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

(Coming Soon — Summer, Fall, and Winter 2025-2026)

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

Readings for Advent

Podcasts for Advent

View Full resources and anselm archives →

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

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.

Read More →

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.

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

Engage and Embody

View Full resources and anselm archives →

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

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.

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

Engage and Embody

View Full resources and anselm archives →

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

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

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.

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

View Full resources and anselm archives →

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