The free small group guides and readings are complete! I’ve been working on these 25 sessions for, like, forever…and now they’re here: printable PDFs, handouts of readings from the 25 sinner-saints in the book plus a companion leader guide for each session. No preparation needed at all. Print and go!
My friend Ginger Oaks has created a series of calligraphy art cards featuring favorite quotes from Christian figures Vintage Saints and Sinners: 25 Christians Who Transformed My Faith.
The set of 14 5x7 cards comes with a wooden display easel, wrapped and ready to give!
Normally $24/set, the Calligraphy Quote Cards are now on sale for 20% off: $20.00 plus shipping.
To order your cards, email Beth Wright at beth@theologicalhorizons.org.
14 Calligraphy Quote cards come with a wooden easel, wrapped for gift giving!
The Gathered Glories: from "All Saints" by Malcolm Guite
Though Satan breaks our dark glass into shards
Each shard still shines with Christ's reflected light,
It glances from the eyes, kindles the words
Of all his unknown saints. The dark is bright
With quiet lives and steady lights undimmed.
Plain in our sight and far beyond our seeing,
He weaves their threads into the web of being.
They stand beside us even as we grieve,
The lone and left behind whom no one claimed,
Unnumbered multitudes, he lifts above
The shadow of the gibbet and the grave,
To triumph where all saints are known and named;
The gathered glories of his wounded love.
Are you ready to dig deeper? I've created some curated readings just for you and your friends -- the very words of the Vintage Saints and Sinners you've come to know in my book along with a leader's guide for each session. From Augustine to O'Connor, you'll find some of my favorites...and I'm adding new sessions all the time. Want to know more? Special requests for more readings? Just email me at karen@theologicalhorizons.org
Glimpse the inside stories. Good questions. True confessions. Random thoughts.
Christianity Today, Sept. 2017: "The Demanding Faith of Flannery O'Connor"
Faith Conversations podcast with Anita Lustrea
Give & Take Podcast with Scott Jones, Sept. 29, 2017: "Telling Our Stories from Charlottesville"
All Souls Church Sermon, Sept. 17, 2017: "Seeing With the Saints"
Dear Daughters Podcast, Oct. 12, 2017: "The Little Way, C.S. Lewis & Facing Our Fears"
Art House America, Sept. 21, 2017: "Martin Luther, the Anxious Agitator"
Susan Yates blog, Aug. 29, 2017: "What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?"
Art House America, Aug. 10, 2017: "The Dilemma of Desire: Juana Ines de la Cruz"
National Presbyterian Church: August 23, 2015: "An Ancient Path to Balance in Life"
Founded by Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock, Art House America promotes the vision of a seamless life of Christian discipleship and imaginative living.
That Disney princess was right after all: dreams really do come true! I've got a post up on the Art House America blog--the epicenter of all things thoughtful, innovative and cool. Read the piece on the curious Juana Ines de la Cruz right here.
This painting by Cosmas Damian Asam Bavarian, 1686–1739, represents the artist's desire to capture Saint Benedict's ecstatic, mystical vision in naturalistic terms, via light that is a metaphor for the divine presence. The canvas shows an elderly saint who, confronted by a solar eclipse, seems to experience a seizure—as well as enlightenment—at the moment when light erupts from the celestial sphere, as described in Benedict’s vision.
The artist accurately depicted the solar corona surrounding the moon, which is obscured by the sun as well as by the light that bursts forth from the edge of the dark lunar disk in the moment after totality. This phenomenon—when the first ray of light breaks through a valley on the edge of the moon’s silhouette—is known as the “diamond-ring effect”. This suggests that Asam witnessed the eclipse of May 13, 1733, and perhaps combined his own observations of it with descriptions from contemporary scientists.
Rev. Jeff Myers, senior pastor of Roswell Presbyterian Church, preaches out of the powerful witness of Amanda Berry Smith in his August 6 sermon, "Psalms of the Summer: Lean On Me". The Scripture begins at minute 14:00; Jeff's sermon (at 19:00) opens with a story from Vintage Saints and Sinners and returns to Amanda Berry Smith at minute 35:00. Jeff's reflections on Psalm 139 are just what you need to hear today. Watch the video now!
At three, Juana Ines de la Cruz, feisty Mexican girl with the sustaining passion for knowledge, persuaded an older sister to teach her to read and write. Juana devoured the books she found in her grandfather’s study: literature, science, philosophy, theology, languages. She developed some quirky habits. “I would abstain from eating cheese because I heard tell that it made people stupid,” Juana reports, “and the desire to learn was stronger for me than the desire to eat.” Whenever she was dissatisfied with her mastery of a certain subject, she’d cut off her hair to punish her own dull-wittedness. A head that was bare of facts should also be bare of pretty curls.
The era was seventeenth-century Mexico. The authorities were male, traditional Catholic, Spanish colonialists. And the young scholar? She was the daughter of unwed parents, a Spanish military officer and a Mexican-born mother, a girl from the town of Nepantla, Aztec for “land in the middle.” As an illegitimate child, her birth was not even recorded in the church registry. Her very existence was off the books—but not for long. Juana Ines de la Cruz's passion and faith took her far. To this day she's known as the first female theologian in the Americas. A sinner-saint to love and admire.
