Wild Lectionary: For What Do We Give Thanks?

On October 10, 2019October 9, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Proper 23(28) C

Luke 17:8-11
Psalm 66:1-12

He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. (Luke 16.16)

The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18.11)

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

Gratitude is a hot topic these days. Along with “mindfulness,” “self-care,” and other practices frequently promoted in books, apps and videos, gratitude has been “discovered” by people longing for relief from the anxieties and confusions of corporate capitalist culture and its desecration of life. But this week’s Gospel calls us to consider: for what, exactly, are we grateful?

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A New Afrikan Speaks on Climate

On October 8, 2019October 7, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

By Will See. Published in Geez 54: Climate Justice
Listen to Will read his piece:

Sometimes I give tarot readings. Rarely, if ever, for others.

It’s a practice I do for myself occasionally when I want to ask a question of a Power beyond my limited conscious mind.

I have a deck that I like. The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot Deck by Louis Martinez. These images and the corresponding descriptions feel ancestral yet present, African and at the same time, diasporic. Continue reading “A New Afrikan Speaks on Climate” →

Wild Lectionary: Is This Not Prayer?

On October 3, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

Proper 22(27) C
2 Timothy 1:1-14

By Christina Thomson

A while back, I listened to an On Being podcast with Krista Tippett interviewing Seane Corn. The guest, Seane, is a yogi and teacher for many, as well as the focus of a little envy on my side because of her amazing locks. In the podcast, named Yoga, Meditation in Action, she tells a personal story of a way she prays that I had not considered before: a fully embodied prayer, going through sun salutations, holding grateful and positive intentions for a loved one. In that moment, she granted me words for a feeling I had experienced many times, in many places and in many ways. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Is This Not Prayer?” →

Wild Lectionary: Hope in Worthless Places and Common Life

On September 26, 2019September 25, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA — “Abandoned Lot at 1400 Avenue E North” by Wendy Cooper

Proper 22, Year C

By Ragan Sutterfield

A couple of weeks ago I went on a birding tour of Monterey Bay. My guide on the trip was Debra Shearwater, a legend in the bird watching world, who has guided birders through those waters for over forty years. It was her birthday and it was the last season she would be leading pelagic tours.

As we watched the shearwaters, albatrosses, and murre’s of the bay, Shearwater told us about the changes she had seen. The water, she said, has changed color over the years. The krill populations have crashed and so fewer Blue Whales are seen. Over the last nesting season, large numbers of ocean-going birds had complete nesting failures, many of them not even bothering to lay eggs. “Go see them while you can,” she said, “especially the Northern birds, they are disappearing quickly.”

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This resurrection will likely be painful

On September 24, 2019September 16, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Uncategorized3 Comments

hopeful_redemption_700_525_90 — Credit: Samira, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mink/4466099617/

By Bre Woligroski. This article first appeared in Geez magazine Issue 25, Spring 2012, The utopia issue.

Those of us wannabe revolutionaries who have been working, praying and calling out for significant social change have found some tangible positive signs lately.

Our world is shifting. Some sort of change is in the air and it makes my heart leap and stirs my soul.

Stories of resistance play on every newsfeed; on a global scale, symptoms of the collapse and the collective rejection of capitalism are becoming evident. Between the Arab Spring, the struggling economies of the U.S., Greece and Italy and the growing commitment to the Occupy movement, something is moving and changing. A new way of relating to each other is on the proverbial horizon. Continue reading “This resurrection will likely be painful” →

Wild Lectionary: Balm in Gilead

On September 19, 2019September 22, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Proper 20(25) C

By Laurel Dykstra

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored? Jeremiah 8:22

Jeremiah’s exile lament uses the language of health and healing to speak of a return to faithfulness. The phrase has become an expression for a universal cure.

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Community is Bullshit

On September 17, 2019September 16, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

5109515877_515607c86a_b_800_600_90 — redit: James Darling, https://flic.kr/p/8MvB4k

By Katie Hoogendam. This article first appeared in Geez magazine Issue 43, Fall 2016, The Collectivity Issue.

The following piece is rooted in my experience as a university student at the Oregon Extension, an intentional educational community based atop a mountain in Lincoln, Oregon.

The Oregon Extension was formed by a collective of independent Christian professors in the mid-1970s and grounded in the works of Thoreau, Dostoevsky, Annie Dillard, and Wendell Berry. It is known for its cultivation and examination of “big ideas,” and has been touted as a space for seekers of all stripes and disgruntled Christians alike. This article is an update of a story that originally appeared in catapult magazine [online] and in Road Journal magazine in 2008.

God, please help me not be an asshole, is about as common a prayer as I pray in my life. – Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix

The year is 2001. Professor John casts his gaze across the batch of eager new students and, pausing for dramatic effect, calculates the measure of our idealism on some internal register built upon years of guiding sanguine undergrads. “Community is bullshit,” he grunts, turning away without explanation. Continue reading “Community is Bullshit” →

Wild Lectionary: Teach Me Wisdom in My Secret Heart

On September 12, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

products with palm oil Proper 19(24)

Exodus 32:7-14
Psalm 51
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

The words, “Your people… have acted perversely” could literally be stated today as “Your people are acting perversely.” Those words from Exodus are as applicable today as they were at the time that book of the Bible was written. Modern society has made idols of acquisition and consumption fed by greed for money and/or lust for power and prestige. Like Paul, in the first letter to Timothy, many of us “have acted ignorantly” in our complicity and support of these perverse systems that harm people and our relatives in creation. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Teach Me Wisdom in My Secret Heart” →

Wild Lectionary: Choosing Life in the Context of Climate Change

On September 5, 2019September 4, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

69907266_10156534406631146_7098887487753289728_n Proper 16(21)C

By Zoë Tobin Peterson

I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. Deuteronomy 30:19

Growing up in Vancouver, a “green city,” I have been at the forefront of a shift towards choosing life. A shift towards environmental consciousness; but consciousness isn’t always enough. We can say we choose life all we want but until there is action behind it nothing is going to change. Our reasons for action matter as well, as they determine the proportions of the actions we take. If our intentions are to save the world for our generation alone, long-term changes just aren’t going to be made. Are we choosing life out of spite? Necessity? Validation? Love? Or are we acting because we see the Earth as more than just a witness?

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The Perpetual War Stops Here

On September 4, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Plowshares’ Motions Denied, Trial Set for October 21

Thank you for supporting the Kings Bay Plowshares 7. On August 27, 509 days after their arrest, a federal judge denied all the pre-trial motions by the our friends. Today, the judge set their trial date: Monday, October 21, 2019 with jury selection beginning at 9 a.m.

The Plowshares had urged U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to dismiss their charges for numerous legal reasons as well as the fact that the hundreds of first strike nuclear weapons on the submarines based at Kings Bay Naval Base are illegal and immoral.

Continue reading “The Perpetual War Stops Here” →

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