Author Archives: tim van meter

About tim van meter

talking with regenerative farmers about connections to soils, place, and how we all make meaning in our work

merry christmas

“Apocalyptic shows us what we’re not seeing. It can’t be composed or spoken by the powers that be, because they are the sustainers of “the way things are” whose operation justifies itself by crowning itself as “the way things ought … Continue reading

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silence wrestling with complicity

I am struck most by the silence as a response to deep anxiety, my own in particular. Sure, I’m linking, posting, maybe a pointed remark in my classroom. But outside, I’m slipping between public spaces. I want to disrupt hate … Continue reading

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make america repent again

John the Baptizer is outside my window, yelling some nonsense about a time that never was. He is calling for a ridiculous set of economic and political ideas that don’t understand how the world really works. Poor man, I’m wondering … Continue reading

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listening at the edge of the abyss

I find myself still without words, I can’t even figure out what I am struggling to say. However, in my waiting I can listen and today I offer these words of Water Brueggemann’s as he spoke about the significance of … Continue reading

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advent

William Stringfellow writes that John the Baptist is the voice of Advent. The one crying out in the wilderness, one last shout before the morning Stringfellow’s Imposters of God begins with this insight:   Nothing seems more bewildering to a … Continue reading

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incarnation

I was thinking today again about Glenn’s Dec 10 post. I reread the passage and then the sections around the excerpt in Kellermann’s book. I’m particularly struck by the phrase that Glenn emphasized in the quote “resurrection is verified where … Continue reading

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powers and principalities

Kellermann’s collection gives an entire section to Stringfellow’s theology of the principalities and powers. He begins with part of the famous exchange between Stringfellow and Karl Barth where it appears that Stringfellow is already developing this sense of the captivity … Continue reading

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without good news

I could pick any 2 paragraphs in the first chapter of Free in Obedience. Stringfellow could have written most any sentence about the church of 2010 rather than the church of 1964. The churches have been immobilized in the mission … Continue reading

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snow

I love this time of absence, of waiting, of silence. Snow fell in Ohio this weekend, a little over an inch, but enough to coat the ground and remember this poem by a Michigan native, Robert Haight How Is It … Continue reading

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breaking thru the noise

I am not a big Christmas music fan, find much of it trite and annoying. Last night, driving home from dinner with friends, I put the iPod on an old playlist and I heard the music differently – Holy,, Holy, … Continue reading

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