There Are Other Clocks

BayoAn excerpt from Bayo Akomolafe’s These Wilds Beyond Our Fences (2017). Dr. Akomalafe is a self-proclaimed “walkout academic,” globally recognized for his poetic, unconventional, counterintuitive, and indigenous take on global crisis, civic action and social change.

The world does not careen toward progress, and human improvement and well-being are not matters owned by the practices of economic development and growth. There are songs that trees know that we haven’t heard; there are alliances that termites and the pheromones they secrete forge that we can learn from; there are wild things that do not know the moral discipline of purpose or the colonizing influence of instrumentality; and then there are murmurations—the waltz of wind, sky, starling, and ground—which are not meant to be spoken about but merely to be seen and appreciated. In short, there are other powers, other agencies, and other clocks. And, perhaps, we release ourselves not only to the performance of our many colors, but we free those in the posh parties that have somehow denied us entry from their secret fears of losing their own seats at the table, when we say, “there are other clocks, and we will not be on time.

Ideology

BindingWe continue our every-Sunday-celebration of the 30th anniversary of Binding The Strong Man, Ched Myers’ political reading of Mark’s Gospel.

…we should instead be about understanding how myth functions as political discourse–in antiquity and today.

Another term for symbolic discourse about social realities and conflicts is ideology.

…There is consensus among both Marxist and non-Marxist scholars that ideological discourse functions in one of two basic ways. It either legitimates or subverts the dominant social order: Berger calls these the “world maintenance” and “world shaking” functions. The legitimizing function seeks to lend plausibility to social reality, “giving normative dignity to its practical imperatives.”

…Ideology can also function to subvert the dominant order pursuing one of two general discursive strategies. The reformist strategy will usually argue its case from reference points within the dominant order, trying to give new meaning to established symbols. These appeals may be for purposes of retrogressive change, as for example in the New Right’s nostalgic call to return to the “traditions of the founding fathers of the USA.” Or the strategy may be progressive, in the sense that the system has yet to realize its own ideological commitments. An example would be Martin Luther King’s appeals to the Bill of Rights in order to attack racial segregation in the USA. Continue reading “Ideology”

Wild Lectionary: Be Careful How You Live

imageedit_2_7567561421Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 15(20)B

Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58

By the Reverend Doctor Victoria Marie

There is a disconnect between my Roman Catholic tradition’s interpretation of today’s gospel and an interpretation that would be more indicative of the inclusive holistic teachings of Jesus. I think the second reading from Ephesians gives us an insight to the gospel, including today’s passage. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Be Careful How You Live”

Holy Light

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Photo by Erinn Fahey

By Nancy Sehested

Holy Light,

We stand somewhere in the shadows, in-between the battlefield of our struggles and the sanctuary of our souls.

Shed a little light on our way. Keep your lighted sanctuary within us portable, able to see clearly, to walk courageously, to withstand the forces that corrupt the truth of our belonging to your one world-wide family.  Continue reading “Holy Light”

Of Deserts, Drunks and Too Much Doing

Kim RedBy Kim Redigan, a reflection on Exodus 16 for the St. Peter’s Episcopal community in Detroit

Today’s reading from Exodus is one to I turn to often. Not because it brings me comfort or consolation but because it so often mirrors my own spiritual condition. I am so like the disgruntled Israelites cursing Moses and Aaron for leading them away from the known, the familiar, the place of their oppression and into the desert where they would have to confront their own personal and communal demons. They are my people – I know them and their circuitous journey well.

For the past several months, I have been wandering in the desert of depression and grief related to some tough inner work that is part of my recovery. Although, I have been sober for 28 years, I reached a point last year where it was either grow or go. It was either stand up to the pharaohs of the past and say good riddance to Egypt or sit around a campfire ringed with barbed wire and eat to my heart’s content. All of us come to these turning points in our lives when we have to make the choice: Will it be bring on the Egyptian dessert or bring on the desert? Will we opt for fleshpots or what feels like famine? Oppression or liberation? Continue reading “Of Deserts, Drunks and Too Much Doing”

Mark as Manifesto

BindingWe continue our every-Sunday-celebration of the 30th anniversary of Binding The Strong Man, Ched Myers’ political reading of Mark’s Gospel.

Mark’s Gospel originally was written to help imperial subjects learn the hard truth about their world and themselves. He does not pretend to represent the word of God dispassionately or impartially, as if that word were innocuously universal in its appeal to rich and poor alike.  His is a story by, about, and for those committed to God’s work of justice, compassion, and liberation in the world. To modern theologians, like the Pharisees, Mark offers no “signs from heaven” (Mark 8:11f). To scholars who, like the chief priests, refuse to ideologically commit themselves, he offers no answer (Mk 11:30-33). But to those willing to raise the wrath of the empire, Mark offers a way of discipleship (8:34ff). Continue reading “Mark as Manifesto”

A Prayer for Sacred and Wondrous Child Warriors of Mother Earth

LylaBy Lyla June Johnston (right), a Diné singer, writer, and activist specializing in intergenerational and inter-ethnic healing, as well as Indigenous philosophy. This is a prayer she posted to social media on July 27, 2018.

Dear creator, may you help me and may you help the people of the world to release their fear and replace it with faith and compassion. May you help us to seek and find joy in this life. May we find bravery in the midst of so many shadows dancing in the mind. May you give us the strength to cry, and the courage to bear our hearts to the river and to the sky that we may bring all of those fears and worries we buried deep inside and lay them down on the bosom of the earth where they may heal. Let us not be afraid to feel and not be afraid of being afraid for a time. Let us come with our truth and come with our beauty. Help us to remember that we are beautiful sacred and wondrous child Warriors of Mother Earth. Give us the opportunities and the skills we need to give life and to protect life. And most of all give us peace when others present us with war. Give us love when others present us with hate. Give us smiles and laughter when others present us with petty lies. Give us the strength to pray for those that we respect the least. And give us the opportunity to plant seeds in the dirt that some day might grow into beautiful gifts for the next generation. Let us live our lives in such a way that our great-grandchildren look back and see that in the face of so much hardship we were brave and we were kind and we were loving.

The Immigrants’ Creed

ImmigrationBy Jose Luis Casal, excerpted from The Book of Common Worship: 2018 Edition. © 2018 Westminster John Knox Press.

I believe in Almighty God,
who guided the people in exile and in exodus,
the God of Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon,
the God of foreigners and immigrants.

I believe in Jesus Christ, a displaced Galilean,
who was born away from his people and his home, who fled
his country with his parents when his life was in danger.
When he returned to his own country he suffered under the oppression of Pontius Pilate,
the servant of a foreign power. Jesus was persecuted, beaten, tortured, and unjustly
condemned to death.
But on the third day Jesus rose from the dead,
not as a scorned foreigner but to offer us citizenship in God’s kingdom. Continue reading “The Immigrants’ Creed”