Spirit of the Universe, whose moral arc you make to bend toward justice,
thank you for birthing our brother Martin, right on time, into our history, into the journey of transformation for which we yearn. For uttering him in the Word, and forming him in the womb.
We lift him up this day in the communion of ancestors, summoning him from among all who have ever interceded and struggled for justice. Continue reading “Prayer for the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.”
By Ric Hudgens, for MLK Day 2018
We keep waking up
in the clenched realization
of all we have lost and are losing,
that voracious slough of despond
waiting to engulf us.
But on this day
we trace our dawnward trek,
our companion’s burdens
as great as our own,
towards God’s freedom dreams. Continue reading “Towards God’s Freedom Dreams”
From Nayyirah Waheed in Salt (2013):
i want more ‘men’
with flowers falling from their skin.
more water in their eyes.
more tremble in their bodies.
more women in their hearts
than
on their hands.
more softness in their height.
more honesty in their voice.
more wonder.
more humility in their feet.
By Lyla June Johnston (right), a Diné singer, writer, and activist specializing in intergenerational and inter-ethnic healing, as well as Indigenous philosophy. This essay is [re]posted with permission from her Facebook page.
I spend a lot of time honoring and calling upon my Native American ancestors. I am keenly aware that my father’s people hold a venerable medicine as well. He has ancestry from the Great Sacred Motherland of Europe.
I have been called a half breed. I have been called a mutt. Impure. I have been told my mixed blood is my bane. That I’m cursed to have an Indian for a mother and a cowboy for a father.
But one day, as I sat in the ceremonial house of my mother’s people, a wondrous revelation landed delicately inside of my soul. It sang within me a song I can still hear today. This song was woven from the voices of my European grandmothers and grandfathers. Their songs were made of love.
Continue reading “The Story of How Humanity Fell in Love with Itself Once Again”
Epiphany, Year B
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
By Ragan Sutterfield
E. Stanley Jones once wrote that if there is an instinct in the human heart to conceal there is also a deeper instict to reveal” (Victory Through Surrender). And yet, our culture keeps from authentic disclosure. We are invited, instead, to a kind of performative exposure, a way of revealing that also hides. We want to be known and seen but we do not trust those who might see us. We are afraid of what might happen if we are known, fully, authentically. So we manufacture disclosure on Facebook, hoping that in the commiseration of comments or praise of likes we will achieve what we are afraid to risk through a real openness. It is disclosure at the surface rather than at the depths.
From Sherman Alexie, “On The Amtrak From Boston to New York City:”
The white woman across the aisle from me says ‘Look,
look at all the history, that house
on the hill there is over two hundred years old, ‘
as she points out the window past me
into what she has been taught. I have learned
little more about American history during my few days
back East than what I expected and far less
of what we should all know of the tribal stories Continue reading “What I Would Do and Say the Next Time”
The woman on the phone, speaking heavily accented Spanish, introduced herself as Consuela to Rebecca, the coordinator and translator for our bilingual group Mujeres Unidas en Fe (Women United in Faith). Consuela said that she wanted to visit the group and offer a Medicaid presentation. Continue reading “Lost in Translation”
By Lindsay Airey
Spirit who animates All Things,
help us to listen now.
May we abandon our many pursuits
keeping us ever-busy and never listening
to your gentle,
fierce proddings.
Guide us in the way(s) of life.
Help us release:
our addictions,
superiorities,
certainties,
white-knuckling, fear-suppressing
blame,
shame
and deep-seeded
hatreds.
May we find something more reliable
to keep us warm
these
long
winter nights. Continue reading “Lead Us Home By Another Way”
An excerpt from Dr. Barbara Ransby’s “Ella Taught Me: Shattering the Myth of the Leaderless Movement,” originally published at Colorlines.com:
Those who romanticize the concept of leaderless movements often misleadingly deploy [Ella] Baker’s words, “Strong people don’t need [a] strong leader.” Baker delivered this message in various iterations over her fifty-year career working in the trenches of racial-justice struggles, but what she meant was specific and contextual. She was calling for people to disinvest from the notion of the messianic, charismatic leader who promises political salvation in exchange for deference. Baker also did not mean that movements would naturally emerge without collective analysis, serious strategizing, organizing, mobilizing, and consensus-building. Continue reading “Ella Baker’s Group-Centered Leadership”
By Ken Sehested
There are three versions of what Epiphany (“Manifestation”) is meant to commemorate in the church’s calendar. One of those traditions is to celebrate Jesus’ baptism on January 6. Another tradition links Epiphany Sunday with the birth of Jesus. Yet another tradition celebrates Epiphany as marking the arrival of the magi, of “We Three Kings” fame—the figures played in every Christmas play by children dressed in bathrobes. Yet the common element in each is the inauguration of a confrontation between God’s Only Begotten and those in seats of power. Continue reading “Epiphany: Manifesting the Bias of Heaven”
Radical Discipleship 