Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 22
The cruel spectacle churns on for now, but Advent prepares us to see anew that there are countless ordinary acts of love happening quietly, out of sight, more than you and I will ever know.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 21
We should all be concerned about government officials anointing themselves as the arbiters of what a Nativity scene should look like. Sadly, too many Christians today willingly side with Herod.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 20
It must have seemed hopeless in first-century Palestine for plenty of people, but that is where the light of the world chooses to be born. God is still coming into being, even amidst the cruelty of ICE and the terror of state violence.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 19
Jesus didn’t say ‘peace’ because the disciples were safe or because the soldiers went away, but precisely because they were waiting outside and yet peace was still possible.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 18
The season of Advent urges us to slow down; to dwell in the fullness of God’s good news. God offers us life-affirming joy even as calamity follows crisis like an ever-unspooling tragedy.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 17
It seems if we are to have an honest conversation about persecution against Christians, we should first and foremost consider the migrant who is our neighbor, who is made in God’s image, and who needs our collective voice and support right now.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 16
As Christmas nears, may we continue to not run away from seeing the injustices in our communities. But hold that in tension with the joy that we should all be feeling as we anticipate Jesus’s birth.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 15
To launch our week reflecting on Advent in a time of soldiers in the streets, Rev. Jorge Bautista writes about getting shot in the face with a pepper round by a U.S. immigration agent while at a peaceful prayer vigil in Oakland, California.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 14
Despite the tough-on-crime adage that prisoners enjoy 'three hots and a cot' during their time behind bars, this paints far too rosy a picture of the meager portions of low-quality and ultra-processed foods available.
Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 13
When we have created — and allowed — a world where the fearmongering of scarcity is rewarded far and above the possibility of abundance, we are indeed facing Advent in a time of starvation.