#AARSBL25 that’s a wrap!

Getting ready to board the second leg of the journey to #aarsbl25

Let’s go!!! #aarsbl25 about to embark on the first leg of the trip. Over the Rockies ⛰️🏔️⛰️🏔️ to Denver 🫠🫠

The #LSNNEWSLETTER for the fall centering #AARSBL25 Luther and Lutheran events is OUT! Holler if you want a copy!

We are not ignored, dismissed, or forgotten. Isaiah’s words to Israel become words to us today, where we are and as we are. Beloved, God comes... laurenrelarkin.com/2025/11/16/s...

We are not abandoned, forsaken, or alone. We are not ungrounded, destabilized, or uprooted. We are not consumed by grief, sorrow, or despair. We are not ignored, dismissed, or forgotten. Isaiah’s words to Israel become words to us today, where we are and as we are. Beloved, salvation comes...

Seems about right anglican-quiz.vercel.app?fbclid=IwY2x...

Beloved, we do not need to be perfect to bring God glory; we just need to be who we are as we are, leaning on our beloved, Christ, and watch as the Holy Spirit works through us. Therein is God glorified, there in is perfect done. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/11/09/t...

Beloved, we do not need to be perfect to bring God glory; we just need to be who we are as we are, leaning on our beloved, Christ, and watch as the Holy Spirit works through us. Therein is God glorified, there in is perfect done.

We are new creations, born anew every morning by faith and God’s mercy. Therefore, we have no place w/ what was, the way back is barred, the comforting and familiar shores are forbidden... Daily, by faith and God’s mercy, we enter a divine journey into the new... laurenrelarkin.com/2025/11/04/n...

We, ourselves, are new creations, born anew every morning by faith and God’s mercy. Therefore, we have no place with what was, the way back is barred, the comforting and familiar shores are forbidden to us. Daily, by faith and God’s mercy, we enter a divine journey into the new...

Going through this grief thing makes one recalibrate one's inner circle. Those who willingly enter into this emotional mess and check in, they're the real heroes

Dependent on I Am I am precariously balanced on the precipice walking the narrow path between knowing exactly what to do and knowing absolutely nothing. It’s like having a flashlight that will only shine left and right and directly behind but never illuminating the darkness in front of me. It’s…

I wrote this a few years ago; in light of my father's death on October 15...I am bringing it out into the light again. A word of hope among grief and sorrow in loss laurenrelarkin.com/2022/06/24/l...

Faith isn’t always focusing one’s eyes on God & refusing to see the problems & issues around u; faith isn’t about letting something burn bc it doesn’t involve u bc it’s not ur land, ur people, or ur problem. Faith builds beautiful things wherever it is and u are. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/10/12/i...

...we must begin to see that the problems of the land, of creation, of those who suffer hunger, thirst, loneliness, isolation, deportation, exile, harm, threat, danger, and death are our problems,,,even if we don’t feel like we’re home or that we should care...

VERY discouraging day of writing and analysis. Super bummed 🫤 Buuuuut it’s part of the job description, right? Anyway, nursing my intellectual wounds with this #twoheartedale from #bellsbeer

“Kein gewisser gesetz kann man ihrinnen finden denn der liebe gesetz.” Martin Luther WA 11:278.32-33

...when we shift our perspective and see prayer as our first step and not our last (ditch) effort, we might find a way to push our activity beyond uttering “thoughts and prayers” and living it in the world to the wellbeing of the neighbor and to the glory of God. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/09/21/t...

As theodidacti through prayer, Christians are summoned to hear the silent cry and to respond by joining the divine revolution of life, love, and liberation for the beloved. Beloved, we pray first, and then we act for the wellbeing of the neighbor and to the glory of God.

This Christ's College Opening Lecture offered by @pgziegler.bsky.social was exactly what I needed this morning. It was so engaging, I forgot I was boiling water for tea...

To identify as a sinner is to posture oneself humbly in the world accepting your creaturely (i.e. non-God, non-divine) status, to confess your dependence on mercy and grace from God and others... laurenrelarkin.com/2025/09/14/s...

To identify as a sinner is to be able to identify as a creature who can’t and doesn’t get it right often and yet finds themselves addressed and accompanied, loved and accepted by God.

Me rn

"Babies at the Bar": Why the Roblox Situation is Part of the Disturbing Trend of Stealing ‘Being a Kid’ From Kids open.substack.com/pub/underthe...

To follow Christ means to be intractable when it comes to the kingdom of humanity’s tendency toward not only rejecting but violently attacking God’s reign in the world. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/09/07/c...

Like a sports car sold to someone suffering the malaise and banality of midlife, I was sold a saccharine Jesus, having little power and agency in the world because he was so conformed to it, embedded (buried?) in the ideas of yesteryear.

So, what does bring God glory? Jesus forever sets the answer to the question for us: making sure people are liberated from oppression (both spiritually and materially). This means, frankly, that we participate in the divine revolution of love, life, & liberation laurenrelarkin.com/2025/08/24/n...

What, in our lives, brings God glory? I’ll say two things up front: 1. It’s not what you think; and, 2. It’s harder than you think.

Okay socials, I need some help locating some articles. Do what you do best: LUTHER AND LYRA ON THE SONG OF SOLOMON: WERE THEY SINGING THE SAME TUNE? In:Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Wint 1984By:Kiecker, James George

"It is clear, then, that this fear, which served originally as a safety device, a kind of protective mechanism for the weak, finally becomes death for the self. The power that saves turns exectuioner. Within the walls of separateness death keeps watch." Thurman, "Jesus and the Disinherited," 35-36

Some of us may take pride in our staunch positions of opposition against what we see to be the downfall of humanity. But we must be careful to discern whether it’s our pride causing divisions or God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/08/17/n...

I know that by and through faith in Christ and by the resident power of the Holy Spirit in your heart anchoring you into God and God’s mission in the world each of us has been, is being, and will be asked to take steps into unknown territory that will cause divisions and divides ...

Want to know what my paper drafting looks like? After some preliminary introductory comments, I write: "THESIS BUILDING HERE what am I going to argue?..." And then I brainstorm/flow-of-thought an answer (while typing) ... like a journal entry. It's that rudimentary!

“Fitting in” is no longer applicable; standing out is expected, being reviled is expected, being persecuted, shunned, and ostracized by the citizens of the kingdom of humanity become the new normal for those who dare to follow Jesus ... laurenrelarkin.com/2025/08/10/g...

“Fitting in” is no longer applicable; standing out is expected, being reviled is expected, being persecuted, shunned, and ostracized by the citizens of the kingdom of humanity become the new normal for those who dare to follow Jesus out of the Jordan and head to the cross.

“In this way I understand this book to be about Solomon's state. If I am wrong about this, a first effort deserves lenience. The musings of others have a much larger share of absurdity.” This is how Luther closes his teaching on the Song of Solomon; it's both entertaining and absolutely fitting.

"For even adolescents are capable of hearing and speaking about young women without concupiscence if they regard them as God's creation. And the Holy Spirit has a chaste mouth and a pure heart" Luther negating "boys will be boys", at least for those claiming to be "Christian" 👀 LW 15:249

The Xian is the epicenter of the spiritual and temporal realms, working out their spirituality in the temporal realm while bringing the temporal needs of their neighbor into the spiritual realm through prayer [while] looking to and keeping eyes fixed on Christ. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/08/03/i...

We thrive when we ourselves in distinction from our temporal or spiritual allegiances, when we have a bit more alterity regarding our self-expression and self-determination, when we take a moment, catch our breath, and see and hear what’s needed in the moment.

Luther recommends that state leaders pray thusly, "Therefore, in accord with Solomon’s example, godly princes should pray and say: ‘O God, Creator and Governor of all, whom my soul loves, show me how the vineyard committed to me is to be tended, etc.’” LW 15:204

In our pursuit to make ourselves unique and irreplaceable through our work, we’ve made our work (the role, the job, the deed) the irreplaceable and not-interchangeable thing and made ourselves replaceable and interchangeable. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/07/20/c...

If some of us—Christians—refuse to play the game the kingdom of humanity has thrust upon us, then we participate in being “peacemakers” which is fundamentally a way of representing Christ and allowing faith to work itself out as love.

“…government is like dangerous navigation on a stormy sea.” LW 15:200 "Lectures on the Song of Solomon"

Can we marvel at this subheading: "Dr. Martin Luther’s Brief But Altogether Lucid Exposition of the Song of Songs"

"Many commentators have produced all manner of interpretations of this song of King Solomon’s—and they have been both immature and strange." LW 15:191 "Lectures the Song of Solomon" Luther's bluntness never gets old... Also, btdubs, the move to make the SoS about politics is a bit strange fwiw

Luther's lecture dates on the Song of Solomon give me some comfort as I preach through Romans rn: March 7, 8, 10, 15, 21, 31 1530, November 8, 14, 21, 28, 1530, December 6 1530, May 15, 16, 22, 23 1531, June 5, 6, 12, 13, 22 1531