Shadowing Pádraig Ó Tuama: Language is Magic
I love that the Bible opens with a story. And even more so, I love that the story is of how everything began with language. God speaks words, and then things are. In the story, it was like magic.
Shadowing Pádraig Ó Tuama: Introduction to Series
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and leader of the Corrymeela Community. From March 1-April 2, I shadowed his work. I want to tell you about what I learned.
The Story We’re All Yearning to Tell
I think part of what this reveals is that we are all moving through life yearning to be true, authentic, and vulnerable with each other. We want desperately to show our true selves to each other. To have our pain and our pride, our vulnerability and our victories, seen and heard—even by total strangers. We have stories we don’t want to keep inside.
The Revolution Will Not Be Romanticized
This conversation illuminated an increasingly noticeable pattern, especially among my peers: put simply, the more we get “radicalized,” the more we’re tempted to romanticize. This is particularly pronounced in the work of advocacy and solidarity. We sometimes seem to think that to be true advocates we must believe rosy stories of those we work with or for.
A New Daily Advent Reader for Peacemakers
This is the Advent reader I’ve been waiting for: diverse, timely, and topical. Along with my friend Claire Brown, I’ve been working throughout the end of October and early November to assemble this remarkable list of contributors for a daily Advent reader focused on what the Advent season has to say about peacemaking. Subscribers will […]
Tenx9 Nashville Podcast: Interview
As you may know, I’m the founder and curator of Tenx9 Nashville, a Belfast-originated monthly community storytelling night where 9 people have up to ten minutes each to tell a real story from their lives. It’s been going on here in town since September 2013, and this summer, we finally got around to launching a […]
Where I’m From: A Poem
For four days at the end of June, I attended the annual summit of Narrative 4 in Limerick, Ireland. Before arriving, we were asked to craft a poem about where we’re from. Here’s is mine, in three parts, as I wrote it in June 2017.
Gospel Rewrite: Jesus and Violence
Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and then appears before Pilate. But this version goes a little differently than the one you’re used to.
Gospel Rewrite: Jesus and the Death Penalty
Placing her in the center of the group, 4 they said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. 5 In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone women like this. What do you say?”
Gospel Rewrite: The Holy Family Becomes Refugees
Joseph and Mary flee with the young Jesus to Egypt. But it doesn’t go as planned–at least not in this rewrite.