2009 Themes

Editor's Introduction: The issue that concluded our 2008 volume examined lonely places in contemporary life. We asked what significance such places have in the spiritual life of those who are being conformed to the One who spent his last night in the desolation of Gethsemane. "Jesus came into the world to re-create it," writes Jean Vanier, "to give it back its full meaning, to take away our limited vision of life, a vision which prevents the birth of hope and which paralyses us in front of all that seems impossible." This limited vision imprisons us in a vast range of narrow and lonely domains of experience inhospitable to hope and ripe for the cultivation of despair. In the coming year we want to explore more fully this challenging twenty-first century spiritual geography with an eye out for traces of God in the darkness.

In the Watches of the Night

"Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD" (Ps. 4:6). Advent expectancy and Christmas joy have a fullness that carries within it the emptiness of truly new beginnings. As the high holy festival of our consumer culture ends, we enter a post-partum season in which the unfathomable self-emptying of God challenges every consumerist influence in our approach to the spiritual life. Even as holiday decorations and gift boxes are put away, so we may find that world events, societal sea changes, or personal crises press us to put aside our cherished assumptions about who God is and what God is doing. Now we join the three wise men of the East, traveling by night toward a dawn not yet known, a revelation not yet understood. Ah, but there is a star, a glimmer of light that gathers in its luminosity all our desires, all our hopes and fears. In the long and lonely watches of the night, when the pain medicine has worn off, the bars closed, the authority and vitality of the church waned, the star is still there, awakening in us the urgent cry of the human heart: "Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD." For this issue we invite authors to reflect on Epiphany themes of darkness and light, seeking and finding, not-knowing and knowing, being on the road and being at home, all these and more within the framework of challenges to the spiritual life at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Standing in the Tragic Gap

Parker Palmer, writing on the challenges of spiritual leadership, observes that "we must learn to stand in the tragic gap, faithfully holding the tension between reality and possibility in hopes of being opened to a third way." The image of the tragic gap richly evokes the many Holy Saturdays of our lives when we stand alone, stretched between the incontrovertible reality of the cross and the inconceivable possibility of the empty tomb. We will explore dimensions of the tragic gap with the help of Parker Palmer and participants in his "Circles of Trust." Because of this special collaboration between Parker and Weavings, we will not be seeking unsolicited manuscripts for this issue.

Turning the World Upside Down

"The Resurrection means trouble for us who are comfortable with being only half alive." In these words Alan Jones signals the radically disruptive grace that spread across the land when the tomb burst open on Easter and when the Spirit ignited fire on the earth at Pentecost. This is the kindling of holy unrest Jesus hoped for when, bristling, he asked his disciples: "Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?" (Luke 12:51). When Jesus turned upside down the tables of the moneychangers, his action announced that the unruffled complacency of convention would be disturbed by Kingdom truths. And so it was. When Paul and Silas preached in Thessalonica, inhabitants of that city complained to the authorities that, "These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also" (Acts 17:6). Their unwitting witness to the power of the Spirit to reframe the world in light of the risen Christ also hints at the readiness of the world to push back. To be among those who turn the world upside down can be a lonely and hazardous occupation. To examine facets of this calling, and to portray for our time the freedom and joy of being fully alive in Christ, is the purpose of this issue.

Show Me Your Ways, O Lord

"Indeed, you are my lamp, O LORD, the LORD lightens my darkness" (2 Sam. 22:29). During these months of summer in the northern hemisphere, a curious paradox blossoms. The sun's light fills earth and sky, permitting us to see from early morning until late evening. Yet the radiance and warmth of the sun also draws forth a profusion of leaves that obstruct the long view with overlapping walls of green. Seeing, but not seeing enough, we may miss the correct turnoff or misjudge the road's angle of descent. Just as in Eden's abundance the foliage of self-deception separated Adam and Eve from God, so now our own plentiful assumptions and cultural convictions may obscure the path to fullness of life on which God wants to walk with us. Dimly or with shattering clarity, we realize that we have lost contact with deep meaning and enduring purpose. The light of worldly wisdom cannot penetrate the darkness of spiritual disorientation. And so the soul, trusting that God is light and life, calls out for guidance: "Show me your ways, O LORD, and teach me your paths (Ps. 25:4)." How does God respond to this prayer? Which Scripture passages give insight into how God's guidance comes to us? What practices, ancient and contemporary, prepare us to receive the guidance God offers?

Do Not Be Anxious About Tomorrow

"From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work" (Ps. 104:13). Trust in God's attentiveness to creaturely needs leads Jesus to assure us that God knows even the number of hairs on our head (Matt. 10:30). Yet we desire something more, some tangible assurance as a hedge against the fearfully precarious circumstances of human life. This desire may manifest itself as greed. Major investment houses in the United States are now seriously compromised as a result of lending practices driven by pursuit of massive profits. Our need for assurance may become visible in how anxiety about the future constricts our freedom to embrace new relationships, choose new work, move to new parts of the country or world. In an interview about his remarkable documentary film on the Carthusian monks of La Grande Chartreuse near Grenoble, France, Philip Groening observes: "We think that we are able to fashion our lives ourselves, or even that we should be fashioning our lives ourselves and that this is the only way to attain happiness. This is why so many people today are afraid of life. The monastery is a place that is free of fear. One has the age-old trust that God will provide." We invite submissions that examine the impact of anxiety on our lives and the spiritual disciplines that help us live creatively with it.

Where Is Your God?

"My eyes fail from watching for your salvation" (Ps. 119:123). Darfur. Kenya. Iraq. Tibet. Haiti. New Orleans. O wretched people that we are. We see what we do not want to see, and do not see what we long to see. The reach and wretchedness of suffering is too much with us late and soon. Even so, most of us are aware of only the tiniest fraction of the world's tears and terrors. As a culture, we are entering the season of gratitude and gift-giving, a time of vacations and good cheer. In counterpoint, the church is approaching a period of waiting and watching for God to draw near, a time of endings and radically new beginnings when we shall see "the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living" (Ps. 27:13), a time when tears and terror and death shall be no more. The Gospels describe how God enters and is present in history. But how is God present and active in our history? Where is God for all those who cannot help but cry out: "Do not hide your face from me" (Ps. 27:9)? How are we to understand and live according to the faith that through the agency of divine providence, "all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28)?

Please see our Writers' Guidelines for the mailing address and for more details.

"Copy Due" indicates the date by which all contracted manuscripts for the issue are due. If authors have already sent full manuscripts, and these have been accepted in the "Assignments Made" meeting, then those authors have no more to do until they receive edited copies of their manuscript for review and approval.