Prayer for Mr. Trump, the human being.

On October 4, 2020October 5, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized6 Comments

By Bill-Wylie-Kellermann

O Wind of Spirit who moved across the face of chaos,
breathing life into creation and humanity.
Heal this man, afflicted in his presidency,
from the very illness he has unleashed in mockery.
Defend him from the Power of Death by which he is so enthralled
and so embraced, as to set it upon countless others
whom we pray you protect as well.
For the time and sake of mercy,
withhold the wrath of your judgement and bring him instead
into the fullness of his humanity, painful though it be.
When his breath comes easy and he wakes, may truth dawn upon him like a bolt.

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Radical Zoom Encounters

On September 28, 2020September 25, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Rev. Sekou will be hosting a revolutionary bible study for the next 8 Wednesdays

We are getting flooded with some profound Zoom webinar offerings in the lead-up to the election. Here’s a short list of dates and links that you may be interested in. Please feel free to post others in the comments section!

CRC Allies and Accomplices is presenting Defeating White Nationalism: 2020 Election Edition! on Tuesday, September 29 from 5-7pmPDT.

Since our last webinar just 2 months ago, we’ve witnessed the rapid escalation of white nationalist attacks on our communities, from the grassroots to the highest office in the United States. This movement isn’t new, but it is taking new forms. As anti-racist white people, we believe it’s our responsibility to defeat this movement.

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Community Acts of Remembering and Resistance

On September 23, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

An ethereal bike rider on a coast road in Encinitas, CA, February 2014, Jonathan Cohen CC.

By Susie Henderson. This article first appeared in Geez magazine Issue 58, Fall 2020, Breath & Bone.

Beyond the borders of church, communities are crafting practices of remembering on their own terms.

What I have learned about mourning in the streets has prompted me to dig deeper into my Christian roots, pulling forward ways of caring for, and remembering, the dead that have been covered over with weeds. These liturgies in public space have reinforced my understanding of liturgy in its original terms – work of the people.

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With Her Tears

On September 21, 2020September 18, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

From Denver-based poet, pastor and teacher Dale Carl Fredrickson.

The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World

On September 16, 2020September 9, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Radical Discipleship friends,

I wanted to share some exciting news! For the past year and a half, I have been working on pulling together a beautiful anthology that will soon be a very real book! It’s called The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World. It is being published by Broadleaf books and will be released March 30, 2021.

I began this book as a most selfish of projects as a parent overwhelmed and tired and searching for communities raising kids in these unbelievable times with a passion for justice. The contributors in this book are all ones I love dearly. They have been mentors, friends, co-conspirators, and kindred spirits.

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A Beekeepers Musings

On September 7, 2020September 1, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

unnamed2 By Marcia Lee

The end of an era is over. The beehive that started it all did not survive the summer. This hive barely made it through the winter, revived itself, and then swarmed twice. This led to two ‘new hives,’ but the bees did not leave a queen for the bees that were left behind. So many lessons from the bees for these times. I made so many small and large decisions throughout the time, many of them probably not the best. But here we are.

Yesterday one of the beehives in our backyard was robbed by other bees, wasps, and insects. When we went to look today, we found that the hive had been decimated. There was no more honey in the cells and the bodies of dead bees littered the floor of the hive. The hive was going to die one way or another, because, without a queen, a hive cannot survive. The honey went to other bees and wasps and it will help them to survive another winter. However, if I had pulled the honey, could the bees have died a softer death? Continue reading “A Beekeepers Musings” →

Class During COVID: A Modest Proposal

On July 20, 2020July 17, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship4 Comments

CLASSROOM By Kim Redigan

I am a garden-variety high school teacher who has spent the better part of the summer trying to get back on my feet after wading through the weeds of a semester marked by the COVID crisis.

Most teachers would probably agree that stepping over the demarcation line between the classroom and COVID country last March was traumatic for everyone involved. Most of us found a way to do it – and we did it well – but throughout the semester my gut was screaming that this way of doing school was brutal, untenable, unhealthy.

Most teachers work harder than people know. Our classrooms are sacred centers of hospitality. Places of grace and, on most days, gratitude. Continue reading “Class During COVID: A Modest Proposal” →

Book Review: The Cross and the Lynching Trees

On July 15, 2020June 29, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized1 Comment

Book-Review-The-Cross-and-the-Lynching-Tree_800_808_90 — Petra Zantingh, “Hospitality Tree (Zechariah 3:10),” 2018, water based media on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches, Private collection.

By Tommy Airey, This article first appeared in Geez magazine, Summer 2020, Geez 57: CO₂conspirators: Communing with Trees.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously clarified that a law cannot make a man love him, but it can keep a man from lynching him.

King knew that it would take both a change of heart and a change of policy to create a world no longer built on what he called “the giant triplets of evil”: racism, materialism, and militarism. White Christians have long obsessed over the heart. One major theological underpinning of this trend is an abstract, sentimental interpretation of the death of Jesus that sidesteps the giant triplets by spiritualizing and futurizing salvation. While Black folks are catching hell on earth, white Christians counterfeit the cross by turning it into a VIP pass to heaven. Continue reading “Book Review: The Cross and the Lynching Trees” →

This moment in history- from a trauma therapist

On July 9, 2020July 8, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Erika Fox, shared on facebook June 16.
Shared with permission

Social media is not my platform (flip phone user here) so I have not mastered the art of articulating myself with fewer words. But the words keep rising up and waking me in the middle of the night, calling me back from a decade-long break from writing I was sure was permanent, and this seems a place to share some of them despite their length.

As a trauma therapist, there is so much I could say about this moment in history, about the relationship between trauma and oppression and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. And while I will continue to hold space for the trauma (and resilience and brilliance!) of Black bodies, Indigenous bodies, and bodies of color, those are not my words to share. My deep love compels me to share these words with white bodies – because addressing our unconscious racial conditioning and patterned responses from our unhealed traumas is necessary for the work of racial justice and restoring our humanity. Continue reading “This moment in history- from a trauma therapist” →

The Trees are on Our Side

On July 8, 2020June 29, 2020 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized1 Comment

By Grace Aheron. This article first appeared in Geez magazine, Summer 2020, Geez 57: CO₂conspirators: Communing with Trees.

The cypresses exult over you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying,
‘Since you were laid low, no one comes to cut us down.’
– Isaiah 14:8

On August 12, 2017, the largest white supremacist gathering in the last 50 years occured in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia – my home. For many white people, that day was a revealing of the ugly, shuddering underside of this country’s normally “palatable” racism. For many Black folks and people of colour, it was a concentrated version of daily realities. Continue reading “The Trees are on Our Side” →