ByThere has been a small, weekly vigil happening across from Isaac’s school for a year now. It started when a young girl told a social worker at school she was afraid of her friends and family being deported. When the social worker asked her if there was anyway that we could support her family, the little girl said she would feel better if ICE could see that people cared. So, this small vigil is one attempt at that- to publicly say to ICE that we stand with our neighbors and that we are paying attention. There is a commitment to keep standing in solidarity until there is a justice immigration policy in place and children can live without fear. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter and the Trees: Dear Trump #2. The perfect gift.”
Category: Uncategorized
Wild Lectionary: Transfiguration
Transfiguration B
Mark 9:2-9
By Sue Ferguson Johnson and Wes Howard-Brook
“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.” (Mk 9.2)
It has been a long, wet, grey, dark winter so far here in the Issaquah Creek watershed. While we have been spared the intense cold and massive snowfalls visited upon our sisters and brothers to the east, the relentless “parade of storms” from the Pacific Ocean (as local weatherfolk like to call it) can wear away at even the most committed pluviophile. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Transfiguration”
Abrihet Queen
By Lindsay Airey
This piece was developed during the second Bartimaeus Institute Online (BIO) Study Cohort 2016-2017. These pieces will eventually be published in a Women’s Breviary collection. For more information regarding the BIO Study Cohort go here.
Abrihet Queen, given name Valerie, was born on April 11, 1960, into the Core City neighborhood of Detroit, the sixth of nine children. Her parents worked hard and tirelessly to make ends meet. She soaked in beloved community, surrounded by a wealth of grandparents and parents faithfully watching over the neighborhood. At age three, she was rescued after being kidnapped. “I was snatched,” Valerie recounts, “but the community found me, and I’m still here.” Continue reading “Abrihet Queen”
Prayer in my Pocket
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
-Jeremiah 29:13-14
Into my daughter’s pocket,
I slip two dollars to buy milk on her way home after school,
kiss her, and say a blessing over her.
This is our custom. Continue reading “Prayer in my Pocket”
Wild Lectionary: Awe
Epiphany 5B
Isaiah 40:21-31
By Camen Retzlaff
Sometimes I am asked why the Bible, especially the Hebrew Bible, says that we should “fear” God, who is love. Psalm 111:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.
“Have you not known, have you not heard?” says God in Isaiah this week. It is God who sits above the circle of the earth. We, the inhabitants of this planet, are like grasshoppers. God stretches a curtain of heaven for us, as a tent. God is reassuring here: this defeat, this moment in history, this war is not the big story. The story is so much bigger. God brings princes to naught and makes rulers of the earth like dead plants blown in the wind. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Awe”
Sermon: As One Who Was There
By Rev. Denise Griebler
1st UCC Richmond, Michigan
January 28, 2018
Mark 1:21-28
Psalm 111
Well, I will tell you this: I went to worship that evening with the usual expectations – which is to say, I wasn’t expecting anything unusual. It was just after sunset – which is when we worship. By our way of thinking, sundown is the beginning of the new day – a time to rest in God’s presence – a time to rest in the company of family and friends and neighbors. Continue reading “Sermon: As One Who Was There”
when I see you saying
By Sarah Holst
when I see you saying
that women marching
is embarrassing
all I want is for you to
listen
to the indigenous
communities crying out
for their missing and
murdered women Continue reading “when I see you saying”
Wild Lectionary: What We Do with Our Bodies
Epiphany 4B
1 Corinthians 8:4-6, 8
As to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one.” Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth–as in fact there are many gods and many lords– yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
“Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.
By David Pritchett
Fireflies and Feathers: Two Kinds of Farming
The summer of 2012 was hot in the Midwest. By the fourth week of temperatures over 90 degrees, and over two months without rain, the grass was brown and our crops in Northeastern Indiana were not faring any better. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: What We Do with Our Bodies”
Ursula: ¡Presente!
The prophetic and passionate Ursula Le Guin (October 21, 1929 to January 23, 2018), excerpted from her 2014 speech at The National Book Awards:
Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.
Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship. Continue reading “Ursula: ¡Presente!”
How Do I Reassure My Children About the Future When the Future Is Terrifying? An activist’s lament.
By Frida Berrigan, Re-posted from TomDispatch.com and MotherJones.com.
As a mother and an activist, here’s what I’ve concluded as 2018 begins: It’s getting harder and harder to think about the future—at least in that soaring Whitney Houston fashion. You know the song: “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way…” These days, doesn’t it sound quaint and of another age? Continue reading “How Do I Reassure My Children About the Future When the Future Is Terrifying? An activist’s lament.”
Radical Discipleship 