Today, once again, all eyes are on Michigan as the State Board of Canvassers votes to certify the election results. This is a statement written by white radical disciples in Detroit. Click on and sign to be in solidarity.
We are speaking in this moment as White people.
We join our voice with others.
Continue reading “Confession & Call to Action: White Supremacy & the 2020 Election”
Almost eight years ago, I meandered around the house with a bulging belly waiting and waiting for labor to begin. As I waited, I listened to Joyce Hollyday rattle off newly learned facts about weapons in the Middle Ages. At night, I would try to relax my body and she would read the early chapters of this beautiful book I now hold in my hands.
Joyce has written an incredible novel that is healing salve for our hearts in this moment. It is a page turner that takes you into a world and a character who sits in the midst of a harsh world and somehow manages to find a fertile faith, a loving community, and incredible joy.
It is the kind of book you might want to read in the candlelit darkness of Advent or gift to all your friends under the tree. Here are some words from Joyce about the book. I hope you enjoy! – Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
Continue reading “Pillar of Fire- An Interview with Joyce Hollyday”Three of the defendants in the Kings Bay Plowshares were sentenced last week in court. You can find updates on their cases HERE.
Below is the sentencing statement from Clare Grady.
Good afternoon, Judge Wood, Mr Knoche and Mr. Gillully, and greetings to all the women and men who work in the courtroom there in Georgia. Also, greetings to all those who are listening in to these sentencing hearings on your phones, your presence as attendants and witnesses to this procedure as we work together to seek justice is essential. Without your participation, we might lose sight of the nature of a government of the People, for the People, and by the People.I come before the court today ready for sentencing. May my words and spirit today be rooted in truth with love, the two elements of non-violence.
Continue reading “Clare Grady’s Statement at Sentencing”By Tommy Airey
I believe that a higher Power sews everything into a fabric of belovedness. As a result, we belong to everyone else. I also believe that it was this divine love and belonging that beckoned Jesus to break rank from well-worn supremacy ideologies that use race, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status or national citizenship as a litmus test for greatness. Jesus knew that supremacy destroys belovedness and belongingness—and that supremacy can only be broken when people break rank together. He called this transformative process “repentance.”
Continue reading “This is Repentance”On offering from our dear comrade Marcia Lee (right) dialing in from eastside Detroit.
As Grace Lee Boggs reminds us, in the Chinese word for chaos, there is both opportunity and danger. These times can be especially difficult to navigate when you are in leadership. To support you in your leadership and to grow a community of leaders, we invite you to join us for a series of retreats for your soul and role and to have a community with which to grow and learn together for a year.
Continue reading “Time for a Retreat?”
By Ric Hudgens
Fours years ago, I come down for breakfast to find my housemate tutoring her six-year-old daughter: Agitate! Educate! Organize!
Nod your head and acknowledge
your fear when it sits down
at breakfast some morning.
Fear is our necessary friend
watching our world
with wakeful eyes.
by jim perkinson, on hab 3:1-6, 17-19; mt 5:13-20
note: this spoken word is featured in perkinson’s new publication a secret gift outside the door: poems of resistance and wonder
the gospel says be salt
but i would rather drop
like pepper in this hour
assuring all who taste
do not forget!
By Rev. Tiffany Ashworth
When I was a kid, I told my parents that I wanted to be a pastor’s wife. At the time, I articulated my sense of ministerial call as such because I couldn’t dream what I couldn’t imagine. And in a world of white male leaders that touted female submission, my context was so that I simply could not make sense of my pastoral inclinations in any other way. Because of this, even though my drive to serve the church remained strong, I came up against enough “women don’t do that” pushback that I abandoned plans to begin formal biblical and theological studies and altered course. To make a very long story short, it was painful.
Continue reading “On Seeing Women Lead”Opening remarks from Bill Wylie-Kellermann at a November 4 demonstration and march begun outside Detroit Election Offices.
Good afternoon. Great gratitude for the invitation to speak to you today.
You welcome me as 71-year-old, white cis male (he/him) Christian pastor.
Given that most of those intersections are aligned with power or privilege from which I am working to be liberated, your welcome is generous
About this time five years ago Marian Kramer of Michigan Welfare Rights and I stood trial in 36th district court for blocking, with seven others [including Baba Baxter here today], the Homrich company’s water shut off trucks at the beginning of what has become some 120k shut offs. They were ordered by Detroit’s Emergency Manager who had assumed all the powers of government in one person, replacing every elected official in the city. It seemed important to us to get those charges in front of a jury – under emergency management a jury was the last vestige of official democracy in Detroit.
Continue reading “Count the Vote Rally from One who Prays.”By Mark Van Steenwyk, re-posted from social media
It is a bizarre experience—I’m reading posts from right wingers about antifa, anarchy, socialism and the “radical fringe” that threatens their freedom.
And reading posts from liberals/centrists fundamentally agreeing with the premise that these are bad things and trying to show how the Democratic Party and Biden aren’t like these bad elements.
Continue reading “They’re Talking About Me”