Category: Subverting Empire

21 Running, Working, Experiential Definitions of Mysticism

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

meditationFrom Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (1988):

By exposure to each of these “definitions” the reader will begin to feel and make connections with his or her own mysticism, for the purpose of defining mysticism here is to elicit the mystic within each person…

  1. Experience: a trust of the universe, a trust of what is and what occurs to us, yes, a trust of oneself
  2. Non dualism: the end of alienation and the beginning of communion, the end of either/or relationships and the beginning of unity
  3. Compassion: “the keen awareness of the interdependence of all living things which are all part of one another and involved in one another” (Thomas Merton)
  4. Connection Making:  by symbols, stories, myths, music and colors, form and ritual–we connect with one another’s deep and often unspoken experiences of life’s mysteries
  5. Radical Amazement: awe is the opposite of taking life for granted
  6. Affirmation of the World as a Whole:  neither neutral nor bitter or cynical
  7. Right-Brain: synthesis over analysis and verbalization

Continue reading “21 Running, Working, Experiential Definitions of Mysticism” →

Homeless Memorial Day

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

homeless-memorial-dayBy Mary Scullion, a Sister of Mercy, is cofounder and executive director of Project HOME in Philadelphia

Elaine, a 37-year-old veteran and talented artist, was homeless in a wheelchair, having lost her legs to frostbite. She suffered from severe PTSD and addiction. Veterans’ organizations and other community groups were working with her to help her to break out of homelessness, but early one August morning she was struck by a drunken driver and killed.

Jim was an accomplished lawyer before mental illness precipitated a fall into homelessness. But even during years when he lived in a shelter, he was a tireless advocate, offering his political analysis and mobilizing energies in the fight for affordable housing, health care, and other critical services. He was working on voter mobilization among the homeless community last summer when he died suddenly. Continue reading “Homeless Memorial Day” →

#BUYNOTHINGXMAS

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

nobuyFrom Adbusters:

This year, why not take a path less traveled?

Opt-out of the consumer fest that the holidays have become, the weeks of overconsumption that leave you feeling empty. Quit performing out of habit.

Think back to your fondest memories, those moments of real joy.

What might the holidays be like if you refused to hit the mall … let your friends know that you’re not accepting gifts (and not giving any either) … give back to people in real need … and if you do have to give a gift go indie or go rogue … make it yourself … inject some life back into that sedated and automatic sense of time.  Continue reading “#BUYNOTHINGXMAS” →

Baptized Into Resistance Work

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Subverting Empire1 Comment

tridentThis is the first question of a longer interview that Dan McKenzie did with Wes Howard-Brook in Seattle in October.  A read of the full interview is well worth it, available HERE on Dan’s blog.   

Dan: You mention that between the years of 1979 and 1983, you were working in Washington as a government attorney.  Then, something happened and by 1985 you were completing an M.Div.  You seem to allude to a remarkable, and unexpected transformation taking place in your own life.  I wonder if this is also why you emphasize some of the more mystical and experiential components of faith, not to mention things like communal readings, faith-based readings with the assistance of the Spirit, and hiking in the mountains or on trails by the waterways close to you.  Your studies and your areas of focus, seem to arise from deeply personal spiritual experiences.  Am I wrong it wondering about this?  Could you share a bit about your personal journey and how you ended up where you are today? Continue reading “Baptized Into Resistance Work” →

Our Essential Oneness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

vincentFrom Vincent Harding in Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement (1990):

Who knows, perhaps with insight, courage and serious study we could introduce ourselves and our students of all ages to some of the basic tenets of this nonviolent way, exploring such convictions as:

  1. The fundamental unity of all creation, including our essential oneness with those we call “enemy.”
  2. The deep and often hidden capacities in human beings to become much more than we realize; to approach much more closely the essential oneness of life; to create many more social, political, and economic manifestations of our unity than we dream.
  3. The purpose of true civilization is not to focus on higher and higher technology or greater material wealth; it is to help us live more deeply and grow more fully in the humanizing work of mutual responsibility and respect.
  4. The necessity of challenging anything–or anyone–in society (or in ourselves) that appears to destroy the God-ordained oneness, or which seeks to damage our great capacities for an ever-expanding development of our humanity.
  5. The greatest necessity of all is to seek out and hold firmly to the truths of our oneness, our hope, our mutual responsibility, our capacity to create, our refusal to destroy.  Included here, of course, is a willingness to dies, if necessary, for such truths, but not to injure or kill others.
  6. The constant, disciplined quest for personal and collective communion with the One, the divine and ultimate source of all our unity.

Continue reading “Our Essential Oneness” →

A New Boycott for a New Era

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Race, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

rosa-parksTomorrow, Shaun King and Injustice Boycott will be announcing specifics about an ongoing boycott of cities, states, businesses, and institutions which are either willfully indifferent to police brutality and racial injustice or are deliberately destructive partners with it.  Sign up to join the boycott and get more details HERE.

On this Dec. 5, the anniversary of when Dr. King and others began the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, we are launching our own Montgomery Bus Boycott to show every city, state, institution and corporation in this country that meaningful, reasonable, achievable reforms on police brutality and injustice are not our long-term dreams. They are our immediate emergency priority… Continue reading “A New Boycott for a New Era” →

Mass Civil Disobedience

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Just Peacemaking, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

mlkFrom Martin Luther King in his last book, The Trumpet of Conscience:

Nonviolent protest must now mature to a new level to correspond to heightened black impatience and stiffened white resistance.  This higher level is mass civil disobedience.  There must be more than a statement to a larger society.  There must be a force that interrupts its functioning at some key points.

The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Dorothy Day in the Soup KitchenReprinted from The Catholic Worker newspaper, May 2016

The aim of the Catholic Worker movement is to live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ. Our sources are the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures as handed down in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, with our inspiration coming from the lives of the saints, “men and women outstanding in holiness, living witnesses to Your unchanging love.” (Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer for holy men and women) Continue reading “The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker” →

Change comes from actions, not votes

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

dor-dayBy Brendan Walsh, Viva House Baltimore Catholic Worker. Reposted from The Baltimore Sun.

It is noteworthy that November 8 is Election Day and Dorothy Day’s 110th birthday. Dorothy was co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement and is currently on track for sainthood in the Catholic tradition.

Long before Dorothy was involved with the worker movement she was a journalist writing for The Call and The Masses in New York City. She was also a suffragette advocating for the right of all women to vote. She was arrested at the White House demanding that right and went on a bitter hunger strike while imprisoned in Occoquan, Va. Continue reading “Change comes from actions, not votes” →

Solidarity at Standing Rock

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Subverting Empire, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Oil Pipeline Key PlayersOn 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” →