Happy New Year!
By Tom and Kim Wilkens Today, Sunday the 29th of November, we begin another liturgical year. I once met a don (professor) at Oxford University who scheduled his life according to the church’s calendar: its seasons, its saints’ days, and its liturgical hours. He refused to use or even to acknowledge the more arithmetic 12-month, numbered-day, 24-hour-subdivided Julian calendar that most of us follow. Making an appointment with him was difficult, to say the least. We don’t need to go to the extreme of that Oxford don, but perhaps we might pay a bit more attention to our distinctive, somewhat countercultural church calendar. There could be some pleasantl

Tis the Season
A very Happy Thanksgiving to all of our US readers! I pray this holiday weekend finds you well. Amidst the baking and the family time, I invite you to share here about your family traditions and what you are thankful for. It is always encouraging to hear the stories from our community. And believe it or not, this Sunday marks the start of the season of Advent in the Western church. Here at Emerging Women we want to focus our posts during this time on the idea of incarnation. What are the practical implications of incarnation in our lives. What does God becoming flesh mean for your faith? How can we celebrate and be present in incarnation each and every day? How does incarnati

I Baptize You
By Tisha Brown One of my favorite scripture passages is the story of Jesus’ baptism in Mark 1:9-11. I particularly love the words that come from the voice in heaven as Jesus emerges from the Jordan “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” When I read this scripture I imagine God’s voice speaking these words to me at the moment of my baptism; “You are my daughter, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Recently, these w

Strings Attached
When I was a child I remember an impression rise up in my mind that there were invisible strings attached to people. I was careful to not get mine tangled up behind me. For example, if I walked around a table in a clockwise direction, I was careful to walk back around it in a counter-clockwise direction. I literally retraced my steps. I’m aware this sounds like a manic O.C.D. episode, especially for a child, but it was brief lived; probably ran the time span of about a week. That image

Interfaith Marriage and Community
By Rebecca Cynamon-Murphy Hi folks. Although I’m not a regular participant on the Emerging Women blog, I facilitate our local emergent cohort here in Chicago and am part of the leadership team at my emergent church, Wicker Park Grace. My name is Rebecca and, recently, I became involved in a new project that is trying to create an online community of people who are engaging Judaism in non-traditional ways. We are trying to move beyond the discussion of whether or not intermarriage will destroy the Jewish people by working from the prem