18th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 24(29)
Luke 18:1-8
By Caitlin Reilley Beck
I know another story about praying, persistence, not losing heart and an unjust judge. It is happening here, on Coast Salish territory, and it is still happening. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Justice by Annoyance”
By Laurel Dykstra, printed in Geez 54: Climate Justice
Salal + Cedar is a Wild Church community in the lower Fraser Watershed. Our Eucharistic prayer and our outdoor worship are active reminders that we do not practice our discipleship and celebrate our sacred meal in First Century Palestine nor on “England’s pleasant pastures” but among a little lifeboat of companions on the territory of the Coast Salish People at a time of global climate crisis.
Our Eucharistic prayer names the creatures – plants, animals, waterways, of our bioregion. Under our creative-commons-take on liturgy as the work of and for the people – you are welcome to borrow and adapt this prayer to your work and biome. In return please credit us, note that you have made changes, and make a financial contribution to Indigenous land defenders near you. Continue reading “Watershed Eucharist”
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?
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: For What Do We Give Thanks?”
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”
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?”
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.”
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Hope in Worthless Places and Common Life”
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”
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.
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”
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”
Radical Discipleship 