Category: Uncategorized

Wild Lectionary: We Live in Relation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
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Landscape with Shepherd and Sheep; Anton Mauve, Vanderbilt lectionary project for art

Proper 29(34)

Jeremiah 23: 1-6

By Reverend Kelly Giese

Jeremiah’s oracles of a future king, a messiah, indicate that the sheep, the pasture, the people, the flock, never leave the watchful eye of the Lord.  All are referred to as “mine” belonging to Yahweh. There is a close association of the Lord the God of Israel to those who  shepherd and know the sheep; and to the land, its fecundity, and even to the spiritual lives of the sheep and shepherds: God dispels fear, corrects those who are in error, and even finds the missing. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: We Live in Relation” →

The Zeitgeist of Grief

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Lane Patriquin, originally printed in Geez 54: Climate Justice

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Grief Rituals Credit: Molly Costello (link below)

Tolstoy believed that every generation has a zeitgeist – an emotion that acts as the unspoken guiding force of a time in history.

^Lane Patriquin reads their piece as part of Geez Out Loud. The audio is an exact reading of the written article.

For those of us coming of age in the climate-changed world of late-capitalism, it could be said that the predominant guiding force of our generation is grief.

With the news media surrounding us every day, we are steeped in images of grief. Whales washing up on shores with stomachs full of plastic. Pollinators dying off. Climate change records surpassed decades before predicted, and neo-fascist governments suppressing environmental conservation efforts around the world. Continue reading “The Zeitgeist of Grief” →

Wild Lectionary: Another World Is Possible

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
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Photo Credit Brynn Craffey, Vancouver Climate Strike, 2019

Proper 28 (33) C
Isaiah 65:17-25

By Brynn Craffey

This week’s first Lectionary reading from Isaiah features a vision of the Almighty who promises to create, “new heavens and a new earth,” in which, “the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” Restoration is a theme running through Isaiah, and today’s passage conjures up visions of utopia in my soul. I imagine old paradigms collapsing, social justice replacing unfairness throughout the land, and communally supported programs, such as Medicare for All and robustly-funded public health care systems, ensuring that, “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.”  

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Another World Is Possible” →

Let Me Sing to You Now, About How People Turn into Other Things

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

indexA Review of The Overstory by Richard Powers, by Sarah Holst. Originally published in Geez 54: Climate Justice.

Last year, during the enormous, bursting green of Minnesota in July, my partner and I welcomed our first baby into our arms and into the cradle of the Tischer Creek Watershed.

Somewhere within those first months of the strange unveiling upheave of being a mama, I learned to read a book with one hand while balancing a baby sleeping on my chest. We were fortunate to welcome a stream of loved ones into our home in this time, and one of them brought with her The Overstory, a book travelling on the relational lines of beloveds deeply embodying lives of meaning in a time of climate catastrophe (like adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy before it). Continue reading “Let Me Sing to You Now, About How People Turn into Other Things” →

Unsettling Histories: Decolonizing Discipleship- An Invitation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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“Bartimaeus Billabong”, painted for the 2019 BKI by Australian Indigenous artist, Safina Stewart. www.artbysafina.com.au

2020 BARTIMAEUS KINSLER INSTITUTE

February 17-21, 2020

Forest Home Camp, Oak View, CA

Questions? Email us.

Unsettling Histories: Decolonizing Discipleship

Following on from BKI2019, when we listened to and learned from a range of Indigenous voices, this year we are focusing on the work required of us white settlers to build deeper solidarity with Indigenous peoples.We have a new flyer (please use it) and a new program planning committee (PPC), including the BCM team, former attendees of multiple BKIs, local Chumash indigenous leaders and past BKI planners -artist Rev. Bob Two Bulls (who is kindly gifting use of his artwork again) and Rev. Art Cribbs from LA. As Art put it “The 2020 BKI aims to help us restore “20/20” vision”.

BKI 2020 is the middle year of a 3-year sequence curated to build capacity for Indigenous solidarity from different angles: at the 2019 BKI Indigenous Justice and Christian Faith: Land, Law, Language we listened to Indigenous Voices; in 2020 we will focus on the work required of white settlers; and in 2021 we’ll learn from the experience of non-white, non-indigenous settlers of color.

 

EcoFaith Recovery and the Practices for Awakening Leadership

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments
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“Discover Our Stories” by Sarah Holst

By Solveig Nilsen-Goodin, originally published in Geez 54: Climate Justice

“Are you a self-help group?” “Are you a church?” “Where do you worship?” We get these questions a lot! But for EcoFaith Recovery, the answers are more evolutionary and revolutionary than simply yes or no.

EcoFaith Recovery was birthed in 2009, when Robyn Hartwig began calling together friends and colleagues in Portland, Oregon, to try to make sense of our addictive culture and its escalating symptoms – the economic, social, ecological, and spiritual crises culminating in global warming and climate chaos. Gathering in those early years, we embarked on a process of discovery. Not unlike the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, we discovered that we felt more sane just by coming together. We felt less alone. We were less despairing. And we also discovered common experiences and feelings among us that compelled us to seek a way of recovery. Continue reading “EcoFaith Recovery and the Practices for Awakening Leadership” →

Wild Lectionary: Saving Corporate Lostness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

IMG_4227Proper 26(31)
Luke 19:1-10

By The Rev. Marilyn Zehr

19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.
– Luke 19:10

If the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, who could be more lost than large corporations whose actions defile the earth and her creatures? But wouldn’t corporations need to be “people” in order to be saved? Apparently in the USA, corporate personhood is a thing. Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Saving Corporate Lostness” →

Reading the Bible as a Trans-Affirming Ally

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized2 Comments

indexBy Mx Chris Paige

Reading the Bible while transgender involves sorting through many distortions and biased assumptions that have been passed along, both through tradion and translation. Often critics are so confident in their bias that they aren’t even looking at the text. My book, OtherWise Christian: A Guidebook for Transgender Liberation, has only been out for a few months, so I am only beginning to encounter trolls, but I have already seen “conversations” devolve into “because I said so” non-arguments. Looking past the strident (and often ignorant) opposition is the first barrier to reading the Bible as a transgender-affirming ally. Continue reading “Reading the Bible as a Trans-Affirming Ally” →

Wild Lectionary: Insect Armies and Fearful Soil

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

37661337_684148725265061_5398280923315699712_oProper 25(30)C

Joel 2:23-32

By Laurel Dykstra

In the Christian bible the book of Joel is three chapters long, in the Jewish bible four.

Joel describes a years long plague of locusts in military language. The people are exhorted to fast, pray and repent from ambiguous transgressions. An oracle of consolation—divine promise of restoration–is followed by a raw prayer of revenge equating Israel’s restoration with the defeat and humiliation of surrounding empires.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Insect Armies and Fearful Soil” →