Imago Voices
It was last September and, emotionally, I was perhaps in the worst place I had ever been. I had experienced my first real heartbreak and was not taking it well at all. Between anger and grief, I a felt like a burden to be around, even to myself, and then I received an email invitation to a special celebration, Ganesha festival.
Read MoreI have been asked leave or been kicked out of two churches because of my sexual orientation. One of the pastors of these churches told my siblings and mother, “treat him as if he were dead.” I believed in God and asked him to be my savior, long before I ever knew I was going to have an attraction to the same sex. I have known no other way of life, so how can this be a sin? And who created the concept of degrees or levels of sin?
Read MoreI’m not sure where my all-or-nothing view of life started.
Was it growing up Lutheran? Things were pretty simple at my church, and people were basically good or bad. Mostly good, to be honest, because that’s how we saw the world. Bad guys were somewhere “over there” and not a real part of our lives.
Read MoreIn life, everyone has ups and downs. For some, these can be a series of ant hills; for others, they can be great peaks and valleys. None should be discounted, as we know everyone grieves each situation differently.
A couple of years ago, my family was feeling the effects of a joyous season when my sister, who had struggled mightily with infertility, had announced she was pregnant with twin boys.
Read MoreSometime last year I realized my life was about to change. This change wasn’t one I was orchestrating, managing or really playing more than a supportive role in. I was the mother of a senior in high school and my oldest daughter was about to leave for college. I realized things were getting serious when I watched my eighteen year old daughter look people straight in the eye and say, “ I am moving to Chicago in the fall and I am attending North Park University.” Wait…what?
Read MoreI’ll never forget this one time when my daughter was around three years old. It was soon after a family birthday party, which meant we had been eating leftover cake for days. She had just recently perfected the art of using the toilet on her own, but was still a little messy with the clean-up portion of the process. Knowing this, I was trying to insist that she just let me do it since we were getting ready to leave the house. In her frustration and desire to do everything by herself, she blurted out, “Mom, stop! Just go in your room and eat cake!”
Read MoreIn my life, I have not been a stranger to grief, and I imagine many of us could say the same. However, how do you cope with this process in a healthy, positive way? I am a visual artist, more specifically a ceramicist. I learned to use my own personal narrative in my art, and at the same time, using those experiences to speak and connect to my audience.
Read MoreThe two constants in my life have always been my struggle with faith, and comic books. I am very new to Imago Dei, but it will probably comes as no shock to anyone who goes there on a regular basis, that I found Imago through Bryan and Laura Holmes. Like them, I often find wisdom in works of fiction, my favorite being that of a “graphic” nature. Puns aside, I have always gained a sense of morality through the lense of the astonishing. I also grew up in the Catholic Church, which comes with its own lense of penance and guilt, so naturally my favorite characters are those who struggle and lose faith.
Read MoreAfter living nearly 60 years, you get accustomed to experiencing new beginnings, or new stages in life. My first truly significant new beginning was when I met Kathy. We quickly fell in love and started spending more and more time together.
Read MoreThe new year is a blank canvas on which we paint the very best picture of ourselves — the version of ourselves we wish we could be. And I’m naturally one of those people who is always looking towards the next new thing: a move, a new notebook, a Monday morning, or literally anything resembling a new beginning. I have this idea that once I reach the next stage, then I will have made it; will have time to rest; will be a better person.
Read MoreI find it fascinating that books find you at the right time. After Josh’s message on New Beginnings, I read Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book, Faithful Gardner. I had to stop to take a breath as I cried on the treadmill.
Read MoreFor much of church history, the church functioned within a patriarchal model — one male at the top who was shaping and discerning the doctrines and direction of the Church. However, when Jesus first established the church, he never commissioned one individual person with supreme authority. Instead, Jesus chose a team of twelve to shape the Church.
Read MoreI’m a cargo shorts/flip flops kind of guy. Through my 69 years, I have stayed in that attire into December, sometimes January. I have noticed that in recent years, I have been shedding the aforementioned attire and slipping into jeans and tennies earlier and earlier. Part of me says, “You’re getting soft; you’re caving in, man. Slacker.” Another part of me says, “Lying frozen to death in a snowbank doesn’t lend itself to making new beginnings...unless, of course, death is your new beginning.”
Read MoreThis Sunday, we will be in the third week of our series New Beginnings. In the past few weeks, we have discussed the importance of looking back and taking stock of what lessons we have learned and naming areas where we have been hurt or ways we have been formed. In week two we talked about the challenges of grieving.
Read MoreIs it possible that one could derive their worth/value for being the worst of the worst? Does being worse than anyone else set me apart as special in my mind? Does that make me and my situation unique? If I am the exception to every rule, then does that make me exceptional?
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