Dream Away I - The Angel of History

In this two-part service series, we will look at our dreams for the world and wonder about the place of hope in a world where we see so so many sufferings. The second Sunday will offer real avenues for hope through shifting paradigms and prophetic imagination.

This Sunday, however, we will wonder about our place in this broken world. We will open spaces for lament. sadness, and outrage. We value our commitment to justice and work for the common good but it doesn't seem to make a dent in the brokenness of this world.

We will do this through the thought of Walter Benjamin, a mid-century German Jewish philosopher. Benjamin was inspired by the Paul Klee painting Angelus Novus which he called the Angel of History. Benjamin imagined or dreamed that when this Angel of History looks back through history from a distance, while we see the progress we have made, all the angel it sees is a pile of rubble.

Through these two different perspectives, we will search for healing and hope amidst despair.