Colorado, Tennessee, and globally. We have been asked to travel to teach in London, England, San Luis Obispo, CA, Austin, Texas, and Spokane, WA, among other locations.

We continue to bring awareness to important spiritual formation topics through teaching, speaking, workshops, and leading retreats. These topics include discernment, active listening, empathic distress, Sabbath, creation care, sexuality and spirituality, racial reconciliation, Ignatian spirituality, and embodiment. We partner with organizations such as the International Anglican Church, the Navigators, Laity Lodge, Evolving Faith, Spiritual Directors International, and the
Soul Care Institute.

The majority of our time is spent with individuals, churches, and organizations seeking to deepen their lives in Christ in uncertain and destabilizing circumstances. Many Christians seeking this deeper life often lack one or more of the following skill sets: reflective capacity, mature spiritual practice, theological imagination, Scriptural literacy, cultural awareness, non-anxious presence, non-manipulative engagement, or a robust spirituality of conflict. Tara and the Anam Cara team have the knowledge and experience to create opportunities for transformation and growth without degrading individual agency or dignity. They have a distinctive ability to hear the invitations of the Spirit for both individuals and communities, discern how to make those invitations clear and provocative without being manipulative, and craft experiences that offer encounter without exerting power or domination.

Anam Cara has impacted thousands of individuals and more than 15 church communities by offering spiritual direction, supervision, retreats, workshops, Scripture Circles, and pilgrimages.

Our impact has reached to:

We have more than 10 ongoing communities of study through Scripture Circles, reaching more than 100 people every month,
Nine volunteer cantors pray the Daily Office live Monday through Friday, morning and evening, through our Anam Cara Abbey social media accounts,
Touching more than 18,000 people daily through our Facebook and Instagram accounts with contemplative and Celtic spirituality, spiritual practice, and reflection,
More than 600 people experienced the study of the Word in community through Scripture Circles bursts, out of which a community has formed for the ongoing discipline of engaging Scripture in this way,
More than 40 individuals have benefited from being companioned in one-on-one spiritual
direction and supervision with Tara,
More than 130 spiritual directors were served through six different continuing education workshops on healthy spiritual attachment, Ignatian discernment, gestures in spiritual direction and more,
Thirty-five spiritual directors have joined the Anam Cara team as contractors, providing thousands of hours of one-on-one spiritual direction to their communities with the support of Anam Cara (to make that concrete, Anam Cara offers more than 200 one-on-one spiritual direction appointments per month, on average),
More than 800 hours of one-on-one spiritual direction have been practiced by our 20 different Anam Cara apprentices, each training in the art and practice of spiritual direction through the Anam Cara Apprenticeship. We’re also proud to have graduated 25 of those apprentices over the courses of the Apprenticeship who are each continuing as practicing spiritual directors.

The Magi by Malcolm Guite

Posted on January 10, 2023 by Jeremy Frye

It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.

-Malcolm Guite

Dislodged or Detached?

Posted on January 6, 2023 by Jeremy Frye

By Brandon Booth – www.signpostinn.org

For millennia, wise guides have encouraged “detachment” from the world as a sure method of spiritual development. The idea has such a long pedigree that there must be some extraordinary merit to the term. But I confess that the word bothers me. It conjures up images of scraggly, starving men sitting on top of columns in the desert, or of self-flagellating monks in dingy cells.

“Detachment” makes me feel that my spiritual life should be one of “less” and “less” until it’s so rarified that I’m not even a spirit playing a harp on a cloud but the cloud itself. Hardly the spiritual path I want, or indeed, what I think most of the ancient sages intended.

Instead, I think they were seeking a path to something more, not less. Detachment is not the goal, but a means.

I think of Abram being called by God to “leave” his land and his family and “to go” to a land that God promised to show him. We might say that God asked Abram to “detach” from the world he knew, but I think there is a better word. Abram was called to “dislodge.”

“Dislodge” comes from an old French word that means to “dis-encamp.” It has the sense that one is already on a journey and has made a temporary camp. Sooner or later we need to “dis-lodge” and strike out on the next stage of our adventure. Why? Because there is more to explore!

So, I can find the strength to detach because I’m not leaving my home, only a temporary lodging place. My true home lies ahead of me, not behind. To cling desperately to this particular lodging is the truer loss. It prevents me from experiencing the more that God has for me. To be sure, letting go of anything is a loss, and all losses need to be honored and grieved, but I need to let go of whatever I’m clutching right now in order to open my arms and embrace what is new and more.

Life: a reflection

Posted on November 4, 2022 by Jeremy Frye

You never start out thinking it will be like this
You imagine something cleaner; something easy
You think, “we might have some hard times”
But overall, you assume that life will be simple.

And then it isn’t. Not clean or simple or easy.
You think, “we might not survive this.”
You wonder why it’s this way.
You scream at heaven, but get no response.

This is your life, not clean or simple or easy
But it’s yours, nobody else’s
They couldn’t endure it, much less find the joy in it.
They will never understand the sorrow or the heartache

They will never know the beauty or the grace either.
But you will, you do, it’s all yours; all of it
Yours to have, yours to hold, yours to bear
This life, this sorrow, this gift.

-J. Hunter Frye

Burning Candles

Posted on January 14, 2022 by Jeremy Frye

Once you’ve heard a child cry out to heaven for help,
and go unanswered,
nothing’s ever the same again.
Nothing.
Even God changes.

But there is a healing hand at work
that cannot be deflected from its purpose.
I just can’t make sense of it, other than to cry.
Those tears are part of what it is to be a monk.

Out there, in the world, it can be very cold.
It seems to be about luck, good and bad,
and the distribution is absurd.

We have to be candles, burning between hope and despair,
faith and doubt, life and death,
all the opposites.

– William Brodrick

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

Is Your Spiritual Director Certified? Probably Not.

Posted on January 14, 2022 by Tara Owens

As I write this in the early days of 2022, the tragedy and tangle of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape our world in ways both seen and unseen. Homelife and safety, public life and how we form it, mental health and our care for one another, schooling and teaching—all have undergone radical shifts for ill and for good. Counselors, therapists, social workers, all find their schedules full with those seeking care. The same is true of spiritual directors.

One of the gifts of this time comes from the shift in accessibility that we’ve seen across the globe. Forced to move online, caregivers now have more secure, effective, and safe ways to meet with clients regardless of their location. This has opened up the practice of spiritual direction to so many who simply did not have access to it before, which is a huge grace and a stunning gift.

Alongside that gift comes responsibility, and one of the ways that spiritual directors are charged with caring for their directees and the larger community is by the accurate representation of their training and credentials. As training in spiritual direction has proliferated, and spiritual direction becomes more and more known as a healing modality, I’ve begun to hear a certain kind of slippage in the language used to describe a spiritual director’s training and credentials. This is, I am completely sure, good-hearted, as most of our understanding of caring professions gets modeled after licensed professional therapy or social work. But it’s dangerous, unnecessary, and unkind to borrow language from one profession in order to bolster the distinctiveness of spiritual direction.

Spiritual directors, when presenting themselves to the public, preserve the integrity of spiritual direction by being in right relation with persons and organizations representing qualifications and affiliations accurately. —Spiritual Director’s International Guidelines for Ethical Conduct

In 2016, ESDA (Christ-Centered Spiritual Directors) published an article explaining to their members why representing themselves as a “certified spiritual director” is a problematic practice. In it author Monica Romig Green explains:

Generally, when someone uses the term “certified,” it communicates to the hearer that the person has been given a certification as opposed to just a certificate. It usually means that they possess an official designation from a qualifying professional organization that affirms they meet and uphold specific standards of their profession.

To become “certified,” one must show evidence to a certifying organization that they meet or exceed continuing professional standards. Additionally, as a professional designation, certification is usually something that can expire over time and must be renewed occasionally in order to affirm that someone is still practicing their work at a competent or high level of quality.

Contrastingly, receiving a certificate or diploma from a training program usually means that you have successfully completed your specific program’s educational requirements. It does not mean that you have met the practicing standards of a particular profession.

Regarding spiritual direction, there is, in fact, no specific and official standard for training/formation. That means that one person’s certificate of training could mean something completely different than someone else’s. For instance, I know of a program that gives a certificate after someone has spent 2 weeks studying spiritual direction, while other programs require that their students spend two to three years studying and complete hundreds of direction hours before they receive their certificate. With such variation in training, it’s easy to see why our training certificates would not automatically indicate meeting some kind of general standard.

If you’re a spiritual director or even someone exploring the practice of spiritual direction, the whole article is worth reading. As Green argues, and I concur, it isn’t just a splitting of hairs to insist that “completed a certificate in spiritual direction” is a more accurate and ethical way of representing training in spiritual direction than using the term “certified” (or, in several somewhat upsetting instances, I’ve heard spiritual directors refer to themselves as “licensed” which is both inaccurate and manipulative, as it creates a false sense of accountability and safety for the directee when the director has no such body of oversight).

As someone who also respects and honors the work that my colleagues in therapeutic and social work settings have done, I don’t want to water down the incredible amount of work and continuing education they have and continue to do, even if it appears to up my credibility.

There’s also an important tension to hold here, as there is a certifying body in spiritual direction and the supervision of spiritual directors (CCPC Global), through which I hold both certifications. This is an open organization, to which anyone globally can apply who meets the requirements of certification over and above having completed a certificate in spiritual direction. At the same time, the larger community of spiritual direction continues to hold a diversity of opinion about whether or not certification is necessary, beneficial, or an accurate measure of expertise in a field that holds so much Mystery. Spiritual Director’s International (SDI), for example, discourages the use of these credentials, while the professional spiritual direction associations of countries like Ireland or Australia have created even more rigorous standards and accountability structures for the practice within their borders.

As our push online since the emergence of COVID-19 has shown us, there is also great good to de-institutionalization of education. Seminary-level education is now available to those who would never be able to relocate in order to have access to educators of this quality. Systemic barriers historically operating in education because of sexism, ableism, or racism have been seriously (and thankfully) damaged by our ability to seek wisdom not just from “professionals” but from those with expertise and lived experience. Those whose voices have previously been silenced in these spaces and conversations have had the opportunity to create new and dynamic spaces for experience and education.

In the face of this wild, generative proliferation, it is nonetheless important to care for those seeking spiritual direction with an accurate and clear portrayal of education, experience, and expertise. As a practitioner, I’ve continued to sit in the “both/and” of the questions around the professionalization of spiritual direction. In churches and spiritual communities around the world, there are wisdom figures and those who listen on the margins who would never go to graduate school or seek the title of “spiritual director”—and I believe these faithful men and women are still doing the good work of spiritual direction in the world. I also believe that it is important for me and those I train in spiritual direction to continue to do the work of skills building, growth, and learning within the field and that when it is within the purview and possibility of a particular director, to seek to meet any professional standards that are helpful to their practice and serve their directees well.

The chances are that your spiritual director isn’t “certified.” How and whether that matters to a directee is in the hands of those seeking spiritual accompaniment. However, for ethical practice, spiritual directors need to represent their training, associations, and professional development in a clear, straightforward and well-thought-through manner.

Introducing Jo

Posted on September 20, 2021 by Jeremy Frye

Jo Newell is a mom of 6 adult daughters (and one son who she can’t wait to see in heaven), a grandma to 9 grandkids, a widow (after almost 42 years of marriage), a cancer survivor, and a lover of many animals, including her 21-year-old cat, Sophie! She works in staff care with The Navigators. She lives in TX, but a big part of her heart is in Colorado, her home state. She is a graduate of the Potters Inn Soul Care Institute and a current Anam Cara apprentice. Among her favorite activities are reading, hiking and camping, gardening, and eating New Mexican cuisine. Her heart’s desire as she meets with others in spiritual direction is that they would be able to hear God’s voice calling them the Beloved and learn to live out of that love.

Introducing Kate

Posted on September 20, 2021 by Jeremy Frye

Kate Davelaar Guthrie has worked in large churches, tiny churches, para-church ministry, and academic institutions. A couple of questions she has found herself asking (and being asked) in all these settings are: what does it look like to truly ground one’s identity in their Belovedness? And, what does it look like to love our neighbors near and far, especially the least, the last, and the left out? Kate plans to be asking these questions her entire life. She is passionate about the intersection of anti-racism and spiritual formation and believes that our inner work is not merely for our own liberation, but for the liberation of all of God’s good creation.

Sabbath and Gift Economy

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Jeremy Frye

I am part of a very giving community. We share meals, vehicles, tools, financial resources, our homes, our skills. We watch each other’s kids, pick each other up and drop each other off at the airport, and share whatever else we might have to offer. Some have helped others pay a few months’ mortgage when finances got tight. I’m so aware of how rare and beautiful a thing this is.. Just recently, one of our friends spontaneously picked up a chicken coop and brought it to our house because we have a large yard and they knew we’ve been wanting to start keeping chickens. It’s a joint venture, we are providing the yard and the care, our friends are providing the chickens and the feed, and we get to split the profits (read: fresh eggs every morning!) I am often reminded of the book of Acts when I think about this beautiful community.

And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.

Acts 4:34

But why live this way?

That’s my question and honestly the question of most people who look at me like I’m part of a commune when I talk about my neighborhood. What causes a community to be formed in this way? We are by no means the only group of people living this way, but it does seem rare. We don’t look like the wider culture. And, believe me, it isn’t perfect—but it is beautiful.

Why would a group of people move beyond the transactional economy that the world says is the only one that works, and into a gift economy that reflects something that looks more like the kingdom? Is it “grace powerfully at work”? To be sure. Is it the genuine love that the group has for one another? Definitely. But I think there’s something else. I think perhaps that part of the reason a community forms in this way is because it practices resting together.

I was recently reflecting on a prayer written by Walter Brueggemann entitled: Giver of all Good Gifts, that caused me to consider the correlation between truly living a gift economy and Sabbath.

The prayer begins:

You are the God who feeds and nourishes.

You are the God who assures that we have more than enough,

and we do not doubt that

you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

I was struck by this stanza. Not because it is so blazingly profound, but simply because it isn’t. It is something that we, the people of God, as Brueggemann writes, do not doubt the truth of. And yet, how often do we (how often do I) live as if this isn’t true? The prayer continues with these words:

Even in such an assurance, however,

we scramble for more food.

After we have filled all our baskets

with manna,

we seek a surplus—

enough education to plan ahead,

enough power to protect our supply,

enough oil to assure that protection.

If the first stanza struck me, this second one wrecked me. This is our story isn’t it? Collectively as a society, we are hoarders. The majority of us have way more than enough and yet we still want more. We must “plan for a rainy day” or “hedge our bets” or “prepare for the worst case scenario.” The reality is that most of the time, we say that we believe it is God who provides, but we live as if our provision rests squarely and solely on our shoulders. So we acquire more. We are guilty of collecting lifetimes of manna, more manna than we could ever consume, when the promise of God is enough for today. (Exodus 16:4, Matt. 6:11)

This is where the Sabbath comes in. Sabbath is stopping (the word shabbat literally means to stop). It is a ceasing of the incessant acquisition of goods, the continuous consumption of resources. In that stopping, we are given a gift; the reminder that we are not our own source and supply. The reminder that we are deeply known and deeply loved by the God of the universe. Sabbath is not an excuse not to work but a command not to work; so that we might be reminded that we are more than our work and that our provision is from God and not from our labour alone.

Until we really believe that the first stanza of Brueggemann’s prayer is true, we will continue to live the second stanza. Sabbath is an invitation to believe the truth of the first stanza so that we can then live into the rest of the prayer:

And in the midst of that

comes your word,

that we share bread and feed the hungry,

even to the least and so to you.

We mostly keep our bread for ourselves,

our neighbors,

and our friends.

It does not occur to us often,

to feed our enemies,

to share your bounty with

those who threaten us.

We do not often remember to break vicious cycles

of hostility

by free bread,

by free water,

by free wine,

by free milk,

Until we remember that you are the giver of all good gifts,

ours to enjoy,

ours to share.

Stir us by your spirit beyond fearful accumulation

toward outrageous generosity,

that giving bread to others

makes for peace,

that giving drink to others

makes for justice,

that giving and sharing opens the world

and assures abundance for all.1

I believe that among many other things, Sabbath is a weekly reminder that, as the people of God, we live in a gift economy: an economy not driven by buying and selling or demanding and taking, but by freely giving to and receiving from one another without expectation of reciprocation or payback. It is a weekly reminder that God is indeed the giver of all good gifts and that we need not live as though that were not true. I also believe that this peace afforded to us by observing the Sabbath is meant to be shared with the world; it’s not ours to hoard.

Where do we begin? As a wise rabbi has often said, “It all starts with stopping.” The invitation of the Sabbath is to stop and remember that it was God who rescued the people of Israel from Egypt; to stop and remember that it was God who promised to provide enough manna for each day; to stop and remember that transactional economy and “looking out for number one” is not only fundamentally flawed, it is unnecessary when we recognize that in each moment of each day we are being cared for by a God who loves us beyond words.

Entering into a Sabbath rhythm is, at its core, an invitation to trust that the God who loves us will indeed care for us as promised. It is an invitation to step into a different way of being; a way that is marked by rest and freedom rather than bondage to acquisition and consumption. It is an invitation to live generously because we are reminded each week of how generous God is toward us.

If we learn to live from this place of rest and freedom, perhaps one day, sharing things like cars and homes and chickens will not be seen as exceptional but normal. In fact, we may even discover that when there is no need for competition for resources and power to maintain those resources, enemies will become friends, strangers will become family, opponents will become team members. Perhaps one day we will find ourselves living in a gift economy, not because we worked harder to make it happen but because we Sabbathed our way into it. I think that’s what’s happening in my community, as weird and imperfect as it is, and I want to share it.

– j

1“Giver of All Good Gifts” from Prayers for a Privileged People by Walter Brueggemann, 2008 Abingdon Press

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash