InSpero packed its fifth birthday celebration on September 14 at the Clubhouse on Highland with new and old friends, music, food, cupcakes, photo booths, balloons, and joy. This magical evening was made possible by the many volunteers, donors, and Bob McKenna for sharing this vision which is InSpero. Below are some photos and a short excerpt of what Nancy shared that night. Keep scrolling down to see some of the beautiful offerings coming this year.
One reason I love InSpero is because it isn’t easily defined (or even pronounced).
inSPARROW.
It's a movement, an offering. It's a way of seeing, acknowledging, healing, and restoring our beautiful, broken city through the stirring of our creative community. There’s a passage in Scripture where the prophet Jeremiah tells the exiled Israelites to "flourish" the city where God sent them. He uses the beautiful Hebrew word "shalom" that encompasses peace, wholeness, welfare, flourishing, a sense of rightness or as Andy Gullahorn's upcoming album is titled “Everything As It Should Be.”
This room (as well as you reading this post) is filled with shalom seekers. But how do shalom seekers keep going when they see and feel the brokenness every day? For me, the last few years have been painful. My default to the brokenness around and in me is to check out, find some safe anesthetic to numb myself. But I was reminded recently that "an-esthetic" means the absence of sensation or awareness, the loss of our five senses. That’s another reason I love InSpero. It helps me fight to come back to my senses, to the beauty around me. It’s the artists and artisans, the poets and potters, the prophets and pastors, the musicians and makers, the dreamers and dancers, the chefs and the storytellers who help keep us awake, alive, willing to hope, willing to be hurt again. They remind us there’s more to come. Beauty can hurt. It is so fleeting. But it is so worth it. And hope can hurt, but we can’t live without it.
May InSpero (Spero=Hope in Latin+Inspired=God breathed) give you a breath of holy hope.
Deidre Clark, founder of KUUMBA and Birmingham TedX speaker and dear friend of InSpero, will share from her participation in the Aspen Ideas Festival. InSpero's Bridge Builders is a group of artists and city visionaries seeking to understand and help heal the divisions and wounds of our city.
Birmingham's own Wayne Franklin, co-director of the new music documentary, "Revival: The Sam Bush Story" will be available to answer questions after we view this film about the Father of Bluegrass. Location TBA.
InSpero will offer a one-day retreat inviting artists to create through the season of Lent. It will be followed by a gallery art show of their work.
Please stay tuned for more information as the amazing singer-songwriter David Wilcox gives a benefit concert for InSpero, Inc. on Thursday, March 21 at the Leaf and Petal in Cahaba Heights and follows it with a deeper conversations and a songwriting workshop for local musicians and artists on Friday, March 22. If you're interested in helping to sponsor this concert and/or workshop, please email nancy@inspero.org.
One of the most powerful events we do each year is a deep conversation between five senior pastors and five artists in the city around a chef-created meal.
Save the date and watch when the tickets go on sale for this event because it has sold out in the last few years. Two local singer-songwriters, two writers, two poets weave together story and song along with beautiful appetizers and drinks all at the Clubhouse on Highland.
June 27, 2022
It was at Rivendell the hobbits think through the vocation they have been given, carefully working out the who and what and where of the odyssey that will be theirs. But integral to all that they were, and to all that they would need to be, was the table at Rivendell, a place for the best conversations and the best food and the best drink — simply said, a wonder of wonders." Steve Garber
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April 19, 2022
The never-ending hope of Easter, Writer Andrew Shaughnessy shares reflections on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and why hope and beauty matter. "We hope because we know a day is coming when, to paraphrase Sam in The Lord of the Rings, “everything sad will come untrue,” when our Creator King will dry every tear and bind up the broken hearts and restore the sundered cities and turn the world upside down."
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February 7, 2022
Photographer and writer Erin Nolen, shares her reflections on our winter retreat.
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December 29, 2021
Emily Thayer, a writer and baker, invites weary people into a life of rest.
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August 11, 2021
Amanda Blake, InSpero Advisory Council member, artist, entrepreneur, advocate, and teacher speaks about her experiences as an educator and muralist.
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July 14, 2021
Bruce Herman shares his thoughts on the role of perspective and self-forgetfulness in relationships.
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