Category: Art as Resistance

Regret

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ricBy Ric Hudgens, organic pastor, soul activist, fire poet

On one of those last days together
rushing through one station to another
trying to catch a departed train
you saw the small perplexed pigeon
squatting in the passageway,
commuters veering round it
left and right. Tugging at my sleeve
to stop, I hurried you on with
forceful pace, rolling eyes, my
damn condescending smile,
and you just let it go, said
I was right, you were frivolous,
immature, nothing could be done.
It is some time ago now still
I dash through this familiar tunnel
every day too late for something
but alert for that bird and one
more chance to redeem myself.

Good Earth to Good Earth

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deniseBy Denise Griebler

I’ll shake these bones and shout and sing my life away,
It won’t be long before these bones turn to clay.
— from Shake These Bones, by Malcom Dalglish

“Good earth to good earth.”

It’s one of the things we’ll say graveside when we offer back the earthly remains of beloved Bea Wylie. Her ashes will be buried in the UP, alongside her husband, the good bishop, Sam Wylie.

A week ago I rolled out the slabs of clay. And few days later I fashioned the urn. A sprig of lavender harvested from Manna Community Garden along with grasses sporting well-defined seedheads, pressed into the clay. There’s a cross on one wall. And a bird in flight on another.   I’m told for 60 years Bea wore a bird like that on a silver chain that rested upon her heart. Unbeknownst, I made the mark of the bird in upward flight, imaging her home-going and the welcome she received as she crossed over to God. Continue reading “Good Earth to Good Earth” →

The Well of Grief

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grief wellA poem from David Whyte, passed along to the RadicalDiscipleship community by Peter Nilsen-Goodin of the Wilderness Way Community of Portland, OR.

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief

turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for something else.

The Untouchables

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From Cuban artist Erik Ravelo: photographs of children crucified by their oppressors. The first image refers to pedophilia in the Vatican. The second to child sexual abuse in tourism in Thailand, and the third to the war in Syria. The fourth image refers to the trafficking of organs on the black market, where most of the victims are children from poor countries; the fifth refers to the widespread access of weapons in the U.S. And finally, the sixth image refers to obesity and the fast food industry.

The Untouchables