JR. Forasteros - May 24, 2015
Stone and Spirit
Sometimes it seems as though the Church and the larger world don’t have anything to say to each other, that they’re not even speaking the same language. But the story of Pentecost reminds us that the Church need not be afraid of the conversations our culture is having, that in fact she enables us to speak and to be understood. In the wake of Pentecost, we can engage our world with love and grace, confident the Spirit has gone before us and is inviting us to join in.
From Series: "Go There!"
What lines are you afraid to cross? In the years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, his followers had to reimagine what their religion looked like. The Holy Spirit compelled them to take the good news of resurrection and new life far beyond every border they’d ever known. The book of Acts helps us imagine the dangerous and exciting mission God is calling us to today. Don’t Go There!
More From "Go There!"
Powered by Series Engine
Of all the monsters we’re looking at in this series, the Werewolf is the most ambivalent. Culturally, we like werewolves, we’re interested in them, but we don’t want to get TOO interested. They’re not as sexy as vampires. Ghosts are scary. Zombies are cool. But Werewolves? It’s almost as if we don’t quite know what to do with them.
Well, that’s not quite true. It’s that werewolves are just… more… dangerous. There’s an edge to them that other monsters don’t quite have.
Werewolves are humans who occasionally transform into wolves or wolf-like monsters. The wolf is terrifying, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Once the person transforms, once the monster comes out, there’s no telling who or what is going to be hurt. Usually the transformation is brought on by the full moon, though some more modern incarnations like the Twilight wolves and the Incredible Hulk are triggered by anger.
The Werewolf is a person who has this monster, a beast, a Wolf living inside them.
They know it’s dangerous. And most of the time, they’ve got it under control. They have ordered their lives in such a way that the Wolf can’t get out. They’ve built a cage for the monster with structure, with rules and discipline.
But inevitably, in every story, the Wolf breaks out. The monster hurts people around them, destroys their lives. So afterwards, the person tries to put things back together, apologizes for the damage the monster has done and starts rebuilding the cage, hoping to make it strong enough next time. They make new rules. Stricter schedules.
