Vox Veniae Podcast

What are the ways we might impose our own priorities onto Jesus and fail to see him for who he really is? On the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Nic Acosta reminds us to acknowledge our own biases, how we project them onto Jesus, and how God’s generosity is active among those we consider to be wrong . [John 6:1-15]   Reflection What do I find when I engage with Jesus as presented in the Gospels? How might our cultural and political biases be keeping us from seeing Jesus clearly? How can we be gracious and generous even toward those who misrepresent Christ?

How many of us feel an incongruence throughout liturgy, questioning if we really believe the prayers and psalms passing through our lips? On the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Vanessa Maleare breathes life into our incongruencies around faith and life by inviting us to make space. [Matthew 14:13-21]   Reflection What space are you craving? What beliefs are you wrestling and contending with? What nourishment are you lacking and who might you ask for what you need?   Resources Book: A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity by Debie Thomas Book: Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner Book: Feminist Prayers for My Daughter: Powerful Petitions for Every Stage of Her Life by Shannon K. Evans

When you feel joy… how do you know?  On the eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Gena St. David, delves into the relationship between joy and grief and points us to how embodying joy can be an act of sacred resistance. [2 Samuel 6:14-19] Reflection When you’re experiencing joy what do you sound like?  When your body feels joy, what do you notice? When you want to share joy, what does it occur to you to do? Resources Book: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley Article: Why Michal Rightly Despised David, Womanists Wading In The Word by Wilda Gafney https://www.wilgafney.com/2018/07/12/why-michal-rightly-despised-david/

In a world bent on dividing and condemning, how might we listen to and seek reconciliation with the complex song our whole life is singing?  On the sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Christopher Mack seeks illumination on the intimacy shared between David and Jonathan, and what it teaches us about loving ourselves and loving our enemies. [2 Samuel 1:23-27]   Reflection What part(s) of your life and story do you struggle to welcome or find wholeness?  Where have our interpretations of scripture  reinforced problematic, or unjust understandings of ourselves or others? How can we embody God’s good news to ourselves and others? Resources Book: Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times by Tom Horner  Book: The Love of David and Jonathan: Ideology, Text, Reception by James E. Meredith Book: Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte

How might your life work differently when you can feel in your body the joy, safety, and pleasure of which the psalmist writes?  On this Pride Sunday, Amy Wolfgang encourages us to feel the embodied confidence of God beside, before, and within our being. [Psalm 16:8-11]   Reflection How can our community go before and beside those in fear of their call to embodiment?  Who in your life deserves their flowers? What would today be like if you knew that God rejoices in your body? Resources Video: Writing The Funeral of Cecilia Gentili at St. Patrick’s Cathedral NYC https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxUxJAq0_SHZ-vpIv62DizFhX6Ozu-TVch

How might our faith community speak about God in a way that is inspired and inspiring?  On the fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Kimberly Culbertson reminds us to exhale as we prepare to leave behind our old narratives to embrace the new God is forming among us and through our mutual work. [1 Samuel 16:6-12]   Reflection Who do you say that Jesus is?  How might the Spirit be asking you to see as God sees? What lenses might you need to set down? What might God be asking Vox to see, embrace, and become in this season? Resources Book: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg Book: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

How can we overcome the adversity of our divided times without losing a radical love for those on the other side? On the third Sunday after Pentecost, Christopher Mack notices parallels between anxieties about political leadership in the time of Samuel and our own. He offers practical tools for how to co-create understanding and connect across differences. [1 Samuel 8:4-9, 19-22 ].   Reflection Where might you acknowledge your own understanding as partial and incomplete?  Have you experienced co-creating understanding with someone? What might it look like for you to take one step closer to someone important to you, who you disagree with this week? Resources Book: I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times by Mónica Guzmán Video: Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides by Geoffrey L. Cohenhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shqgkOTeS6U  Video: How to Understand and Be Understood by Dr. Ruchi Sinha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU7Dg8VP3dA

When you hear someone say, “God is not just our father, but also our mother,” what comes up for you? On the third Sunday after Pentecost, Vanessa Maleare walks us through passages throughout scripture, to birth maternal images in our imagination and experience of God [John 3:3-8].   Reflection Is there a part of yourself you need to reintegrate for wholeness? How can you imagine God as your mother comforting you today?   Resources Book: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

What might we need to let go of in order for our community to be reborn? On Pentecost Sunday, Eugene Kim invites us to experience God in each of us, churches as relationships rather than institutions, and to understand our main job as love  [Acts 2:1-4]   Reflection What do you see and hear of God within you? What do you see and hear of God in the people around you? What do you see and hear of God in community — the space between us? Resources Article: Letting Go of What We Have Known by Barbara Holmeshttps://cac.org/daily-meditations/letting-go-of-what-we-have-known-2023-05-04/  Book: The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

In our journey to move towards flourishing, what are the less traveled paths we’re invited to walk on and through? On this seventh Sunday of Easter, Weylin Lee companions us down a spiritual path that delights in freedom, consents to the Creator, and is revealed over time.  [Psalm 1]   Reflection Where might you practice delight in the pursuit of liberation and freedom? What is a practice of consent that you are sensing in your journey? How are you invited to travel a path that the divine is still revealing? Resources Book: An Asian American Theology of Liberation by Wong Tian An