For love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting further from your goal instead of nearer to it – at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.
– The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Author: RadicalDiscipleship
On Revolution and Equilibrium
Feature by Barbara Deming, originally published in Liberation, February 1968
Do you want to remain pure? Is that it?” a black man asked me, during an argument about nonviolence. It is not possible to act at all and to remain pure; and that is not what I want, when I commit myself to the nonviolent discipline. I stand with all who say of present conditions that they do not allow men and women to be fully human and so they must be changed – all who not only say this but are ready to act.
When one is confronted with what Russell Johnson calls accurately “The violence of the status quo” – conditions which are damaging, even murderous, to very many who must live within them – it is degrading for all to allow such conditions to persist. And if the individuals who can find the courage to bring about change see no way in which it can be done without employing violence on their part – a very much lesser violence, they feel, than the violence to which they will put an end – I do not feel that I can judge them. Continue reading “On Revolution and Equilibrium”
Wild Lectionary: “Fire in the Earth: Burning but Flourishing”
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17 (22)
Exodus 3:1-15
By Rev. Matthew Syrdal
“There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it was not consumed… “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”
And we know, when Moses was told,
in the way he was told,
“Take off your shoes!” He grew pale from that simplereminder of fire in the dusty earth.
He never recovered
his complicated way of loving againand was free to love in the same way
he felt the fire licking at his heels loved him.
As if the lion earth could roar
and take him in one movement…
-all poetry excerpts from David Whyte, Fire in the Earth
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: “Fire in the Earth: Burning but Flourishing””
“Unity” That Is Predicated Upon My Exclusion
By Sarah Matsui, a re-post from The Mennonite
People pray to each other. The way I say “you” to someone else, / respectfully, intimately, desperately. The way someone says / “you” to me, hopefully, expectantly, intensely…
Huub Oosterhuis
Zach (not his real name) and I are still friends.
When I was living and working as a teacher in Philly, Zach remembered the challenges he had experienced during his one year teaching.
Without my asking, he cooked delicious dinners and invited me to a break from my usual peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and instant ramen. In retrospect, his were among the only nutritionally sound meals I ate during my first year of teaching. He also made a point to ask me how I was doing and how my students were doing, and he prayed for us. Continue reading ““Unity” That Is Predicated Upon My Exclusion”
Sermon: Power of Names
Preached by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann at the Day House Catholic Worker
August 27, 2017
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Matthew 16:13-20
As I read the opening piece of the text from Exodus, it feels like I am reading a script from the white men who marched on Charlottesville two weeks ago.
It begins with the Pharaoh naming his fear that the Israelites are becoming too numerous and powerful. He is scared they will out-number and over-take him. He orders that they be forced into labor and when that doesn’t work, he orders murder.
It echoes of the treacherous low-wage labor forced on undocumented folks living in constant fear.
It echoes of a prison industrial complex holding captive more black men today than were enslaved in the south. Continue reading “Sermon: Power of Names”
To Get There
By Ric Hudgens
There was that moment
when all of us
wanted to give up
walk away
leave
without a forwarding number
until we remembered
the place we would run to
was the place
we’ve been working towards
that we only see
when all of us
dream together
so we turned around
climbing back down
into the mud
returning to work
building this bridge
that one day
some one
will be able to cross
to get there.
Reverse Racism?
From Rev. Jin Kim of The Underground Seminary in Minneapolis, MN:
These days I regularly get accused of reverse racism. That is a ridiculous charge – I have one white friend.
Naming
“I think your mythology would call them fallen angels. War and hate are their business, and one of their chief weapons is un-Naming – making people not know who they are. If someone knows who he is, really knows, then he doesn’t need to hate. That’s why we still need Namers, because there are places throughout the universe like your planet Earth. When everyone is really and truly Named, then the Echthroi will be vanquished.”
― Madeleine L’Engle, A Wind in the Door
Salal + Cedar
A photo update from Laurel Dykstra, the priest of Salal + Cedar, a community of support and action located on Coast Salish territory to help Christians live out their vocation for environmental justice.
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
The Lorax
On Friday August 18 youth and young adults from Sacred Earth Camp on Coast Salish Territory brought our prayers for the earth to the Kinder Morgan Westridge Tank Facility at the end of the Transmountain pipeline expansion project. We sang a water defenders song from Standing Rock, read Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, and attached an image of this the one who speaks for the trees to the front gates. Continue reading “Salal + Cedar”
Charlottesville: A Reading List
A great list of resources from The New York Public Library’s Gwen Glazer, Librarian, Readers Services (see original post here):
Events of the past week have left many of us struggling for understanding. In such times, it can help to turn to books and authors to help us see the world through a broader lens.
The Library always seeks to provide information, so we’ve assembled a list of books—on bigotry, white supremacy, racism, anti-Semitism, social justice, freedom of speech, and more—that can lend context to the events in Charlottesville and beyond.
Racism and Anti-Semitism in America
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America by Calvin Trillin
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy Tyson
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Q. Whitman
The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan by Laurence Leamer
The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men by Eric Lichtblau Continue reading “Charlottesville: A Reading List”
