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Word From Below
Being Real
Imagine if just one of the disciples had been able to set aside their insecurity to ask Jesus if he would say a little more? Would that have freed up the others to ask their questions? What kind of conversation might have ensued? Would it have fostered more trust and greater understanding between the disciples instead of competition and the need to posture with one another?
By Pat Thompson
Word From Below
The Crumbling House
The house, the house, the house! We finally had it, and yet the deeper impulse behind the desire remained elusive. After a few months of living crammed together, we began expanding our home’s footprint. It wasn’t just going to be sufficient, it was going to be the biggest house in the whole development. The yardstick for our desire, our success, had moved.
By Joel Aguilar
Word From Below
Expectations
It turns out, Jesus is. Once again, he takes the system and turns it upside down, blowing up societies’ rubric for what makes somebody a good person.
By Kristy Humphreys
Word From Below
Sustenance
Food sustains our bodies but also draws our communities and families together. It feeds our needs at many levels. This week’s lectionary text, with Jesus addressing a crowd, tackles this truth.
By Valery Vital-Herne
Word From Below
Flesh and Blood
I’ll be honest, today’s passage makes me cringe. The language Jesus uses is cannibalistic; it’s scandalous. “Eat my flesh. Drink my blood.” Yuck. Am I right? As someone who presides over the communion table, hearing Jesus speak about His body this way makes me super uncomfortable.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
Bread of Life
Fear, it appears, has just as much to do with our own disposition as it does with the message itself. The headline of 300 murders solicited a fear of destruction and violence. Jesus’ headline of a new, albeit very diiferent kind of life, released a fear of change among those listening: a fear of letting go of beliefs that bound them, a fear of what might happen if the way of Jesus really was true.
By Margartia Solis-Deal
Word From Below
Bread is Essential
There is a tendency with this passage to spiritualize it, to contrast the bread that is made of wheat, yeast, salt, and water with bread that is made of love, justice, peace, and hope. All of which sounds nice but can taste like so much air to a hungry person.
By Rev. Sarah Wiles
Word From Below
Serving Without Seeking the Crown
Jesus resists this temptation. He does not use the opportunity to advance himself. Jesus shows us what is at the heart of incarnational ministry: coming alongside those we serve and inviting them to participate in their own healing.
By Gideon Ochieng
Word From Below
Get Some Rest
So did He ignore rest or is there something I am missing? I’m beginning to think that my own concept of rest must be sorely lacking as clearly, Jesus is modeling something that does not come naturally to me.
By Pat Thompson
Word From Below
Otherness to Outsider
There is a unique pain associated with this brand of dismissal, akin to the sting of rejection but accompanied by shock and disbelief (“I thought of all people they would understand!”).
By Jenna Smith
Word From Below
Power
At first glance, the fifth chapter of Mark is full of stories that appear to be mostly about healing. At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus casts out demons from a young man; and today, we see him heal a woman and raise a girl from the dead. Healing is clearly an important and wonderful part of the narrative.
By Joel Kiekintveld
Word From Below
Can We Hear?
These stories, sometimes referred to as myths, don’t just shape how we see ourselves in the present moment, they also affect how we understand what is possible in the future.
By Fred Laceda
Word From Below
The Unreasonable Work of Liberation
He must be possessed, they say. Because God’s logic looks like insanity to those of us who’ve become accustomed to the world’s logic. All this disruption, this chaos, must be demonic, they say.
By Rev. Sarah Wiles
Word From Below
Do Not Pass Me By
When I woke up that morning I promised myself “never again.” My heart cannot sustain it. My body cannot sustain it. My soul cannot sustain it. This non-stop movement, constant going, day by day, this making a way.
By Shabrae Jackson
Word From Below
Pentecost
All around our communities, in myself, and in our churches, we continue to be held captive to this imperial dream — unity, control and stability through enforced uniformity.
By Joey Ager
Word From Below
“Union?”
Before we got married, my wife had these words engraved on our wedding ring, “to our dream.” The first time I read them, I wasn’t sure how to respond. So, I just smiled and said something like, “how thoughtful.”
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Bittersweet Fruit
As I was telling David how terrible hell would be, he turned to me and said, “And what do you think this is?” He pointed to the rotten wood poles that held the rusty tin sheets that served as walls for his shack. The metal sheets had as many holes as a slice of swiss cheese. Then, I heard the two children he had already brought into the world even though he was just fifteen. And I smelled the rottenness of the dirt floor, wet with the sewer water that came from the toilet next to us. At that moment, I realized that I was sitting with him in hell.
By Joel Aguilar
Word From Below
The Invitation
I repeated my words: “Cut. It. Back. Prune, yank, trim and remove.”
As soon as I said it, I saw her wince.
By Jenna Smith
Word From Below
The Good Shepherd
This week is Good Shepherd Sunday. Thank goodness, because I am feeling like a sheep in need of a good shepherd, and so are the communities we serve.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Peace Be With you
But if I’m honest, I am still wondering – what are the actual, tangible things that make for peace? This seems like the million dollar question for the Church to ponder … especially as ones who are proclaiming this peace.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
The Reality of Resurrection
At the start of Holy Week Manila and nearby provinces entered into another lockdown, causing difficulty for many, especially the most vulnerable. This pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities. Many people in the under-resourced areas of Manila are living on daily wages, and when these meager means to support their families are cut off, you can feel the fear in the air.
By Fred Laceda
Word From Below
Easter Sunday
He has risen!
May the presence of the Crucified-Risen One slip behind walls of our well-defended lives today and surprise us with love’s confounding joy.
By Street Psalms
Word From Below
Holy Saturday
It’s Holy Saturday and Mary is on my mind. Actually, she’s at work in my heart. Maybe that’s because I too am a mom.
I love being the mother of two sons. They have drawn me out in ways I didn’t think possible. For example, I think of myself as even-keeled and chill. Like Mary, I can hold a lot in. However, I came to discover that’s not always the case.
By Lana Rocke
Word From Below
Good Friday
I immerse myself in the brutal agony and devastating beauty of the Via Dolorosa where my soul quickens and finds its home inside the unfolding drama of the ultimate consummation of humanity and divinity. I am among the women standing at the foot of the Cross — those midwives of the cross — bearing witness to Jesus’ labor, attending to his last words, his last breath. I receive “It is finished” in one hand and consider “It has begun” in the other, letting such a juxtaposition work its mystery in my mind and heart. (Christena Cleveland)
By Jessica Louwerse
Word From Below
Maundy Thursday
Each year at the L’Arche Tahoma Hope community where I serve, we have a Maundy Thursday service that includes a communal foot washing. Like most things at L’Arche, it’s both reverent and comical … lots of laughter and giggles, folks that are ticklish or nervous, moments of silence and bursts of joy. It’s one of my favorite celebrations. Feet are washed, hearts are warmed, walls come down.
By Sue Hudacek
Word From Below
Transfer or Transform?
A week ago, a 21-year old white Christian man, baptised and active in his local church, walked into three spas near Atlanta, Georgia with a gun and killed 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian American.
By Joey Ager
Word From Below
Strange Fruit
On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin. Chauvin’s knee was pressed into Mr. Floyd’s neck as he lay face down in the street for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Bystanders pleaded with the officer to stop while Mr. Floyd pleaded for his own life, “I can’t breathe!” The video went viral and the whole world listened to George Floyd call for his mama with his last breaths.
By Pat Thompson
Word From Below
God’s New Age
In this week’s text, Jesus foretells his death. He relates it to a moment in the Bible when God used Moses to save the Israelites from snakes by looking at a … snake. It was unusual, to say the least. In the same way, Jesus reminds his listeners that his salvation will happen, but everything about it will defy our expectations.
By Joel Aguilar
Word From Below
What if it’s Love?
n the spring of 2012, a group of students from one of Montreal’s finest universities, Concordia, broke into the Dean’s office and ransacked it. They tore documents, broke the computer, and flipped the desk. This was part of a province-wide student strike against the tuition and fee hikes being imposed on our publicly funded higher education institutions. At its peak, a quarter of a million students took to the streets.
By Jenna Smith
Word From Below
The Tertium Quid
Ever move from applause to rebuke in the blink of an eye? We continue in our Lenten journey to the…
By Joel Van Dyke
Word From Below
Remember our Baptism
Alimentando El Pueblo (Feeding El Pueblo) is a food distribution initiative that specifically caters to the Latinx community in my area….
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
Ash Wednesday: The Sound of the Genuine
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Christians worldwide will enter into a heightened time (40 days) of prayer,…
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Transfiguration of Power
Recent events in Myanmar and the Philippines loom large in my mind as I write this reflection from Manila. Myanmar…
By Fred Laceda
Word From Below
Just As You Are
Jesus took time for prayer. This isn’t the only place we see that. There are more than thirty references to…
By Rev. Sarah Wiles
Word From Below
Be Silent O Unclean Spirit
In the text today, Jesus encounters a man with an unclean spirit and speaks truth with authority and authenticity to him. And it triggers his whole…
By Margartia Solis-Deal
Word From Below
Ad-liberation
A local Pastor was telling me about her neighbors’ reaction to a proposed winter shelter. It was set to be located in a large and currently empty community center in their affluent neighborhood.
Every year in the Pacific Northwest winter, unsheltered neighbors die of exposure to the cold—the shelter will offer a simple place to sleep during the hardest months. But on this neighborhood’s local social media pages, in the press, on the TV news, and in government hearings, compassion was hard to find.
By Joey Ager
Word From Below
Being Seen
I watched a movie the other night called “The Orator.” Set on the island of Samoa, in the present day,…
By Pat Thompson
Word From Below
Almost Drowning
I was baptized into an Evangelical church when I was seven years old and it was a terrible experience. My…
By Joel Aguilar
Word From Below
Born in Community
Tell me your birth story. If you are someone who has birthed a baby, you have heard this question countless…
By Katie Guertin-Anderson
Word From Below
Anna The Prophet
At age 84 my aunt helped lead her aging church through a very challenging process around a divisive issue. She did so with remarkable skill and grace. She’s always looking toward the future, even if it does not include her.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Hoping for Change
In the Spanish language the verb esperar means both “to hope” and “to wait.” It is a beautiful Advent verb,…
By Joel Van Dyke
Word From Below
Mary’s Light
She was a high-school senior. She told me she wasn’t feeling well and asked if I could give her a…
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
Light from Darkness
A prison cell may be the last place we look for light; they are dim by design. But in my…
By Fred Laceda
Word From Below
On the Edges
Wilderness. Uncultivated. Uninhabited. Inhospitable. Neglected. Abandoned. Disfavored. Dangerous. These words are commonly used to describe places of “wilderness.” And yet,…
By Jessica Louwerse
Word From Below
Blue(s) Christmas
We don’t listen to Christmas music in my house until after Thanksgiving. On Black Friday morning the prohibition is lifted…
By Joel Kiekintveld
Word From Below
More Than Charity
Identify with those who have nothing. Not in charity alone so as to be a helper of those without food,…
By Tali Hairston
Word From Below
Real Talent?
For those of us who were raised in the United States, we have a tendency to read the Parable of…
By Pat Thompson
Word From Below
Mad at the Maidens
This week’s text, The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, has often been used as a precautionary tale about who gets…
By Joel Aguilar
Word From Below
The Shoulders of the People
They do not practice what they teach.They are unwilling to lift a finger.They love the seat of honour. Jesus’ criticism…
By Jenna Smith
Word From Below
The Impossible Purity Tests
Last week I walked along Tacoma Avenue, and found myself passing Simone’s yellow tent on the grass right next to…
By Joey Ager
Word From Below
The Emperor’s Coin
My sister does this funny thing before she asks you for a favor. She says, “I’m going to ask you…
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
Should We Have a Dream?
I’m told there is no utility in my delusions yet I choose to imagine, envisioning a world of fellowship and joy….
By Tim Merrill
Word From Below
Entering the Building
Recently, our church community gathered in the parking lot of the campus. Together, like many other congregations, we are reflecting…
By Tali Hairston
Word From Below
The Corner of Delridge and Roxbury
Whenever I read the parable of the landowner and the day laborers, my mind often drifts to the day labor…
By Pat Thompson
Word From Below
The Cancer of Unforgiveness
Cancer is something that scares us out of our minds, especially if our families have a history with it. In…
By Joel Aguilar
Word From Below
Binding and Loosening
We start Advent not with shepherds and angels and babies meek and mild. Instead we start with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t like it. I prefer the kids in animal and shepherd costumes—the cute Christmas. But we don’t always get what we want. Instead we start Advent with a passage that is full of images of floods, and people disappearing, and thieves.
By Rev. Sarah Wiles
Word From Below
Human Concerns
It is an odd image in this week’s text:, uprooting a tree (already challenging) and planting it into a body of water that is salty (impossible). But it is not surprising to talk of agriculture in terms of challenges, impossibilities, and indeed, as an act of faith. In downtown Montréal, Innovation Youth has been growing our expertise in urban agriculture for several years.
By Jenna Smith
Word From Below
The Human Catechism
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Persistence
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
The Transformation of God
Filipino Muslims are our closest siblings, yet we are divided by our differences and a lack of trust. We were not prepared to address this lurking and lingering issue. We walked, as it were, down the road Jesus describes in his parable, asking whether we would continue to affirm the ossified lines of our identities, or transcend that which divides us?
By Fred Laceda
Word From Below
What You Have
We start Advent not with shepherds and angels and babies meek and mild. Instead we start with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t like it. I prefer the kids in animal and shepherd costumes—the cute Christmas. But we don’t always get what we want. Instead we start Advent with a passage that is full of images of floods, and people disappearing, and thieves.
By Rev. Sarah Wiles
Word From Below
Changing the Metaphor
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
An Invitation to Imperfection
We start Advent not with shepherds and angels and babies meek and mild. Instead we start with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t like it. I prefer the kids in animal and shepherd costumes—the cute Christmas. But we don’t always get what we want. Instead we start Advent with a passage that is full of images of floods, and people disappearing, and thieves.
By Rev. Sarah Wiles
Word From Below
The Hospitable Iconoclast
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
A Whisper
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
21st Century Pentecost
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Will We Listen?
Like Peter, like Edwaan, and like so many of us, there is a longing for belief out on life’s “danger waters” — those places removed from the placid nature of peace and plenty. Persecution, pain, and tragedy inspire deep longings, often taking the shape of foolhardy propositions such as Peter’s, “Save me in these dangerous waters or watch me die.”
By Justin Mootz
Word From Below
Oneing
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
She’s Calling
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
The Sacrament of Hospitality
As fearful and terrorizing as it may be, the transfiguration causes me to long for a glimpse of the illuminated face of Christ and especially the body we have esteemed as most unlovable and unlikable. I pray that in meeting with such a vision, I will not be derailed, busying myself with building tabernacles, places where I can limit and control God’s uncontrollable light.
By Tim Merrill
Word From Below
Pastureland in a Pandemic?
After an encounter with the shadowlands of Ash Wednesday, we now sit silently in front of an opened curtain, revealing the five-week theater that is the Valley of Lent. The Gospel narrative for the first Sunday of Lent is that of the desert temptation.
By Joel Van Dyke
Word From Below
The Verbness of Easter
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
The First Word
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
Maundy Thursday
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Mary Pandiani
Word From Below
Good Friday
I imagine the rich man at the beginning of his day. He is a man about town, with pressing matters on his mind and very important people to meet. I am easily persuaded that someone like him has no time to volunteer with a local charity or dedicate himself to the protection of the less fortunate. But then we find Lazarus right outside his gate.
By Pat Thompson
Word From Below
Enough
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Ben Robinson
Word From Below
Embedded
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Dr. Joyce del Rosario
Word From Below
The Judgement of God
In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Desire is Viral
Faith, hope and love are the antidotes to social chaos. But let’s be honest, they take a bit longer to spread than fear and anxiety. That is why in times like these, as the body of Christ, we are invited to get clear about what we want and whose desires we are borrowing.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
The Most Unlovable and Unlikable
As fearful and terrorizing as it may be, the transfiguration causes me to long for a glimpse of the illuminated face of Christ and especially the body we have esteemed as most unlovable and unlikable. I pray that in meeting with such a vision, I will not be derailed, busying myself with building tabernacles, places where I can limit and control God’s uncontrollable light.
By Tim Merrill
Word From Below
Setting Out From Where You Are
After an encounter with the shadowlands of Ash Wednesday, we now sit silently in front of an opened curtain, revealing the five-week theater that is the Valley of Lent. The Gospel narrative for the first Sunday of Lent is that of the desert temptation.
By Joel Van Dyke
Word From Below
Ash Wednesday: Desire
In the inner room we can finally stop acting. In the inner room we are free of the crowds who so easily rule and run us like puppets. In the inner room, we stop feeding on the unstable and fickle desires of others and learn to borrow our desires from the One who desires us.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Moments into Monuments
God’s glory is the divinity of seeing and proclaiming the Passion and the resurrection, even in the darkest of places. The way of Jesus journeys into the desert and sees bread where others see rocks. The divine glory sees the imago dei in a demon possessed boy that others have marginalized.
By Ron Ruthruff
Word From Below
Becoming Human
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
The Box by the Door
This world’s devotion to middle class affluence is predicated on the sacraments of global gentrification’s hard sweeping brooms, capitalism’s consumerist temples, and a careless society’s superhighways that bypass the poor, the blind, and those crowded out by “progress.”
By Tim Merrill
Word From Below
Nunc Dimittis
As I stood at the pulpit and looked toward the pews, my breath was taken away. On the back wall of the chapel were several huge drawings of naked murder victims. An artist had taken a pencil and used it to bring to life the pain and agony of massacre and execution.
By Joel Van Dyke
Word From Below
Team Jesus
It’s when we’ve done just about all we can do to screw things up and yet still discover ourselves loved, forgiven and trusted at our most untrustworthy worst, that the Spirit is fully unleashed.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Come and See
The authentic work of Christ and the work of the church is hard to do, if not impossible, from a distance. An incarnational ministry prioritizes proximity in order to “see” God.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
Born from Afar
When did they recognize this deity in their midst? When did it dawn upon them? Exactly when did the epiphany occur? When did the light of ‘aha’ shine upon these unknown number of magi revealing the human one before them was the flesh and blood presence of the creator of their star in the heavens?
By Ken Sikes
Word From Below
Born in Grace
At the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, the night sky in Guatemala City explodes in bursts of color under the canopy of fireworks. Everyone heads outside into the streets to wish one another Feliz Navidad with hugs for neighbors, family, friends and strangers amidst columns of smoke and the barrage of bottle rockets.
By Kristy Humphreys
Word From Below
Born in Dreams
The Advent and Christmas seasons are a time to remember God’s call on our lives is constant, and it comes in many forms, whether we are sleeping or awake. It’s a call to a heavenly perspective that allows us to release our fears and see good news in the least likely places.
By Joel Kiekintveld
Word From Below
Born from Below
Our jails, back alleys and slums are the “low” places that Jesus would have been born in today, away from the lights and festivities that mark the opulence our society strives for.
By Gideon Ochieng
Word From Below
Born in Scandal
Not too many years ago, in a community marked by a history of scandalous events, I encountered one of the wittiest and smartest kids I have ever met. His name was Kevin. Kevin understood what it meant to come from a scandalous background.
By Joel Aguilar
Word From Below
Born in Jail
John the Baptist, sitting In Herod’s prison with nothing but time on his hands, is beginning to question his expectations about Jesus. And I would imagine he’s wondering about his own life in light of his present circumstances.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
Born in Wilderness
For Karen, the stairwell was her wilderness sanctuary, right in the heart of the merciless city. There, she found the space and solace to let loose and cry out with a loud voice. The oppressive thumb of drug addiction, abuse, pain and poverty could not find her in that place.
By Tim Merrill
Word From Below
Born into Chaos
We start Advent not with shepherds and angels and babies meek and mild. Instead we start with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t like it. I prefer the kids in animal and shepherd costumes—the cute Christmas. But we don’t always get what we want. Instead we start Advent with a passage that is full of images of floods, and people disappearing, and thieves.
By Rev. Sarah Wiles
Word From Below
Forgive Them
By the light of being forgiven, we come to see what we are doing. The more we undergo forgiveness, the more we can tell ourselves the truth about the endless stream of scapegoats we produce.
By Kris Rocke
Word From Below
Some Good News
Perhaps this is what we are to testify to … the third way Jesus himself incarnated. At the cross, God absorbed into God’s self, in the body of Christ, all violence. God absorbed it, and did not return it. God suffered violence for all time and for all situations.
By Lina Thompson
Word From Below
Chewy Words
Just as the Sadducees in today’s Gospel refused to accept the realities of the resurrection, systems of privilege can be averse to the realities of those experiencing poverty, even while offering lofty banter on their behalf.
By Tim Merrill
Word From Below
Hospitality Inverted
There is a parade of attention around the celebrity Jesus as he passes through Jericho. The eyes of the crowd are riveted in the desire to get a glimpse of the great miracle worker and social (not yet media) influencer.