Category: Biography as Theology

Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, RaceLeave a comment

lydia die inBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. First published on Geez’s blog.

The sun hits my face hard as I listen to the water from the fountain. As I look up and around, I am aware how little this downtown resembles the city I know anymore. The faces are all young and white (not unlike my own) playing beach ball, listening to live bands, sipping mid-day cocktails, and eating from food trucks. I look down at the 25 black bodies lying on the cement draped with signs and names of those killed at the hands of the police. On my lap sits the one-and-a-half year old who is my constant companion and teacher these days. He watches intently holding an air of seriousness in his body. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence” →

Learning from Laughter: Beside the Beaver’s Dam

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

DSC00655“I love nature. Nature is cool. The forest is my classroom. The earth is my school. Trees are my teachers. Animals are my friends. And on this school all life depends.” Joe Reilly, I Love Nature

Isaac tiptoes through the forest, climbing over fallen branches and stopping to smell each flower. We follow behind delighting in the comfort he finds in the place. Down the hill and around the bend of the stream, we walk the deer’s path honoring their daily wisdom and knowledge of this wood. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Beside the Beaver’s Dam” →

A Seven-Month Honeymoon Sabbatical: Our Journey with BCM and Spiritus Christi

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Sarah and MyraBy Sarah Holst

We got married on August 30, 2014 in a park in Duluth, Minnesota. The sun came out just in time for the service. A butterfly joined us on the altar. A flock of seagulls flew over our heads. We had a mixed gender wedding party, a blessing with Lake Superior water was given by our mothers, friends read from Job and Matthew, John O’Donohue and Rumi, and we printed a special acknowledgment in the program to the indigenous people of the area in regards to use of the Lake Superior Watershed, their home.
Continue reading “A Seven-Month Honeymoon Sabbatical: Our Journey with BCM and Spiritus Christi” →

The Open Door Has Enriched Me, Enlivened Me & Emboldened Me

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Open DoorBy Melvin Jones of the Open Door Community of Atlanta

*This piece was first published in the April 2015 issue of Hospitality.
———————-
August 29, 2014, marked my 20th year of being buried in the bowels of the beast. On August 29, 1994, my DeKalb County judge sentenced me to 20 years imprisonment for a voluntary manslaughter conviction that I felt, and still feel, should have been adjudicated as justifiable homicide.

Because I was an outspoken prisoner activist and prison abolitionist, the administrative politics of the Prison Industrial Complex sought to silence my justice-based, morality- grounded outspokenness. I refused to shuffle my feet, scratch my head, prostrate in submission, or kowtow in hopelessness. As a result, the beast buried me for every single day of my 20-year sentence. Still, I rise…
Continue reading “The Open Door Has Enriched Me, Enlivened Me & Emboldened Me” →

Charge to Pastor

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debGiven by Dr. Deborah Conrad, Pastor at Woodside Church in Flint, MI at at Installment Service for Denise Griebler.

Denise has asked me to deliver the charge to the pastor today, so I’m happy to share with you these thoughts rolling around in my head:

Work hard; in fact, work all the time. Don’t go bowling or see a movie if there is something else more ministry-like that you should be doing. Set goals and don’t stop until they are met. Take failure personally. Let the anger of one person outweigh the joy of 99 (because isn’t there a parable about that?). Set high standards and never let yourself off the hook. Be innovative. Start new traditions. Buck the system. Maintain a high level of righteous indignation. Stay up on the news. Be creative, spiritual, humble, well-loved. Be an excellent preacher. All the time. Seriously, 52 weeks a year, plus festivals. One single mediocre sermon is beneath you and will undo all the good you are trying to accomplish here. Be relevant, empathetic, deep, engaging, confident. And hip with young people.
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Guest Ethics

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology1 Comment

CPTFrom John of Christian Peacemaker Teams

For the last year, I have lived as a guest. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Since I graduated college last May, taking that so-called next step into “adulthood” (whatever that is), I have lived as a guest in other people’s spaces. Talking with other people who have also just finished college, there is something inevitable about this – whether you move to a new city, move back to your parent’s place, or stay in the place you went to school, you’re not really “at home.” To attend a residential college, as I did, is to already be living in someone else’s space – a college campus or a dorm can be “ours,” the student body’s, but because each of us spend so little time in it, it is never really “mine.”
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Reflections from a Jesuit Volunteer

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harryHarry Huggins is a Jesuit Volunteer in Detroit serving formerly homeless residents of a supportive housing building. When he’s not serving the residents at work or his roommates at home, he writes.

Bud dealt heroin and cocaine before and while he lived on Detroit’s streets. He’s wheelchair bound now, and he’s one of the social hubs of the supportive housing building where I serve. Last Thursday, Bud stopped me in the hall outside his apartment to pitch a project idea.

“I’m gonna tell you something,” he said. “I used to deal drugs. I was damn good at it. Heroin. And you know why I was good at it? I noticed things.”
Continue reading “Reflections from a Jesuit Volunteer” →