Anselm 2025
Anselm 2025
Come join the Anselm Society as we embark to better live in the seasons of the year through the physical and literal seasons of nature, as well as through the church liturgical calendar.
Winter 2024-2025
Spring
SUMMER
(Coming Soon — Fall, and Winter 2025-2026)
Winter
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
Winter
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
Light and Darkness
December 2024 - February 2025
Like Advent, the season of winter is a season full of darkness, cold, and waiting. Winter creates limits–the days are shorter, we’re stuck inside, and the sun itself (or at least its warmth) is elusive. Often we can even be closed off in our own minds, as the dark and cold work their way inward.
But the story doesn’t end there. The limits aren’t just a challenge–they are an opportunity.
The constriction–of time, space, and everything we do with both–gives us a chance to work within it. To create concentrated warmth and cheer. To make rich food and hot drinks. To tell stories. To linger. To see each other more fully, in long conversations by the fire.
This is a poignant picture of the life of the church. We see darkness and cold all around us. But with our redeemed imaginations, we can not only acknowledge these things; we can live in intentional defiance of them, for the life of the world.
In this abbreviated quarter before we launch our first fully planned quarter in March, our content will focus on this theme–the reality of the darkness, but a calendar full of warmth, cheer, and hope that go out in defiance of it.
FOR THIS SEASON
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Imagination Redeemed
Believe to See (Featured)
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The Common Room
Saturday, March 1, 2025
12:00pm – 5:00pmMacbeth: A Haunting Fireside Reading and Discussion
Saturday, February 22, 2025
4:00pm – 9:00pmAn Evening of Literary Matchmaking
Saturday, February 8, 2025
7:00pm – 9:00pmMidwinter event: Light & Dark Stories & Songs
Saturday January 25, 2025
6:30pm – 9:30pmThe Common Room
Saturday, January 11, 2025
12:00pm – 5:00pmNarnian Christmas Party
Saturday, December 28, 2024
6:00pm – 9:30pmAll Ages Advent Dinner & Short Story Read Aloud
Friday, December 13, 2024
5:30pm – 8:30pmCandlelit Sung Compline
Saturday, December 7, 2024
7:00pm – 8:00pm -
Visual Artist Feature
December 2024
ADVENT
December 2024
ADVENT
Readings for Advent
Podcasts for Advent
Artist Feature
Creating from the Darkness: ISAAC hANS, Photographer
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
A Candlelit Sung Compline
Saturday, December 7, 2024
7:00pm – 8:00pm
All Ages Advent Dinner & Short Story Read Aloud
Saturday, December 28, 2024
5:00pm – 8:00pm
Narnia Christmas Party
Saturday, December 28, 2024
5:00pm – 8:00pm
January 2025
epiphany
January 2025
epiphany
For Epiphany
Meeting God Anew in Radiant Rome
The wise men first saw Christ on Epiphany, so it was fitting that this was the day she began to see something new. Everywhere she turned that night, the ancient city revealed a feast of light and beauty.
Featured Content
Imagination Redeemed Podcast (January 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 Great Stories (For Real Life)
Join Brian, Sarah, and Christina as they explore the impact of great stories on our lives and faith.
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
Scott Cairns’s “Alone in the Busy”
Award-winning poet Scott Cairns, Guggenheim Fellow and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow. Using his own poetry and prose, Cairns explores how we can recover communion in the face of isolation.
Peter Leithart’s “Dostoevsky and the Desire for Freedom”
In prison, Dostoevsky discovered that the desire for freedom was the wellspring of human action. But this wellspring comes from a deeper source.
Engage and Embody
How to Organize your own common room
While this January holds our third Common Room gathering, many are unfamiliar with the concept and asked about its foundational principles. In this post, the woman behind the idea shares the why and the how of creating a Common Room to which all are invited — to write, read, sew, paint, sketch, or daydream.
Artist Feature
Creating from the Darkness: ISAAC hANS, Photographer
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, January 11, 2025
12:00pm – 5:00pm
Midwinter event: Light & Dark Stories & Songs
Saturday January 25, 2025
6:30pm – 9:30pm
February 2025
February 2025
What does it mean to be an artist, a writer, a Christian? How do we share the light of Christ through re-igniting the imagination of those around us in story telling? What is stopping us from this task? What support do we need from our community? Dive into these questions (and many more!) with our featured content this February.
For Valentine’s Day
How to love an Artist Part 1
Literary fiction writer Mandy Houk offers tips on the care and feeding of a creative spouse!
Read More →
How to love an Artist Part 2
Painter-sculptor Kristopher Orr offers friends and lovers of artists ways to be supportive co-laborers in the sacred dance of art making.
Coming soon (February 14th)
Featured Content
Imagination Redeemed Podcast (February 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.
always winter
Seasons of winter tend to paralyze us. We think we can’t move on until something changes. How can we learn to live well in those seasons, and participate in God’s work? Drawing from O. Henry’s short story “The Last Leaf,” Brian, Sarah, Amy, and Christina tackle this question in the newest episode of the Imagination Redeemed podcast.
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
Rod Dreher’s “Christian Artists: Witnesses in the Destruction”
Anselm Fellow Rod Dreher reminds us of the daunting scope of cultural decay inside and outside the church, and of the vital response of beauty and the sacred to it.
sARAH cLARKSON’S “Beauty: God's Theodicy”
In the depths of our literal (or mental) winters, how does beauty help us see God’s goodness in the midst of pain and suffering?
mICHELLE drAKE’S, “Storytelling: Our Inheritance”
How, as readers and writers, do we delve the depths of stories and the heart of story telling?
Engage and Embody
Writing and the problem of christianity
Being a Christian and a writer is a tall order—whether we’re struggling with the link between faith and craft, or with crippling life habits we’ve unconsciously absorbed from the surrounding culture.
In this webinar, Anselm director Brian Brown draws from Thomas Aquinas, Josef Pieper, Dorothy Sayers, and a decade of working with writers and churches to cast a renewed vision for both your identity and your creative process.
Artist Feature
Creating from the Darkness: ISAAC hANS, Photographer
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
An Evening of Literary Matchmaking
Saturday, February 8, 2025
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Macbeth: A Haunting Fireside Reading and Discussion
Saturday, February 22, 2025
4:00pm – 9:00pm
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 – 4:00pmFriday, March 28, 2025
6:00pm – 8:00pmPhilosophy 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 2025
March 2025
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
May 2025
May 2025
New Life in Christ
How do we have the vision and the faithful fortitude of the saints? They are like trees, “planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3). In the wake of Easter, we consider Wendell Berry’s exhortation to “practice resurrection” — small acts of hope in the midst of the “already, but not yet” — through paying attention to the life of trees, and the picture they are to us as the life of the saints.
Featured Content
Imagination Redeemed Podcast (May 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.
planting Trees
In 1910, A man named Elzèard Bouffier saw the land dying for lack of trees, so he had resolved to remedy the situation. Join Sarah, Amy, Matthew, and our guest Yongwon Lee, as we wonder at this man and consider if planting trees shows us what it means to “Practice Resurrection.”
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
gRACY oLMSTEAD’S “The Craft of Cultivation”
Cultivation is a lost art for most of us. It requires paying attention, love, and agency. In this Imagination Redeemed episode, Brooke McIntire reads Gracy Olmstead's essay exploring how a posture of cultivation equips us to create as God made us to create.
Christina Brown’s “A Place for a Tree”
Art Guild Director and Co-Founder of the Anselm Society, Christian Brown has a beautiful column on Cultivating called The Cultivating Gardener. This piece explores how planting trees requires the courage to make lasting decisions, and thus reveals deeper meanings behind our gardening choices.
Jessica Hooten WilsoN’S “Sainthood in Literature”
Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University (’23). This lecture is from the Imagination Redeemed conference at Glen Eyrie, September 24-25 2021.
Featured (Free) Course
How to See Like a Saint
A five-part class by Brian Brown. Whenever we come across stories of the saints, it seems like they see something differently than we do. Something that enables them to not just keep it together, not just behave themselves, but transform everything around them. What is it? And can we learn to see it too?
Artist Feature
Gatherings
Meat Moot
Saturday, May 24, 2025
Timing and Details Coming Soon
Summer 2025
counted
Summer 2025
counted
COUNTED
June - August 2025
In the church calendar, more than half of the year is given over to “Ordinary Time.” Coming from the word ordinal, which means “counted,” this time is far from a mere placeholder between holidays. We are urged to count each day, each hour, each minute like precious stones on an altar.
Yet, this simple call is not an easy one. It is often hard to recognize the moments of our days, filled with miscellaneous and routine tasks, as the holy ground where we encounter God. And while life is punctuated with extraordinary and defining moments, we live in the ordinary and average, day in and day out. Whether it is due to sheer boredom from the monotony or sheer exhaustion from our burdens, we forget to notice the everyday glories which are teeming over in praise to their creator. How do we begin to have the ears to hear, the vision to notice, and the courage to join their song?
This season, we will seek to cast our eyes, once again, to what’s in front of us — at the glories found in the ordinary, the plain stuff that fills our schedules, our closets, and our worries — and not stopping there, but seeing through them to what Grand Story they participate in. It may, possibly, be only then that we can genuinely have the capacity to revel in the lilies of the field while not diminishing the reality of our pains and struggles. For only in the narrative of Christ’s cosmic story do both aptly fit In this season, we will focus on what “ordinary” truly is (and what it isn’t) and lean into each site of worship, no matter how routine, humdrum, simple, awful, or awesome it is.
For this is the day the Lord has made.
FOR THIS SEASON
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Imagination Redeemed
Believe to See (Featured)
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Wisdom in Creation: Josh Tiessen Lecture
Saturday, June 27, 2025
7:00pm-8:30pmRosas & Mimosas
Saturday, June 21, 2025
10:00am – 12:00pmBombadil: A Four-Week Study of Vocation, Calling, and Mastery
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
7:00pm
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Visual Artist Feature
Musician Feature
June 2025
June 2025
Ordinary Places
The totality of our lives are mostly spent doing simple tasks: tying our shoes, doing the dishes, brushing our teeth. What are we as Christians to make of the humdrum days, tasks, and moments that pervade our schedules? What if Christians viewed those tasks, not as humdrum, but as gifts from God to mobilize the world immediately around us to the glory of God? We explore those questions this month!
Featured Content
Imagination Redeemed Podcast (June 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.
Finding the Great Story In the kitchen sink
Join us as we explore Disney’s Encanto and how our daily faithfulness in seemingly mundane tasks isn't preparation for the Great Story—it is the Great Story. Discover why there are no ordinary things, and how Christians can learn to mobilize the world immediately around them for the glory of God.
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
Anthony esolen’s “An Encounter with the Ordinary”
How does leaving a tenured professorship at Providence College for a small liberal arts college in New Hampshire, apply to the Anselm Society? Read Anselm Fellow Dr. Esolen’s motivations and see for yourself!
Gianna Soderstrom's "The Kitchen of Transfiguration"
Anselm Member and Arts Guild Assistant Director unpacks the gift that comes through faithfulness in everyday obedience to the small, unseen actions given to us by God.
Featured June Books
Dive into the Joy found in the Ordinary Moments. | View more books in“The Library”
Artifacts
Recommended Visual Media: Paintings, Films, Documentaries. (Click the images below to learn more!)
MUSIC Feature
FINDING MAGIC: IN THE MUNDANE
Noah Love reviews John Mark McMillan’s album Deep Magic in a new column from Anselm.
Artist Feature
Gatherings
Bombadil: A Four-Week Study of Vocation, Calling, and Mastery
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
7:00pm-8:30pm
Rosas & Mimosas
Saturday, June 21, 2025
10:00am – 12:00pm
Wisdom in Creation: Josh Tiessen Lecture
Saturday, June 27, 2025
7:00pm
Exploring how Lent is
“the spring of hope,” just
like the season itself.