Make Saints

The software in our phones makes it easier to send messages, but they are missing something. The inflection, the emotion, that makes us human. READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

The words we aren’t just their definitions. Emotions ride their coattails and the truth can be obscured by the political truths we avoid. Photo by Shelby Miller on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

Some treat the word “controversial” as neutral. But it is anything but. It is entirely based on the common act of determining what’s right. Photo by Mapbox on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

When we think there is only one thing (solution, answer, problem, thing to focus on) we miss exactly what is causing our frustration. Photo by Xavi Cabrera on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

In the US, we treat every issue as being in need of simplifying—through this we can uncover an essential truth. We couldn’t be more wrong. Photo by Charles Tumiotto on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

In which I talk about the way we talk and define what it means to be Christian and who wants to silence and disappear its diversity. Photo by Skull Kat on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

In a bishop’s sermon, the unhinged response, and the completely normal need to make things normal (we’re normal, right?) we might squeeze a glimpse of truth. Photo by Christopher Sardegna on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

In the person of William Temple, we have the example of courage, vision, and the wisdom to shape the world after World War II. The text of the reflection can be found here . Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

In the celebration of All Saints Day, we are given the chance to demystify the the life and work of the people we lift up, to see what we too are capable of. Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

When we treat a portion of Christians as speaking for all Christians and their rhetoric is of domination and certainty, we all become its victims. Photo by Agnieszka Stankiewicz on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

When we misunderstand each other, is it always a mistake? Or something to fix? Sometimes we work hard to keep misunderstanding each other. On purpose. Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

When the public is chilled by an assassination attempt, our responses can be reactionary, ill-conceived, and quite dangerous. Photo by Jack O'Rourke on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

The thing about being literal is that we think we’re being accurate, but we’re often being pedantic. And refuse to see it. Photo by team voyas on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

We have to start preparing ourselves to proactively adapt for the future to put less pressure on our future selves. Here’s what I mean about the struggle we have with recognizing things haven’t always been this way. Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

Our brains have a natural capacity to adapt. But we often use this natural capacity to refuse to learn, or pretend we were always right. Photo by Transly Translation Agency on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

We’re driving the very concept of “literal” to such an extreme that it is becoming meaningless. And we’re all actually avoiding the truth. Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

The way we see the world is full of optimism and pessimism. It is also full of blindspots and assumptions for how things will be. Photo by Anthony Tori on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

The long, strange history of the call to being different is now mostly found in chicken-little cries of oppression and demands for hegemonic culture. Photo by Ricardo Arce on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

Many of us have become so disconnected from what it means for the state to respond to protest—for we cannot kill for peace, or for safety. Photo by Spenser H on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

When we give so much of our time and attention to evaluating, judging, and rating the stuff in our lives, can we actually like things? Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

Revelation is the most misunderstood and abused book in the Bible. It is frequently used to abuse or to ignore rather than read it as it was intended. Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

What is common? What does it mean to hold things in common? And most importantly, what happens when we prioritize the uncommon? Photo by Ruthson Zimmerman on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

We mix up our ideas about generational groupings with the ways we expect people to behave because of the time in their life. Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

Holy Week is a week of special devotion, when we remember the last week of Jesus’s life. How we mark this time says a lot about us and what we care about. Photo by Karl Fredrickson on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!

There are whole worlds we explore of alternative realities in which we got to do the things we would have done—if only…so what’s stopping us now? Photo by Venti Views on Unsplash READ For more, visit drewdowns.net WATCH Videos on YouTube. CONTACT Tweet  @revdrewdowns Email contact@drewdowns.net Thanks for listening!