Tag: theology

by jad

Kuwait: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 10

Part 1: Growing Up For the longest time, I’d dream in distinct phases. In college, my dreams were populated by people from high school; in high school, my dreams featured my friends from Kuwait. That pattern has since abated; today, my memories of Q8, as we called it, are still vivid, but the details are hazy & more dreamlike than ever before. Kuwait is where my sister was born; it’s where I heard Pretty Fly for a White Guy on the US Armed Forces Radio—you had to turn the dial to the very edge of the spectrum, in one corner … Continue reading “Kuwait: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 10” →

by jad

Syria: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 9

Part 1: The Citadel Al a’aqel zeena. “The mind is decoration”—or the mind is what makes one beautiful. I didn’t know it at the time, but those words on that shirt referencing a wartime radio play by the Lebanese artist I was about to see performing at the Damascus Citadel would perfectly summarize my sense of Syria for years to come. I’ve only ever had pleasant feelings in Syria, a place so close yet so distant, so foreign. I grew up in a country where you learned very quickly to stiffen up when a Syrian soldier was addressing you. My … Continue reading “Syria: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 9” →

by jad

Storytelling Strategies: Quote & By-Line

I’d like to interrupt this storytelling exercise I’ve been engaging in for the last few weeks to share an interesting convergence of narrative arcs in my life. This, here’s an article by @sarahngu, who graciously found space for my oddball story in her long-read on Christians who turned to socialism; if you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know my arc was more of a loop-the-loop. I connected with Sarah through the DSA’s Religious Socialism mailing-list, and though I’ve found myself much less involved with that organization than I’d hoped, way back, two Advents ago, I really appreciated our … Continue reading “Storytelling Strategies: Quote & By-Line” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2019, Week 4

#Message A few days ago, I reconnected to my best friend from 15 years, whom I haven’t seen or spoken to in about half that time; we’d both moved around since that period when we’d hung out almost daily. We caught up, reminisced, & he eventually asked me if I’m on Instagram; I told him he’d be in for a shock. “So you believe in Jesus and God and all the beautiful things in the Bible now?” Yes. Especially the beautiful things. We didn’t say much after that, but our brief exchange on a profound shift in my life made … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2019, Week 4” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2019, Week 3

#Turn Today’s the day we talked about “turning” at Epiphany Seattle. We touched on how “turn” is a code word for “repent,” that, yeah, they’re synonyms—technically, in the original languages—but are now more akin in my view to the relationship of “cheese” to “dessert”—they can be the same thing, and in some contexts they are, but we don’t often experience them the same way. We shared what these two flavors of the same idea—to turn, to repent—have meant in our own lives of conversion and change. And since ”turn” is the start of a whole series of words based on … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2019, Week 3” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2019, Week 2

#Worthy “What is more harmful than any vice? Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak—Christianity.” That’s a quote from Nietzsche’s The Antichrist. Nietzsche understood what—& how—Christianity valued, and he vehemently rejected it for that very reason. To his eyes, Christianity is worthless because it values the unworthy. Interestingly enough, Nietzsche didn’t really attack the person of Jesus the Christ; he called Jesus the “only one true Christian.” But he certainly got the Christ he opposed all wrong, & without the doctrine of the Incarnation—without the Advent story—that’s easy to do. With no appreciation of that mysterious move from the infinite … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2019, Week 2” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2019, Week 1

#Unexpected This color is a dark, grayish cyan, though one website calls it “juniper.” Sherwin-Williams markets it as “peacock plume”; I know this because I picked the paint out myself, using their swatch cards. It covers the walls of an office that I never planned to occupy, but—I think—I was meant to find. Last December, I told myself that I wanted to do the next #AdventWord for a church—to make church my day job. And here I am, taking a photo of the wall across from the desk in the church where I’m sharing words for Advent. There really wasn’t … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2019, Week 1” →

by jad

Neighborhood Exegesis: Little Saigon/Atlantic, Seattle

I did a quick “walkabout” yesterday, around the peripheries of Little Saigon and Atlantic, down to the edge of Hiawatha Place and back to St. Peter’s Episcopal Parish on S. King St, as part of our parish visioning process this year. I took dozens and dozens of photos, and soaked in the sights, sounds, smells and sensations along the way. I turned corners for the first time; I felt my body tense up and relax as it passed through jarring disparities—my sense of walking in the midst of colliding pressure systems heightened by the gathering storm clouds overheard. I saw … Continue reading “Neighborhood Exegesis: Little Saigon/Atlantic, Seattle” →

by jad

Stand With Pride

My first Seattle Pride has been a good one. A few of us joined St. Paul’s Episcopal Parish for morning worship, then bussed to 4th and Marion where we gathered with the Diocese of Olympia to represent The Episcopal Church as witnesses to #TheWayOfLove. I knew this Pride was going to be special, because I would be very carefully carrying St. Peter’s beautiful processional banner for the first time. I also knew that something glitteringly spooky was up when I realized that this Sunday would be the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul—the two banners we raised across Seattle today. … Continue reading “Stand With Pride” →

by jad

Seattle Womxn’s March, 2019

This morning, I was at the Seattle Womxn’s March with comrades from Seattle DSA, PSL, Socialist Alternative & others, as part of the Revolutionary Feminist Contingent. Just some good, clean intersectional fun, and my first proper demo in this country. We walked from Cal Anderson Park to the Space Needle, where I secretly hoped we’d all stomp our feet like we used to do back in the day, streaming into downtown Beirut. Instead, we bumped into a couple of fire-and-brimstone “preachers” denouncing the godless. This would have been a bummer, if it weren’t for the amazing responses from the crowd; … Continue reading “Seattle Womxn’s March, 2019” →