This Lent, which we observe amid blood and sorrow, ought to presage a transfiguration of our people, a resurrection of our nation. The church invites us to a modern form of penance, of fasting and prayer – perennial Christian practices, but adapted to the circumstances of each people
Lenten fasting is not the same thing in those lands where people eat well as is a Lent among our third-world peoples, undernourished as they are, living in a perpetual Lent, always fasting. For those who eat well, Lent is a call to austerity, a call to give away in order to share with those in need. But in poor lands, in homes where there is hunger, Lent should be observed in order to give to the sacrifice that is everyday life the meaning of the cross.
But it should not be out of a mistaken sense of resignation. God does not want that. Rather, feeling in one’s flesh the consequences of sin and injustice, one is stimulated to work for social justice and a
genuine love for the poor. Our Lent should awaken a sense of social justice.
- Archbishop Oscar Romero
Author: RadicalDiscipleship
She is Breathing: Listening for Another World and an End to Empire
By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. Printed in Geez Magazine.
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe… Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
― Arundhati Roy, War Talk
I think of myself as a generally hopeful person. I’ve always believed in Martin Luther King’s long arc bending towards justice. But being in Detroit, the city where I was born and raised, over the last 5 years has crushed me. In a blink of an eye, a place filled with community leadership and creativity was steam rolled by an illegitimate government and the banks. We’ve gone from a city facing transformation by thousands of gardens to facing gentrification by tens of thousands of water shut offs. Black and poor folks are being pushed out fast. The stories are too painful. The work too big. The struggle for survival too real. The powers and principalities seemingly unstoppable. It’s all too much. Continue reading “She is Breathing: Listening for Another World and an End to Empire”
A Lenten Letter to Tom Fox on the 10th anniversary of his death
By Tim Nafziger, a reservist with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) living in London at the time of the kidnapping of four CPTers: Harmeet Singh Sooden, Norman Kember, Jim Loney and Tom Fox. For more background on Tom Fox’s story and his work with CPT see Pearl Hoover’s excellent essay The Sermon on the Mount in the Life and Death of Tom Fox.
———————
Dear Tom,
On Christmas Day, 2004,
weeks after Margaret was kidnapped and killed
you wrote about an image that came to you: Continue reading “A Lenten Letter to Tom Fox on the 10th anniversary of his death”
Outrageous Anointing
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson, commentary on the Gospel for Sunday, March 13, 2016
Of all the shocking aspects of Mary’s anointing of Jesus, Judas objects to the supposed waste of money. Why not first, though, object to her apparently shameless unveiling of her hair and intimate engagement with Jesus’ feet? As Lent comes to its climax, we enter into this wildly outrageous story. Continue reading “Outrageous Anointing”
The Woman Who Built a Soulmaking Room
By Dee Dee Risher. Part of the continuing series on biblical women.
The Bible comes to us out of a patriarchal culture. At the same time, I believe firmly that the hand of the Spirit of God shaped what was recorded, however troubling or puzzling; however these recordings may reflect the dynamics of oppression in this world rather than the creative liberation I feel is core to the reign of God. I hold these two realities in tension.
Because of this conviction, I pay constant attention to the stories of women who do break into Scripture. Most of them are, predictably, relegated to the margins. They can appear sidekicks to the “real” stories of the (male) prophets, kings, patriarchs, warriors, and holy men. Yet hidden precisely within these “narratives of the margins” are the rankling questions that upset the power structures and interrogate our assumptions about God. Continue reading “The Woman Who Built a Soulmaking Room”
Threatened With Resurrection
From Guatemalan poet Julia Esquivel:
It is something within us that doesn’t let us sleep,
that doesn’t let us rest,
that won’t stop pounding
deep inside…
…because in this marathon of Hope,
there are always others to relieve us
who carry the strength
to reach the finish line
which lies beyond death. Continue reading “Threatened With Resurrection”
A Liberating & Unifying Force
From Dorothee Soelle in The Strength of the Weak: Toward a Christian Feminist Identity (1984):
The most important virtue in this kind of religion is not obedience but solidarity, for solidarity asks that we change the image of God from that of a power-dispensing father to one of a liberating and unifying force, that we cease to be objects and become subjects involved in this process of change, that we learn cooperation rather than wait for things to come to us from on high. These are all elements of mystical piety.
Empire Cracking: Reflection from Open Door Community
This interview was taken by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann as part of a writing project for Geez Magazine entitled “She is Breathing: Listening for Another World and an End to Empire.” It was published in the Winter Issue.
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann: Where are the moments for you where you are beginning to see a crack in the empire? Where is resurrection alive and being practiced? What is the story that lingers on your heart and keeps you moving forward? Is this the moment we’ve been waiting for? Is another world being birthed before our eyes?
Terry Kennedy: I believe that one of the many great things that we do here that is counter to this revenge oriented society is our stand with those who have been condemned to die. Here at Open Door we visit those who are on Death Row, we write letters and vigil at the capitol when there is an execution. Continue reading “Empire Cracking: Reflection from Open Door Community”
All Are Welcome at God’s Party!
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson, commentary on Luke 15, for March 6, 2016
There is probably no Gospel passage more beloved than Luke’s parable of the Prodigal Son. Henri Nouwen and others have rightly emphasized the image of the story’s father as the God of infinite mercy and forgiveness, who runs to meet repentant sinners before they can even confess. Yet, taken in the narrative context of Luke’s broader story, there are other themes in this parable that are important to the journey of Lent. Jesus’ parable is yet another Lucan image of the solution to the problem of exile: the practice of jubilee, with its comprehensive forgiveness and freedom from all the relational breaches that are the “fruit” of attachment to money. Continue reading “All Are Welcome at God’s Party!”
