Guest post by Selene Lau. “You have a fractured bone in your wrist. It will need to be in a cast for about 6 weeks.” I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. I was not sure I was ready for one more thing. I had slipped and fallen clumsily on a wooden bridge at an outdoor family camp. Now I had to think about functioning without the use of my dominant hand.

Guest post by Nancy Bartelt. When I was a kid, I loved taking the two-hour road trip south across the Wisconsin-Illinois border to visit my grandparents. As soon as we arrived at their house, I’d always be greeted with a warm hug, huge smiles, and curious questions about my life. And—almost every time—the best-mashed potatoes in the world.

Guest post by Kimberly Knowle-Zeller. An hour north of Minneapolis, where the skyscrapers have been replaced by wildflowers and glistening lakes, and the prairie grass sways in the wind, a community of prayer lives.

Guest post by Andrea Delwiche. What is a more excellent way? Maybe it's partially found in a commitment to embracing a quiet and obscure life.

Forty-two hundred miles of driving for three weeks took my family and me from Kansas to the Adirondack mountains. It was a crazy amount of driving for any summer vacation, but all that beauty and time away did two things: they enlarged my creative focus while also narrowing it.

I push back a green leaf to pluck a black-fruited jewel. Another---this one the size of a giant's thumb! Five. Ten. Fifteen. Row after row. Yesterday, the berries were small, red, and unripe. Today they have transformed into plump Natchez blackberries, enough to eat by the handful and still have enough for our family and friends to each adorn a bowl of vanilla bean ice cream.

By coming to his cousin John to be baptized, Jesus introduces a humility that reverses how things were thought to have been done. John says, “You should be baptizing me!” But righteousness is fulfilled by his agreeing to fully enter his role as baptizer of the Messiah.

Reflection, scripture, and works of art for the first Sunday of Epiphany. Christ comes into our lives as light itself, without fanfare: quietly, unexpectedly, in weakness, right into our disarray. Light has come into our humanity, showing us a new way to be human.

A 2023 weekly Epiphany series with reflection, scripture, art, and prayer.

An Advent poem.

How peace fits you!

How its ribbon of white

Garnishes your throat.