Category: Uncategorized

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.

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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” →

Co-mingling of mischief

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as Theology, Uncategorized2 Comments
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Geez staff: Em Jacoby, Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, Lucia Wylie-Eggert, and Kateri Boucher Photo credit: Daniel Wylie-Eggert

Dear Radical Discipleship readers,

These last few months my life has intertwined between daily posts on RadicalDiscipleship and the crafting of word and images for Geez magazine. I love the work. My heart rises to the gathering of stories and the power of word in our work for liberation.

I am struck by the ways that RadicalDiscipleship and Geez co-mingle in their theologies, their work, and the communities of writers and readers. They bless one another and I am blessed by them both. They are different looking limbs in the common struggle.  I long to conspire more holy mischief between the two. My mind is percolating and if you have thoughts, send them my way.

In the meantime, I want to make sure the invitation for both readers and writers is explicit. RadicalDiscipleship is a daily online dose of spirit. Geez is a strictly off-line oasis of beauty and story arriving in your mailbox four times a year.

If you don’t believe me, Tom Airey, my fellow co-curator and friend said “Over the past few years, Geez magazine has been like an ice cold IPA for my soul.”

So, we are offering a rare deal to RadicalDiscipleship readers to subscribe to Geez for 20% off. (A one year subscription normally $39 a year would be $31.20 or a three year subscription for $105 is now just $84.) Simply click HERE and put in the code “RD”.

Also, if you want to join Geez’s monthly newsletter or sign up to be in our writers/artist list, click HERE.

Ok, that is as close to an ad as you are going to get on RD.

Love and gratitude for this community,

Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
lydia@geezmagazine.org

My Prayer (August, 1980)

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as Theology, Uncategorized2 Comments

OzBy Oz Cole-Arnal, former professor emeritus at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary

In his work on his manuscript-size memoirs, charting a life between the two Poor Peoples Campaigns, Oz Cole-Arnal (photo right) has reached the decade of his early to latter ’40s, the most broken period of his 78 years. He recounts betraying virtually all his values, barely able to sustain his faith & vision toward radical equality, stumbling along in brokenness, hurting all those he loved most.  One help in such tumbling was the turning to poetry, which he has rediscovered & re-absorbed. This is the first of two poems to be posted on RadicalDiscipleship.net. 

Agonizing over bills, wanting more money, always more.
  Always hungry, often empty, craving the offered promises.
              Success, manhood, recognition, love,
              Happiness in pills, food, the quick win, casual sex.
              I deplore it, yet want it all.
                             Forgive my bourgeois ways!

Continue reading “My Prayer (August, 1980)” →

The Gift of Vulnerability

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Joyce Hollyday

The jangle of an incoming text woke me from a deep sleep. “We’re in trouble,” it began. It was 5:16 a.m. California time. I was 2,000 miles from home, jet-lagged and groggy. I managed to send a reply to Michael along the lines of “Be there as soon as I can.”Michael and me with Sparky at the beach

Michael Galovic and Tamara Puffer met almost 25 years ago at the Open Door Community in Atlanta, when he was living there as a resident volunteer and she showed up one day to help out in the soup kitchen with the youth group from the suburban Presbyterian church where she served as associate pastor. Tamara kept coming back. Her time at the Open Door reshaped her theology and calling, and she began seeking a position where she could serve marginalized people like the homeless ones and former prisoners who were revealing Jesus to her there in transformative ways. Continue reading “The Gift of Vulnerability” →

Trans Mountain Lament

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Just Peacemaking, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
Photo-by-vikki
Photo by Victoria Marie

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie (June 13, 2019)

The State says they want to make things right with First Nations
Yet their actions lead to more and more desolation
Reconciliation’s just a word to those who hold power
As policies continue to make relationships sour Continue reading “Trans Mountain Lament” →

Eco-ministry

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

IMG_20190606_143405036.jpgBy Ric Hudgens

The first week of June I joined with fifteen other “ministers” for a six-day eco-ministry intensive. This retreat was sponsored by Ecology of Awakening and the Chaplaincy Institute and funded by the Riverstyx Foundation.

These sixteen religious leaders all recognized the need to re-hear our original calls to ministry. Our communities are anxious and fatigued. We minister among them in times of crisis, injustice, polarizing and sometimes paralyzing despair.

Can we embody a faith-rooted activism that protects the sacredness of the Earth?

If the Earth community is to flourish, if our future is to be regenerative, then we must change at a very core level. We need prophetic imaginations that affirm the whole of life and not merely promote our brand, or expand our tribe. Continue reading “Eco-ministry” →