On this first Sunday of Advent, Walter’s homily focused especially on the Romans 13 passage: Paul’s encouragement for us to wake up because our salvation is near. The opportunities for us to turn from our sleepy distractions and live the life of love that Jesus invites and makes possible are ready and waiting.Â
Saints, Souls and Seasons — on All Souls’ Day, Walter talks about how we pass faith on through generations by remembering those who have gone on before us.
Walter’s homily tracks the straightforward thread through the morning’s lectionary readings. In order to live the “life that really is life,” we need to turn from our society’s love of money and turn toward the contentment that devotion makes possible.
Walter shared some reflections on the lectionary readings from a couple of weeks ago, especially the encouragement of Jesus to focus on being “rich toward God” rather than wasting time on things that don’t matter. Lots of poetry (Rilke and Rumi) were a part of the encouragement to listen to our deepest loves and longings in order to remember what matters.
As Walter’s sabbatical winds down, he shares some reflections from this time. Spoilers: he missed community and rants about AI and dopamine manipulation.
Walter used Beethoven’s example of finding joy in the midst of suffering to talk about the value of celebrating joy even when times are hard. (He was going to start listing all the ways in which we’ve been feeling hardship and loss lately, but the music got him too choked up.)
Walter’s homily shares a conversation that resonated with Jesus’ promise in John 14 that the Advocate would teach us everything. He went on to leave us with the paradox that God is in us and beyond us.
On this 2nd Breakfast (and last service before his sabbatical begins), Walter shares his inability to tell whether the fact that it’s taken him ten years since he admitted to himself that he was unhealthily over-stressed with work responsibilities is a confession (of rationalizations and justifications) or a celebration that he’s finally made it to a reduced workload. He then invites everyone to reflect on whether they are avoiding or facing reality as 2025 begins.
On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, with the theme of Love, Walter emphasizes how strange it is that Vulnerable Love is God’s response to all the big problems in the world and the path that God invites us to follow.
After five months, Walter offers a “Part 2” for his talk from last June by emphasizing that the kind of “secure base” that God provides goes with us wherever we go, allowing for multiple attachments that can naturally correct the inevitable distortions we might otherwise hold about God if we were to only rely on one community.