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2023-11-08T20:54:39-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Las Posadas: On Mary and Joseph and the Border

Last updated on: November 8, 2023 at 8:54 pm By Tricia Gates Brown

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Celebrants press wall-to-wall into houses where we gather, forty to sixty people, night after night reciting the prayers and singing the songs of Las Posadas. Steamy windows emanate light into winter’s deepest dark. Posadas (translated literally as “lodgings”) take place each night from December 16 through Christmas Eve and reenact Mary and Joseph’s attempt to find lodging in Bethlehem. The tradition originated in Spain and was carried to Mexico. The uniquely Mexican version seems to have started in 1538, when... Read more

Contemplative

Travel and Religion

Politics and Religion

2023-10-31T07:05:21-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

How Humility Makes Way for Forgiveness

Last updated on: October 31, 2023 at 7:05 am By Tricia Gates Brown

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One of the main tenets of Christianity is the belief that we are transformed by God and made new; that we have been and continue to be forgiven (and this does not require a belief in ‘substitutionary atonement’). Forgiveness, along with justice for the oppressed (ie Luke 4:18), is part of what we call the ‘good news.’ So shouldn’t Christians be especially forgiving? In theory, yes. But Christians fail at forgiveness as much as anyone. Do we truly believe in... Read more

Contemplative

Relationships and Religion

2023-10-26T12:21:26-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Why Quiet Listening is Important Action

Last updated on: October 26, 2023 at 12:21 pm By Tricia Gates Brown

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Do you too feel it—the disorienting internal pressure we experience in social-media-soaked times to say something about terrible events? Human motivations being what they are, I believe this internal pressure is gray-tinged: neither fully concerned for others nor fully ego-driven. Most commonly, we find ourselves between this black/white dichotomy. And most events are themselves more pallid gray than black and white, involving complicated situations and flawed human actors. Even something as formerly non-complex as a natural disaster is now, in... Read more

Contemplative

Religion News

Politics and Religion

2023-10-17T20:11:53-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

‘The Mercy of the Fallen’: Using our Failures for Good

Last updated on: October 17, 2023 at 8:11 pm By Tricia Gates Brown

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A repeated theme in the gospels is riddles. Both people trying to trick Jesus with riddles and Jesus teaching or answering back with riddles. And in this week’s lectionary passage (Mt 22:15-22), Jesus is using a sort of riddle. He says, “Give to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and give to God what belongs to God.” But really, what doesn’t belong to God? In a roundabout way, Jesus is saying—everything belongs to God, so make everything available for... Read more

Contemplative

Women in Religion

Essay

Faith and Mental Health

2023-10-09T07:03:32-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Why Stewarding our Talents Starts with Gratitude

Last updated on: October 9, 2023 at 7:03 am By Tricia Gates Brown

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Whenever I talk about parables, I include the same reminder: a parable is a snapshot, like a photo, that conveys a core meaning. It isn’t an allegory where every detail has symbolic value. The parable in yesterday’s lectionary passage (Matt 21:33-46) comes out of Jesus’ time when the majority were tenant farmers on the lands of powerful people, and when elites tended to have slaves. The story takes these realities as a given; it doesn’t mean Jesus approved of tenant... Read more

Contemplative

Careers, Workplace and Religion

2023-10-03T05:59:02-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Finding a Wider View

Last updated on: October 3, 2023 at 5:59 am By Tricia Gates Brown

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The unthinkable is happening. One of the country’s two major political parties has become the party of Donald Trump; and at this point in the presidential election, he appears both likely to win the Republican primary and to be quite competitive. I don’t need to enumerate the unthinkable things he has done or that he plans to do if re-elected,[1] as I assume my readers are aware. My intention here is to explore “what now?” and “how can we adopt... Read more

Contemplative

History and Religion

Essay

Book of Common Prayer

2023-09-29T06:04:13-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When I Encountered the Spirit of a Loved One

Last updated on: September 29, 2023 at 6:04 am By Tricia Gates Brown

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Roughly seven years ago; late-summer day under a New Mexico sky, the blue of which rivals all sky. Blue like taffeta. Like a French painter’s dream of sky—which is what lured painters to Taos in the 20th century to eventually become the “Taos School,” setting stage for an influx of artists and intellectuals including the likes of Georgia O’Keefe and D. H. Lawrence. I drove out of Taos where I’d retreated to an adobe, pond-side casita on a farm, attempting... Read more

Contemplative

Family, Parenting and Religion

2023-09-19T05:19:06-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Using a Different Metric of Fairness: The Parable of the Vineyard Workers

Last updated on: September 19, 2023 at 5:19 am By Tricia Gates Brown

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The upcoming lectionary passage in Matthew 20:1-16 strikes me as timely. The attitude we see here—the attitude of the workers who worked all day and are angry about those who received the same pay for less work—this attitude is something exhibited prominently in recent years. I’ll get to that in a minute. But first: it is familiar for other reasons. All of us have felt this way when we are struggling and we see a good go to someone we... Read more

Politics and Religion

2023-09-12T06:44:33-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We Are All Ministers: Reflections on My Anniversary of Ordination

Last updated on: September 12, 2023 at 6:44 am By Tricia Gates Brown

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Last Sunday marked the anniversary of my ordination to the Episcopal diaconate in a pandemic, amid a day red with wildfires. It was a surreal time. The tiny, physically-distanced service became tinier as relatives and friends cancelled travels due to smoke. But my husband and sister did readings, my godchild came, along with clergy friends, and my daughter played beautiful music on my computer. Special, it was, despite all. In these years, diaconal ministry has looked different than I envisioned... Read more

Contemplative

Women in Religion

2023-09-05T05:48:20-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What Does it Mean Today to ‘Take Up Your Cross’?

Last updated on: September 5, 2023 at 5:48 am By Tricia Gates Brown

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What does it mean in our context to “take up one’s cross”? And how is it something life-giving, in the sense that we lose our life in order to find it—as Jesus expressed paradoxically? The story in last Sunday’s lectionary, which contains these phrases, gives us a glimpse into the late stage of Jesus’ ministry when he sees what it is all coming to. Even people who are not followers of Jesus, or not Christians, often acknowledge that Jesus was... Read more

History and Religion

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