Category: Uncategorized

relinquishing the patriarchy

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized1 Comment

3599EC8E-44F3-4B67-8C7A-4B49B90EA906-924x1024By adrienne maree brown, re-posted from her website.

dear men.

this is mostly a note to straight, cis men; but also includes trans men, queer men, and all who participate in masculinity – if you see yourself in these words, this is a love note to you.

patriarchy (the system of society/government in which men hold the power and women are excluded from it) is collapsing, and it’s time for you, too, to give it up, to get yourself out.

it won’t be easy.

i don’t believe total revolution or liberation happens in one generation, but i know from my own life and many lives i have witnessed and accompanied, that it is absolutely possible in your lifetime, in a generation, to personally relinquish an unjust ideology, to begin to practice a more evolved way of being.
Continue reading “relinquishing the patriarchy” →

Stranger Courage

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Uncategorized5 Comments

By Joyce Hollyday

In honor of his 75th birthday, I was inscribing to my friend Randy a copBetsy & Randy - July 2019y of a book that I co-authored. I wanted to thank him for inspiring me to “greater commitment, deeper compassion, and…”—well, something about courage. Having already used “greater” and “deeper,” my mind was momentarily absent of adjectives. After a little thought, I settled on “stronger.” Continue reading “Stranger Courage” →

Wild Lectionary: Trembling Birds

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
3787980398_cbf23f841c_b
 Pigeon Pair by Hal Trachenberg, Creative Commons

Proper 13(18) C

Hosea 11:1-11

By Laurel Dykstra

Today’s lectionary passage from Hosea is a potent cocktail that mixes parental love and anger with political violence and nature imagery. More broadly and more problematically, the prophet’s oracles:

  • imagine religious fidelity and commitment to justice, as sexual fidelity within patriarchy
  • conflate non-monogamy and sex commerce
  • assume that sexual violence (reparative rape) is a husband’s prerogative
  • equate military violence and invasion with divine judgement.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Trembling Birds” →

A Cross of Human Bodies: How 71 Catholics Were Arrested for Protesting Immigrant Child Detention

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Uncategorized3 Comments
aerial_in_rotunda_v.2
Image via Kayla Lattimore

By Rose Marie Berger, re-shared from Sojourners

I spent five hours as a guest of the U.S. Capitol Police last week. It was hot, really hot. And those plastic handcuffs leave bruises.

I was one of 71 Catholics arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police in the rotunda of the Russell Senate building in Washington, D.C., for “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding” while praying the rosary. My prayer was — and is — to end the warehousing of immigrant children in cages — 63,624 of whom have been apprehended by border patrol at the southwestern border between October 2018 and June 2019 and seven of whom have died after being in federal custody since September. More than a dozen Catholic orders and organizations sponsored the event. Seven Catholic bishops sent letters of support. Continue reading “A Cross of Human Bodies: How 71 Catholics Were Arrested for Protesting Immigrant Child Detention” →

Named and Claimed By God

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized3 Comments
2019-07Jul-21 Oscars Baptism_0060
Photo by Chris Baker Evens

Katie Aikins is pastor of Tabernacle United Church in Philadelphia. She and her wife Heather Bargeron are parents to their adopted 20-month-old son Oscar Emmanuel Aikins-Bargeron.  Katie preached this sermon on the occasion of Oscar’s baptism on July 21.

Baptism without the church, without the community of faith, would make no sense. One of the promises we make as parents is to raise our child in the community of faith.

This Heather and I know: That though we will make our promises to Oscar and to this church to raise him to follow in the way of Jesus Christ, to show love and justice, to resist oppression and evil, we also know that alone, we as parents will not be enough for Oscar to live into his full calling and identity as a child of God. The community of faith —the place where we are practicing resisting evil together, where we are growing together in our practices of justice and love – this is the context in which baptism unfolds in its meaning and fruitfulness.  Continue reading “Named and Claimed By God” →

Wild Lectionary: Swimming in the Wastestream

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
for wild lectionary.jpeg
Photo credit: Laurel Dykstra

Proper 12(7) C

By Lini Hutchings

O God, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Glory be to the One who is making the heavens and the earth
and to the One who comes in solidarity to heal all division,
and to the One who sustains us in the Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Swimming in the Wastestream” →

What We Learn in the Kitchen: An Introspection on the Black Queer Daughter

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Kendall Waterman, Re-shared from Geez magazine.

What_We_Learn_in_the_Kitchen_800_644_90
Amanda Greavette, “With Woman,”

“My mother connects me to a past I would have no other way of knowing. And in this sea of whiteness, of friends, enemies and strangers, I look at her and know who I am.”
– Michèle Pearson Clarke, Transition

Two minutes into a phone call with my mother and she has launched into a full review of her church’s leadership transition, recounting details of a recent board meeting in which she was obliged to provide her unique clarity.

“Visionaries need me, they can’t explain what they want but I can see it. If you shut up and leave me alone, I can make it happen.”

We go on to chat about a young family friend who just broke up with her first girlfriend.

“It’s a big mess. This is why God never designed women to be romantically involved with other women. Too many emotions.” Continue reading “What We Learn in the Kitchen: An Introspection on the Black Queer Daughter” →

Pastoral Letter

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

8699828939_8a53b785ab_bBy Laurel Dykstra

in those days before the flood
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage

My scarred and raging
weary-eyed beloveds

ordinary defiant
with your teaching-outfit selfies
purple hair
fancy waistcoats
songs in a new range
carpentry projects
surfboards
magic card tricks
raspberry canes

You are magnificent Continue reading “Pastoral Letter” →

Wild Lectionary: Remembering to listen in turbulent times

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
Remembering-to-Listen
Remembering to Listen, Trans Mountain Pipeline route Burnaby, BC

Proper 11(16)

Genesis 18:1-10a
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

When I first looked at these readings, it was the day when the UN High Commission on Refugees released the latest figures. “An unprecedented 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are nearly 25.9 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18.” The agency also reported that “There are also millions of stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.”

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Remembering to listen in turbulent times” →

Mothering Behind Bars: A Conversation with Siwatu-Salama Ra

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Mothering_Behind_Bars_800_250_90
Siwatu-Salama Ra and family, freesiwatu.org.

Re-share from Geez magazine.

Siwatu-Salama Ra is an environmental justice activist in Detroit, Michigan. Two years ago, she was arrested for pulling out a gun when someone violently threatened her two-year-old daughter. She was a licensed gun owner and never fired a shot. She was found guilty of felony firearm and given a two-year mandatory minimum sentence. She gave birth to her son while in prison. After serving eight months, she has been released on bond as she awaits her appeal. Her case raises many questions about self-defense, racial disparities in the justice system, and the treatment of incarcerated women. Her story also highlights the power of organizing and community. Lydia Wylie-Kellermann interviewed Siwatu while she was out on bond awaiting her appeal.

Geez: Could you start by introducing yourself and saying a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Siwatu-Salama Ra: My name is Siwatu-Salama Ra. I’m a daughter of a long-time community organizer and activist, Rhonda Anderson. I was raised by a single mother who raised all four of her children and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. I followed a lot of what my mom did, and I started environmental justice work at about 14.

Recently, people have given me another title – a difficult title – of being a political prisoner. I was released from prison almost five months ago. I came home to a baby who was turning six-months-old, who I had given birth to in prison. And a three-year-old who is close to being four now. I left when she was two. Continue reading “Mothering Behind Bars: A Conversation with Siwatu-Salama Ra” →