Roy Murphy at the water ceremony on the banks of the cannon Ball River. Photo by Rob Wilson Photography
Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.
On Thursday, November 3rd, 2016, over 400 clergy will be in North Dakota, hosting a multi faith solidarity circle for Standing Rock. We all cannot be there physically, but we can be there spirituality. We urge everyone around the country to take a few minutes at 9am Central Time to pray with them.
We offer this prayer, written by Lyla June Johnson (a descendent of Diné (Navajo) and Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) lineages) to say:
We pray for our family at Standing Rock.
We pray for Our Sister Water who is our life.
We pray for the healing and safety of the Water Protectors. Continue reading “Solidarity at Standing Rock”→
Denasia Lawrence kneels while singing the national anthem before the Heat-76ers preseason game on Friday night, revealing a shirt with the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” (Photo credit: Jasen Vinlove/USA TODAY Sports)
This All Saints Day, we pause to remember those saints who have crossed over this year especially mindful of those who have filled these pages and gifted our movements. Here are those we have covered this year. We invite you to add names and stories. We give thanks for their lives and rejoice that they are among us still. Presente!
As Christians, we, the undersigned clergy, are conditioned by the gospel to stand on the side of the persecuted and the jailed. As such, we are compelled by our faith to stand with the water protectors of Standing Rock, who have pricked the conscience of a nation and the world. In opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline that would carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois, they have resolutely declared that they are not protestors but protectors and defenders acting out of a sacred obligation which affirms “water is life.” Continue reading “Standing Rock: A Clergy Call to Action”→
César Chávez was the preeminent leader, voice, and public face of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Chávez is to Latinas/os what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to the African American community. Moreover, as the posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Aztec Eagle,[1] and a U.S. postage stamp in his honor, Chávez has been called the world’s most famous Latino.[2] Together with Dolores Huerta and Filipino organizers Larry Itliong and Phillip VeraCruz, Chávez founded the United Farmworkers of America (UFW). The UFW fought for increased wages and better working conditions for exploited California farmworkers and rose to national attention through the famous Delano grape strike and international boycotts of 1965-1970. Continue reading “Faith in the Life of César Chávez: Part I, “Abuelita Theology””→
Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington. – Dorothy Day
Our bodies and the land are one. Move the earth with your body, dance on it, farm in it, play with it; our final return to it is sacred. The soil is made of clay, like you and me– hydrocarbon molecules, layers of geological and muscular formations, alive. The soil, mountains, and valleys are layered with time like our layered muscle tissue. We dance on the earth in the face of death, for the healing of ourselves and the healing of the land, connected as farmers, dancers, painters, musicians, and lovers of the goodness of the good green earth moving through lament. Our bodies and the earth are one and their healing and grieving are interconnected. Continue reading “Digging”→
The legendary Vern Ratzlaff (right), Canadian Mennonite pastor and professor, was sporting his 5-inch beard long before practically every American white guy under 35 started growing theirs. Vern is spending free time at his outpost in Saskatoon reading dense anti-imperial theology and preparing sermons for Sundays at the rural church he’s been the interim pastor for the past decade. This is an excerpt from a paper entitled “Worship and Power” that he wrote for the Baptist Peace Fellowship a few years ago:Continue reading “Worship & Power”→
On Thursday, November 3rd, 2016, over 400 clergy will be in North Dakota, hosting a multi faith solidarity circle for Standing Rock. We all cannot be there physically, but we can be there spirituality. We urge everyone around the country to take a few minutes at 9am Central Time to pray with them.
This All Saints Day, we pause to remember those saints who have crossed over this year especially mindful of those who have filled these pages and gifted our movements. Here are those we have covered this year. We invite you to add names and stories. We give thanks for their lives and rejoice that they are among us still. Presente!
A message from the United Church of Christ:
By Robert Chao Romero, originally posted on the Jesus 4 Revolutionaries websiteTradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington. – Dorothy Day
By Andrea Ferich. An excerpt from Bury the Dead: Stories of Death and Dying, Resistance and Discipleship
The legendary Vern Ratzlaff (right), Canadian Mennonite pastor and professor, was sporting his 5-inch beard long before practically every American white guy under 35 started growing theirs. Vern is spending free time at his outpost in Saskatoon reading dense anti-imperial theology and preparing sermons for Sundays at the rural church he’s been the interim pastor for the past decade. This is an excerpt from a paper entitled “Worship and Power” that he wrote for the Baptist Peace Fellowship a few years ago: Continue reading “Worship & Power” 
