Category: Uncategorized

time(lessness)

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, UncategorizedLeave a comment

imagesBy Marcia Lee, Detroit, MI

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.
Albert Einstein.

Time in its measurements of hours, minutes, days, and years is a human construct that we have created to make order in our lives.  (Think of how many different calendars there are in different parts of the world and terms we use like people of color time, Asian time, etc.). We want a certain level of structure and having time to measure events allows us to have something outside of ourselves, a ‘science’ if you will, to give purpose and stability to our decisions.  This is how people come to say things like, “If only I had the time,’ or ‘there are not enough hours in a day.’ This, I call ‘human time.’ Continue reading “time(lessness)” →

Wild Lectionary: Be Careful How You Live

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

imageedit_2_7567561421Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 15(20)B

Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58

By the Reverend Doctor Victoria Marie

There is a disconnect between my Roman Catholic tradition’s interpretation of today’s gospel and an interpretation that would be more indicative of the inclusive holistic teachings of Jesus. I think the second reading from Ephesians gives us an insight to the gospel, including today’s passage. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Be Careful How You Live” →

Holy Light

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment
20180812_110523
Photo by Erinn Fahey

By Nancy Sehested

Holy Light,

We stand somewhere in the shadows, in-between the battlefield of our struggles and the sanctuary of our souls.

Shed a little light on our way. Keep your lighted sanctuary within us portable, able to see clearly, to walk courageously, to withstand the forces that corrupt the truth of our belonging to your one world-wide family.  Continue reading “Holy Light” →

Wild Lectionary: Fleshy Bread

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Sea of Galilee from TiberiasProper 14B
August 12, 2018
John 6.41-51

By Wes Howard Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Jesus, John 6.51)

As we enter this shocking passage from John’s gospel, it might not seem at first very “wild” or earthy in the tradition of “Wild Lectionary.” Metaphorical bread from the sky hardly seems connected with the flowing life of rivers, forests and animals that is the focus of this series. Yet as we listen closely to the imagery of this Gospel, we may be surprised to find that Jesus’ Word about “bread” is more earthy than it appears at first glance. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Fleshy Bread” →

Joy’s ascendance, This stuff could get you in trouble

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Ken Sehested

“For Jesus, there are
no countries to be conquered,
no ideologies to be imposed,
no people to be dominated.
There are only children,
women and men to be loved.”
—Henri Nouwen

Yes. This. Of course. No doubt about it.
I stake everything on this claim. Continue reading “Joy’s ascendance, This stuff could get you in trouble” →

Connoisseur

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

indexBy Kate Foran

For Steve

Your appetite has a reputation of its own. Dinner hosts glow as you ask for seconds and thirds and they marvel that a person of your moderate size can put so much away. You must have several hollow limbs, they wonder, and you offer your compliments to the chef, tasting everything again. Before you go to a party you “pre-eat,” you say, so as not to embarrass yourself. You remember your life as a series of meals—the loaf of bread Mrs. DiMartino baked you for your seventh birthday, the pasta your grandmother made and draped over chairs and towel racks in the kitchen, the collards and fried chicken you ate with gusto, to the delight of the local cook in Memphis. You never encountered a meal you didn’t like. Continue reading “Connoisseur” →

Wild Lectionary: Of Raspberries and Eternal Life

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

August 5-18 picProper 13B, Year B
August 5th, 2018

John 6:24-35

By Svinda Heinrichs

I pondered the Gospel of John passage for this Sunday as I took a walk down the hill into the ever-expanding raspberry patch in the field to the place where the raspberry bushes and forest meet. I ate my fill of the red, juicy, sweet bursts of sunshine and made my way back up the hill marvelling at how the shrubbery had grown up over the two years since we cleared the space to make a better view for ourselves. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Of Raspberries and Eternal Life” →

Raising Boys

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

20180722_114619By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. Published in Geez Magazine‘s most recent issue on Gender Flex.

“Mommy, baby is tired. I need to put baby in the pack and walk,” says Cedar, my two-year-old. I quickly design a make shift baby carrier tying his baby doll to his stomach. He walks back and forth across the house and then stops and sways. After five minutes, he heavy sighs and says disappointedly “baby is still awake.” He walks on mumbling to himself about how baby needs his milk and how the baby is too little to drink water out of a cup and baby just needs his milk. Continue reading “Raising Boys” →

Choose Life

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

20180713_100030By Katerina Friesen

Praising/ Adoring
We are Your field, O Lord,
and we praise You as Your planting, the work of Your hands!
We praise You for Your watchful eye,
for the way You bend over us and smile
as we grow from tender stems to ripe harvest,
for giving us rain and sun in due season.
We praise You because You never give up on us,
but coax new life from barren ground again and again.
We are Your field, O Lord,
and we praise You as Your planting, the work of Your hands!

Affirming Faith
Voices 1: We will not bow down to serve other gods:
the gods of war, the gods of greed, the gods who destroy the Earth.
Voices 2: We will not bow down to the gods of racism,
to gods who make us feel either inferior or superior,
to gods who do not love us, but demand our devotion.
All: We choose life!
Voices 1: We choose to serve the God of Abraham, and Isaac,
the God of Sarah and Rebecca, of Mary and of Jesus,
Voices 2: We choose to serve the God of our ancestors in faith,
of Paul and Lydia, of Menno Simons and Margaretha Sattler,
of Vincent and Rosemarie Harding.
All: We choose life! We will hold fast to the Lord, the God of life.

Sending
God has set before us today life and death. Let us continue
to walk in God’s way, assured that our ancestors walk before us,
that Christ walks with us, and that the Spirit binds us together
and helps us to choose life.