Why is Grandpa in Jail?

On June 21, 2018June 21, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized12 Comments

33116241_10214353738810852_6880318968586829824_o By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

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.

It is a broken, sad system.

So, why is Grandpa in jail? Continue reading “Why is Grandpa in Jail?” →

Wedding Poem

On June 18, 2018June 18, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

crescent_moon By Bill Wylie-Kellermann
For Joanna and Eitan, August 25, 2010

When the half-moon hangs
faint in the mid-day sky
and earth already turns toward dusk
make a wedding

When the city, faint and far, cracks and cries
and blood forgotten runs beneath the streets
make a wedding

When earth and sea gasp for air
when the heat is on
and dread would rise
make a wedding Continue reading “Wedding Poem” →

Planting Their Work In Community

On June 16, 2018June 13, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Another compelling post “From The Front Porch” of Ruby Sales, co-founder of The SpiritHouse Project:

During the Southern Freedom Movement we used the term freedom high to refer to participants who flitted from action to action without planting their feet in any community. Instead they sought the thrill of the moment. Therefore their work did not bear fruit.

Today freedom high seems to describe what I am observing as activists move from one action to the next without planting their work in community. Continue reading “Planting Their Work In Community” →

Into this River: For your baptisms Ira and Cedar from your parents

On June 15, 2018June 15, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

Written by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
with Erinn Fahey, Lucia & Daniel Wylie-Eggert
For the baptisms of Ira Cole and Cedar Martin
June 11, 2017

With the swallows in quick flight
The willows making music in the wind
The movement of the water at our feet
And a circle of people we love
We step into this river Continue reading “Into this River: For your baptisms Ira and Cedar from your parents” →

Wild Lectionary: Where the Mustard Seed Grows

On June 14, 2018June 5, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

On the Road to Golgotha

Proper 6 (11) B
4^th Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 4:30-32

By Anne Ellis

The day was beautiful, the strangely liminal day that is Holy Saturday. Good Friday had come and gone and we awaited the Good News of the Empty Tomb. Knowing it would come made the day of waiting oddly anticipatory, there was an air of excitement and without realising it we instinctively moved towards joy. We don’t like to feel the pain and suffering of Good Friday any longer than we absolutely have too, so it’s easy to slip and forget that those alive and grieving on that first Holy Saturday so long ago had no idea how the story would continue. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Where the Mustard Seed Grows” →

What Remains

On June 11, 2018June 5, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

psalm By Dee Dee Risher

For her 40th birthday, my friend, artist Michaelanne Harriman Helms asked a group of artist friends to spend a year reflecting on Psalm 90. We all did work—some of it visual art, some of it written. She asked me to write on the themes that came up for me, sparked by the psalm. For me, that became a three-part poem. But for our broad community at Radical Discipleship, I have adapted that poem into this psalm-prayer. I suggest reading Psalm 90, then this redaction of my poem.

To gain a heart of wisdom, I must
no longer
number my days:
release the clock that haunts
my small self,
lusting after illusions of influence
which will decay, scatter, leave no mark Continue reading “What Remains” →

Kings Bay Plowshares- a poem

On June 8, 2018June 7, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Kate Foran

Dissent without civil disobedience is consent. Philip Berrigan

Our friend Mark sits in a jail cell again
and I stand in the lunch hour line
under fluorescent lights
at the post office with my toddler
to buy a stack of pre-stamped postcards,
the only kind acceptable to mail,
written only in blue or black ink,
no stickers, glue, glitter, or pictures,
no letters or packages. Continue reading “Kings Bay Plowshares- a poem” →

Wild Lectionary: Imperial Logic and Creation

On June 7, 2018June 5, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

cows enslaved Proper 5(10)B

1 Samuel 8:4-20, 11:14-15
Genesis 3:8-15

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

Then Joseph said to the people, “Now that I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh, here is seed for you; sow the land. And at the harvests you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones.” They said, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be slaves to Pharaoh.” (Gen 47.23-25) Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Imperial Logic and Creation” →

Ordinary Time

On June 4, 2018June 1, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

violet By Dee Dee Risher

God, this day,
return me to ordinary time.
Small actions of love:
touching a beloved’s hand,
catching the eye of a stranger,
a pause to contemplate that single violet,
all blooming purple heart. Continue reading “Ordinary Time” →

Veteran for Peace

On June 1, 2018May 30, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, UncategorizedLeave a comment

index By Kate Foran

For my father at the start of the second Iraq War, 2003

You enlisted thinking
you were protecting something,
thinking maybe even
you were protecting me
when I was just a “twinkle in your eye”
and the crossfire lit the night
and missed you.
You did not know then
that you’d want to protect me
not from some enemy
but from the question,
Did you kill anyone, Dad? Continue reading “Veteran for Peace” →