Spring 2025
HOPE AND DESPAIR
Spring 2025
HOPE AND DESPAIR
Hope and Despair
mARCH - May 2025
Spring is undoubtedly a season of rebirth. Just when we despair that we might never see green again, the earth gently rallies from the silence of winter. Leaves begin to unfurl, blooms appear, and the sun shines brighter. Life springs out of cold and darkness into warmth and light, and all around us, creation shouts the praise of the one who touches our hearts and turns them from dead stone to living flesh. In some ways, it is easy to find celebration and hope in this season.
But in springtime, we also discover a tension between hope and the human tendency to despair. Before we arrive at the crashing joy of Easter, we must first pass through the Lenten season and a keen awareness of our mortality. Before Christ rose from the tomb, He had to be stricken, smitten, and afflicted. Before gardens rise from the dirt, seeds must first die in burial. As God makes all things new, we must still journey homeward, often through pain and suffering. This tension will teach and shape us if we let it.
Despair can hold many guises, and this season we will peel back the layers and note how it hides in our lives as Christians and in the world around us. We will also explore what it looks like to hold hope–the gritty, robust kind — amid our grief and the broken story that despair mutters. In this season, we will focus on what hope truly is (and what it isn’t) and lean into ways that we can “practice resurrection” as Wendell Berry put it.
FOR THIS SEASON
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Imagination Redeemed
Practicing Resurrection
(Coming May 9th)
Believe to See (Featured)
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Contemplative Evening of Worship and Prayer
Sunday, April 6, 2025
7:00pm – 9:00pmA Dinner Discussion: Enger's Peace Like a River
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
6:00pm – 8:30pmSunday, April 27, 2025
2:00pm – 4:00pmPhilosophy by the Fireside (with Dr. Vander Lugt)
Saturday, March 15, 2025
6:30pm – 9:30pmGuest Lecture: Dr. Wesley Vander Lugt
Friday, March 14, 2025
7:00pm – 9:00pmSaturday, March 1, 2025
12:00pm – 5:00pm
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Visual Artist Feature
March 25
March 25
For Lent
When tempted to despair, the Psalms of lament help us learn to speak grief and hope in the same breath. Paul Buckley, at an Imagination Redeemed Conference breakout session, explores (and yes, sings) Psalms of lament. Watch Now →
Featured Content
Imagination Redeemed Podcast (March Episode)
In every episode, we retell one of the great stories, then follow its illumination to delve deeper into conversation about how to enter into the life of the Christian imagination.
“The Battle with despair”
Being in the grip of despair is hard to describe. Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queen gives image to not only the Cave of Despair, but also what restoration looks like.
Want to dive in?
Subscribe to Anselm’s Substack to receive the full show notes, which includes: a detailed list of topics covered, resources mentioned in the episode, further recommended reading and listening, and discussion questions to utilize for further thinking and conversation with friends!
Anselm Voices
Fr. Ken Robertson “tHE ART OF LAMENT”
Anselm member pastor Fr. Ken Robertson explores the art of lament as a response to grief…and as a way to walk with God through darkness.
Artist Feature
Suffering Made Sacred: Glitter, Hope, and the Art of Dylan Mortimer
This is the little corner where we’ll be highlighting a visual artist that is making work that interacts with what Anselm is discussing at large.
Gatherings
The Common Room
Saturday, March 1, 2025
12:00pm – 5:00pm
Guest Lecture: Dr. Wesley Vander Lugt
Friday, March 14, 2025
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Philosophy by the Fireside (with Dr. Vander Lugt)
Saturday, March 15, 2025
6:30pm – 9:30pm
Celtic Pub Night
Friday, March 28, 2025
6:00pm – 8:00pm
April 2025
April 2025
Lent: A Time to Be Present
dive into the gift of presence with God, with the world, and with ourselves — with Christ as our example.
“The biggest distractions from love are past perceived wrongs or losses and future abstractions; we cannot love a person truly if we are fixated either on the past or on the future. Acts of love can only be done in the present. Nowhere is this clearer than in the life of the Lord Jesus: He is always deeply present. Whether with His disciples, His Mother, Pontius Pilate, or the penitent thief on the cross, He is immediately and urgently with them. In the few moments where His mind goes to the suffering before Him, there is a clear reason in the present for it; He takes His awareness of the future and, rather than letting it cripple Him, transforms it into a parable or a prayer, which He then gives as a gift. For Jesus, no moment is only chronos; every moment on earth is chronos and kairos, perfectly integrated. Every moment, for Jesus, is the right moment.” - Jane Clark Scharl “Time and Its Creator” in Why We Create.
(Free) Course:
Wrestling with God
A three-part class by Michelle Drake on how poetry by Christian poets can help us face our fears, doubts, and hope.
With the help of world-class English teacher Michelle Drake, join in a discussion on how the works of the Christian poets of the past can help us voice our fears, our doubts, and ultimately our hope, however flickering, in God.
No prior knowledge or appreciation of poetry is needed as a prerequisite — the words will help guide you to God.
Featured Content
Imagination Redeemed Podcast (April Episode)
In every episode, we retell one of the great stories, then follow its illumination to delve deeper into conversation about how to enter into the life of the Christian imagination.
“Julian’s Hazelnut: When All Is Not Well”
In 1373, Julian of Norwich experienced the grace and goodness of God through a vision of a hazelnut. How can this tiny thing give her such a glimpse into the Creator of the Universe? Step back in time and find out how with Sarah, Brian, and Christina!
Want to dive in?
Subscribe to Anselm’s Substack to receive the full show notes, which includes: a detailed list of topics covered, resources mentioned in the episode, further recommended reading and listening, and discussion questions to utilize for further thinking and conversation with friends!
Anselm Voices
Dr. Vander Lugt’S “Gritty Hope and the Gift of Art”
Guest lecturer from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Dr. Vander Lugt explores how art can give us visions of the new heavens and earth and do justice to the way things currently are. These visions can activate our individual imaginations and collective will to stay with the trouble as we are sustained by hope.
Featured April Books
Dive into the Hope found in the Lenten Season. | View more books in“The Library”
“If you want to renew your capacity to recognize and encounter God's beauty in your life, this hope-filled book will show you the way.”
Learn More
In Imagination Redeemed’s latest episode, we step into the medieval world of 1373. Learn more about this time with C.S. Lewis (and why it matters!) in this illuminating book!
Learn more
”This book is not solely concerned with overtly religious poetry, but attends to the paradoxical ways in which the poetry of doubt and despair also enriches theology.”
Learn More
Artist Feature
Suffering Made Sacred: Glitter, Hope, and the Art of Dylan Mortimer
This is the little corner where we’ll be highlighting a visual artist that is making work that interacts with what Anselm is discussing at large.
Gatherings
Contemplative Evening of Worship and Prayer
Sunday, April 6, 2025
7:00pm – 9:00pm
A Dinner Discussion: Enger's Peace Like a River
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
6:00pm – 8:30pm
Time for Tea
Sunday, April 27, 2025
2:00pm – 4:00pm
Exploring how Lent is
“the spring of hope,” just
like the season itself.