A Day that Directly Confronts the Sorrows and Death We Must Forever Negotiate

KingFrom the preface to Michael Eric Dyson’s April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America (2008):

When Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered, I was a nine-year-old school boy. I had no idea who he was, had never heard his name or seen him in action. Just as technology had allowed him to speak at his own funeral, it offered me my first glimpse of King’s oratorical magic. Like so many folk born after he died, I first met King on television. I was sitting on the living room floor of my inner city Detroit home. “Martin Luther King, Jr., has just been shot in Memphis, Tennessee,” the newsman announced, interrupting whatever program we were watching. My father sat behind me in his favorite chair. He was barely able to utter “humph.” It was one of those compressed sighs that held back far more pain than it let loose. It came from deep inside his body, an involuntary reflex like somebody had punched him in the gut… Continue reading “A Day that Directly Confronts the Sorrows and Death We Must Forever Negotiate”

If We Aren’t Willing to Tell the Truth

LorraineFrom Jyarland Daniels, the executive director of Harriet Speaks:

April 4th will be upon us soon, and we will read articles like this for days. I want to ask (read: beg) you to remember language matters.

This article says, “50 Years After Dr. King’s Death…” “Death” is also used throughout the article. If we stop and think about the word “death” for a moment we see history is being sanitized and re-written before our very eyes.

You see, “Death” is the word we use when someone does of old age, or perhaps after a battle with an illness, or even an accident. But Dr. King was MURDERED. And not only that, but we now know that this government was complicit in his murder. 

Language matters. Words matter. If we aren’t willing to tell the truth and use the right language for how King died, then we aren’t ready to talk about what his life meant.

Holy Week Actions!

Seattle2Whidbey Island (WA) based spiritual director and activist Marcia Dunigan reports that earlier in the week, she threw in with about 60 others (including small children) witnessing at a Table Turning event (right) in Seattle in front of the ICE administration building in the rain and cold. This is from the Table Turning website:

Tragically, institutional Christianity in the U.S. has become aligned with nationalism and capitalism. So the aims of Table Turning are:

  • Reclaiming the subversive tradition of Jesus in the public sphere
  • Centering marginalized voices to tell their own story and define their own identity, while interrupting a culture that allows only the powerful to be heard
  • Increasing participation in faith-based social justice activism
  • Repentance and realignment of our own lives away from oppression and toward liberation

Continue reading “Holy Week Actions!”

Ratzlaff Review: Justice & Only Justice

VernAnother short and sweet book review-summary from legendary pastor Vern Ratzlaffposting up on the Canadian prairies, pouring his heart and mind into anti-imperial theology and soul-tending. 

Justice and Only Justice. Naim Ateek, Orbis, 1989.

Ateek is (Anglican) canon of St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem and pastors its Arabaic speaking congregation. The claim for security for the one people, the Israeli Jews, has been purchased at the expense of the just claims to the land of another people, the Palestinians. In Ateek’s words, the Israeli Jews seek peace with security, and the Palestinians seek peace with justice. Continue reading “Ratzlaff Review: Justice & Only Justice”

Seraphim Serpents, Bronze Gifts, and Saving Sights

CrossBy Jim Perkinson, a sermon on John 3: 14-21 and Numbers 21:4-9 (March 11, 2018, St. Peter’s Episcopal, Detroit, MI)

The sermon begins today with this year’s early advent of the parade for St. Patrick. The sea of green we already witnessing this morning provides interesting backdrop for the lectionary readings. In mainstream Christian invocation, Patrick is remembered for clearing the snakes from Ireland and often depicted as such, with crozier in hand and coiled serpents at his feet. Patrick mastered the slithering ones. But for our purposes here, it is important likewise to lift up Afro-diaspora creativity with the Gaelic saint and his serpents. In colonized Haiti, the displaced slaves amalgamated their traditional Yoruban-Dahomean-Congolese spiritual practices with the Roman Catholic orthodoxy into which they were forced. For them, the depiction of the snake-mastering Patrick “spoke” of Damballah, the Creator-Serpent-Spirit (or Loa, in their terminology) whose surreptitious presence they saw “mounting” Patrick in possession and using his snake proclivity to express something quite different. Far from banning the Serpent Power, for the creolized community of the French colony, Patrick became the host body for this African indigenous spirit-guide. The Snake mastered Patrick. And something like that intuition will help us open the Hebrew text to its indigenous root this morning. Continue reading “Seraphim Serpents, Bronze Gifts, and Saving Sights”

Activate That Love

LyniceIn an interview a few years back, Rev. Lynice Pinkard of the Oakland’s Seminary of the Street was asked if there was ever a time that she lost her faith.  This was her answer.

Through it all I’ve continued to love Jesus and the prophets. I love the church. I am a product of it, and I have spent my life serving it in various ways. The problem for me is that institutional church programs and denominational structures are too often removed from real, radical, biblical discipleship. The institutions often become bulwarks against the movement of the Spirit and act to preserve old patterns of power ill-suited to the real message of our faith. And I have to admit that Christians sometimes scare me. I even scare myself.
Continue reading “Activate That Love”

The Ways

Japan-1
PC: Michael Raymond Smith

By Tommy Airey

Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.
John 20:25

In order to believe (Greek pistis), Thomas had to see and touch the brutal wounds inflicted by empire. Belief, for the first radical disciples, was far more than head knowledge. It was about what one pledged allegiance to, who one was willing to suffer and die for. Thomas wasn’t going down with some crazy-ass conspiracy theory about Jesus the tortured-and-crucified freedom fighter coming back from the dead.   Continue reading “The Ways”

The Friendly Fire Collective

May DayFrom fellow angelic troublemakers in the Philly area:

The following is a call for a gathering in Philadelphia, PA from May 1st to May 3rd.

Local Quakers and friendly mystics from around the so-called “United States” are gathering outside of so-called “Philadelphia,” from May 1-3rd for direct action, worship, collaboration, mysticism, and fellowship to stir-up an emerging revolutionary Christian/religious Left. We invite mystics and people of faith from all traditions who share our struggle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world.” (Ephesians 6:12)

In the Spirit of International Workers’ Day, we will be participating in various direct actions which are currently being planned by our ever growing planning committee. The retreat fee will be a sliding scale of $45-95 and we will have scholarships available to ensure accessibility. If you would like to donate to allow poor, qpoc, and other marginalized people come to our event please email us.

For safety concerns we will not be discussing the location of our event until a few weeks out.

We are currently taking applications for the May Day retreat! Apply here!

For more information: friendlyfireinfo@protonmail.com https://friendlyfirecollective.wordpress.com

#RevolutionOfValues: A Week of Creative Action

RevolutionThe U.S. Department of Arts and Culture has no connection whatsoever to the government.  It is a people-powered department—a grassroots action network inciting creativity and social imagination to shape a culture of empathy, equity, and belonging.  The USDAC is  calling on artists, creative organizers, concerned citizens, and all community members to join together from April 2-8, 2018, to draw inspiration from and breathe new life into the prophetic words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., strengthening our commitment to speak truth to power and sparking creative action in the year ahead. Below are some ideas that the USDAC has provided to help spark the imagination.

MORE INFO ON #REVOLUTIONOFVALUES:

“Radical” is a much maligned word: it comes from the Latin radix (root), and refers to anything that goes to the root of the matter, rather than tinkering with the leaves and branches. Many people have downplayed Dr. King’s deep spiritual and political radicalism, trying to whitewash his true views. Now it is more important than ever to use our creativity to nourish the roots of love and justice. Continue reading “#RevolutionOfValues: A Week of Creative Action”

Digging In

EucharistLast month, Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries hosted its annual Kinsler Institute in Southern California’s Ventura River Watershed (right). This year’s theme was “Digging In: Heels, Histories, Hearts,” an exploration of the roots of individual and collective stories and an examination of what it takes to recover from addictions and renew spirits for long term healing and movement building (all photos from Clancy Dunigan).

The reviews are sprouting forth, testifying to a mind-blowing and heart-expanding week.

From Grace Aheron, a poet, pastor and gardener living on 8 acres of land in an intentional community in the vicarage of a rural Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Continue reading “Digging In”