Mary, the Magnificat, and an Unsentimental Advent by Rachel Held Evans It’s an unconventional birth announcement. Defiant. Prophetic. Unsentimental. We like to paint Mary in the softer hues—her robes clean, hair combed and covered, body poised in prayerful surrender—but this young woman was a fierce one, full of strength and fury. When she accepts the

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.”― Steve Maraboli

“The belief is that enough hope and tenderness will lead to world peace, one mind at a time. All nations will come together in kindness and justice, swords will be beaten into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks. This is a little hard to buy with a world stage occupied by so many madmen, and so

Dietrich Bonhoeffer died on April 9, 1945 in Hitler’s Flossenburg Prison during WWII because of his activism against Hitler.  Because of the war and suffering he saw in his native Germany, Bohoneffer was keenly aware of why Advent is relevant to his times and ours. He said this.  The celebration of Advent is possible only