Austin Crenshaw Shelley
Austin Crenshaw Shelley is associate minister for Christian education at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia.
It's a great question to ask people. But not this person.
Motherhood and ministry are intertwined for me.
“If we can’t afford two boxes,” my grandmother said, “we can’t afford one.”
“You, Lord, are both Lamb and Shepherd.” So begins “Christus Paradox,” a hymn penned by Sylvia Dunstan more than three decades ago. According to notes on the hymn text, Dunstan first scribbled down the lyrics--rich with paradoxical, tension-laden images of Jesus--while she rode the bus home after a difficult day of prison chaplaincy.
"I dream of walking the streets of Damascus," sighed a Syrian refugee whose radio interview I heard on my evening commute. His voice trailed off into a wistful silence. I had been engrossed in his story, but at the interview's end, my mind connected the refugee's lament and longing for a Damascus road story of long ago.
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