From Ruby Sales and Rev. Jacqui Lewis, who, today, begin the Caravans to the Borders Movement by facilitating a Mourn-In and a Day of Fasting at the Cayuga Center in New York City to shed light on the inhumane conditions, deprivation and homelessness that asylum seekers and refugees endure in 21st century sites of terror called detention centers, in addition to shedding light on the sexual crimes against Brown and Black girls by guards and others in the immigration industrial complex:
We fast to begin Caravans to the Borderlands where we navigate the terrain necessary to redeem the soul of America from its historical sins: the dehumanization, commodification, captivity, fragmentation, criminalization, state sanctioned rape, psychological terrorism, spiritual injury and economic exploitation of Black and Brown bodies. These assaults bind us together because they invade all of our lives despite our social location. Therefore, this is the common ground that will shape and universalize our movement.
We will not only mourn and fast, we will celebrate and resurrect the cultural resources that generations of all colors have developed and used in freedom struggles. We will unveil a list of demands to the government, and we will not rest until they are met.
A few years ago I was visiting good friends at an intentional Christian community in a large city. This was a community I dearly loved: For many years, persons from privileged backgrounds, following Jesus’ call, had served, lived with, and developed ministries with the folks who lived on the streets of that city. They engaged in powerful and creative prophetic witness to the compassion and justice of God, insisting on a commitment to struggle with society’s most marginalized persons. These good saints had taught me, inspired me, challenged me, and emboldened my faith in countless ways. Continue reading “Is Small Always Beautiful?”→
Written by Mark Colville from jail. Serving time for the Kings Bay Plowshares
Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples. – – Mark 4:26-34
There’s a consolation that flows from this parable, “the seed grows of itself,” that I’d not found before.
Day to day life here is dominated by the experience and the effects of scattering. The collective that makes up this cellblock – any cellblock – is just about as far from an intentional community as could be imagined. Everyone here has been torn up by the roots, violently and unwillingly, from his community of choice. We’ve been cast together, literally on top of one another, haphazardly. The only intentionality apparent in how we’ve been assembled by the jailer (the farmer?) is in the separating of friends and co-defendants. It might be argued, or even assumed, that the randomness is specifically intended to prevent the possibility of healthy community living. For the past 45 years, no nation has invested itself in the prison industry with the vengeance of the United States. Not only does the per capita size of our prison population dwarf those of other countries, but we have developed the incarceration project into a finely tuned experiment in anti-community. The prison staff here, typical of thousands nationwide, are highly trained in managing our dysfunction, but completely unequipped to deal with anything substantive within these walls that might resemble unity, mutual empowerment, or even rehabilitation. They are so skilled at anticipating and responding to our violence that the promotion of an agenda that fosters it is a foregone conclusion. And yet, irrepressibly, community happens. The Rastafarian plays chess with the Aryan Brotherhood guy. The violent misogynist and the peace activist read scripture together, praying from the heart. The Mexican awaiting deportation draws an incredible orchid in blue pen on a postcard for the gringo to send home to his wife, and politely refuses anything in return. Food changes hands at meals; one homesick guy gives his place in line at the phone to another; the old man held here for over a year without bail rejoices with the twenty-something who expects to get to a halfway house this week.
We are seeds, scattered. Nothing good is supposed to grow here – that’s against policy. When it happens – and wherever they’ve tossed me, it always happens – they inevitably dig it up and scatter it again. And we sleep and rise, night and day, and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, they know not how.
There’s a sign that keeps appearing at immigrant’s rights marches back in New Haven. I think I saw it first with the families of the disappeared students in Mexico: “They thought they buried us. They didn’t know that we were seeds.”
When my life
feels weighted with care,
tossed between headlines,
I know one truth,
maybe two,
that inform my situation. Continue reading “Solstice of Dread”→
I have a small garden in my front yard, a smattering of plants, haphazardly planted–perennials and annuals, flowers and herbs and vegetables, “weeds” that I’ve welcomed and cultivated for their benefits to the soil and small wild things that make my yard their home. I water infrequently and mulch heavily–a plant must do well here or I take it out for something that won’t be too much trouble to grow.
From the prophetic imagination of Nick Peterson, currently pursuing his PhD in Liturgics and Ethics at Emory University:
Do you find that your race or ethnicity prevents you from getting humane treatment in life? Well, this product is for you. This bracelet will instruct those who you encounter in the real world to treat you like you are white. In an age of colorblindness and implicit bias, nothing can communicate more clearly how you should be treated. When an officer pulls you over – treat me like I’m white. When you are being followed by a clerk in a nice store – treat me like I’m white. When you are in a restaurant and they don’t want to seat you or let you use the restroom – treat me like I’m white. When you go to the bank – treat me like I’m white. Basically, in any formal and mainstream circumstance, there is no better way to be treated. For less than $5, you have a wearable reminder to the world to – Treat You Like You’re White! Order Here!!
My Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I want to acknowledge that this courtroom, this city, and all of us stand on traditional, ancestral and unceded territory, that of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh, stewards of this land since time immemorial. I am here today as I was on the day I was arrested for participating, like others, in nonviolent civil disobedience – standing in solidarity with Indigenous people, here on these territories, and across Turtle Island. I mean no disrespect to the court in my actions. I simply wish to live in a way that honours those whose voices, stories, and wisdom predate the court system on these lands, and whose rights remain unrecognized. I hope that one day we will not only adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People in theory, but put each of its articles into practice as a starting point for true reconciliation. Continue reading “Let Justice Roll Like Rivers: A Court Statement”→
the other small thing i can offer is an abolition spell, for siwatu, for the babies at the border, for their families, for all political prisoners, for all nonviolent offenders, for all those who have caused harm and are not being helped to find a different way.
White gravel crunched under our feet. Body weight shifted to stabilize the self while beholding evidence of history that destabilized the world. Continue reading “Libations for Emmett Till”→
I wrote this as a children’s book for Isaac during the Poor People’s Campaign. He was very concerned about why Grandpa kept going to jail when we were also teaching about how we dont believe in jails and prisons. So, I wrote this to try to explain it to him. We printed it out and he and Cedar and Ira and their friend helped illustrate it as a birthday gift to my dad.
Why is Grandpa in jail?
We don’t like jails. We think they shouldn’t exist.
If people make bad choices, there are better ways to help them be better.
Talking.
Caring.
Paying attention to what they need.
Teaching.
Loving.
Locking people up for years of their life only….
Takes them away from their families.
Makes people feel lonely.
Takes them away from the sun and the trees.
From Ruby Sales and Rev. Jacqui Lewis, who, today, begin the Caravans to the Borders Movement by facilitating a Mourn-In and a Day of Fasting at the Cayuga Center in New York City to shed light on the inhumane conditions, deprivation and homelessness that asylum seekers and refugees endure in 21st century sites of terror called detention centers, in addition to shedding light on the sexual crimes against Brown and Black girls by guards and others in the immigration industrial complex:
By Will O’Brien
By 
From the prophetic imagination of Nick Peterson, currently pursuing his PhD in Liturgics and Ethics at Emory University:
By adrienne maree brown. Re-shared from 
Pilgrimage Reflections: The Gospel and the Politics of Race
By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
Radical Discipleship 