Category: Uncategorized

Marcella Althaus-Reid

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indecent-theologyBy Grace Aheron.

This piece was developed during the first Bartimaeus Institute Online Cohort (2015-2016), aka “The Feminary.”  These pieces will eventually be published in a Women’s Breviary collection.  For more information regarding the Feminary go here.

 “Only in the longing for a world of economic and sexual justice together, and not subordinated to one another, can the encounter with the divine take place. But this is an encounter to be found at the crossroads of desire, when one dares to leave the ideological order of the heterosexual pervasive normative. This is an encounter with indecency, and with the indecency of God and Christianity.”

– Indecent Theology, 2000

While the drum beat of the purity cult of Christianity rings through our bodies and bones, causing our feet and hands and desires to fall in step, there are voices— high and descant, low and elemental— that waken us from the single-file lines of decency. Marcella Althaus-Reid was one of those voices. Continue reading “Marcella Althaus-Reid” →

#NoDAPL Day of Action at Army Corps of Engineers- A Call to be a Visionary Engineer

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

defend-the-sacredToday people across the United States are standing in solidarity with the water protectors at Standing Rock demanding that the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the federal government halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. To find an action in your city, go here (https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/nov-15-nodapl-day-of-action-at-army-corps-of-engineers).

Today is a day for engineers to listen and heed their call as one which honors indigenous voices, protects the waters and earth, and upholds justice in our communities. Below is an excerpt from Erinn Fahey’s chapter in Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregionalism Faith and Practice which discusses her vocation to become a “visionary engineer.”

“Engineers have an opportunity to be visionary: to reimagine our work as a craft that manages the human footprint while also restoring right relationship with the earth; and to create opportunities for people to engage in self transformation. In the Next American Revolution, Grace Boggs calls people to be visionary organizers: Continue reading “#NoDAPL Day of Action at Army Corps of Engineers- A Call to be a Visionary Engineer” →

People and Prayers

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
laurel-dykstraBy Laurel Dykstra, Salal and Cedar
I am home again in Coast Salish Territory praying about how to be an accomplice to the work of Indigenous Water Protectors at Standing Rock, to speak only for myself but centre Indigenous and traditional voices. Greg, of the Cheyenne River Sioux was my host at Oceti Sakowin Camp. When I asked what I should tell people at home, he said, “Pray, keep praying.” And when I asked what they needed he said, “More people and more prayers.”
I am a priest but I have never been any place where they prayed so much—I averaged 5-6 hours per day in prayer and ceremony here doing things that most people think of as prayer—with special words, objects and actions. But prayer here includes healing dance on a critical river crossing that held off police and security, a sweat lodge on the pipeline path, sacred pipes in front of armored vehicles. Prayer is not a limp sending of good feelings that excuses your absence it is practical and concrete. So as Greg is calling for more prayers and you can send them from your wallet here http://www.ocetisakowincamp.org/donate you can bring them with bike locks to your financial institution that funds DAPL, you can head to your centres of government and law enforcement and invite them to sit down and pray with you and refuse to leave until they do.
Greg also called for more people, and to his call out I will add these words from Kelly Sherman, Oglala Lakota: “If you visit Oceti Sacowin please remember you are a guest. Please remember it is not about you. Please remember the traditions and ceremonies you are welcomed into are sacred. Please remember your visit is not a vacation. Please remember some moments are sacred and do not need your camera.Please remember that sacred moment, that sacred time, will be a picture embedded on your soul. Not on your phone. Donations are helpful, social media sharing is helpful. But what Standing Rock needs is your physical presence. However when you are there please remember if you do not know what to do first you listen. Secondly you listen. Thirdly you listen. And if you do not know how to do that…stay home.”
For more information on solidarity and allyship-
http://www.standingrocksolidaritynetwork.org/

Change comes from actions, not votes

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

dor-dayBy Brendan Walsh, Viva House Baltimore Catholic Worker. Reposted from The Baltimore Sun.

It is noteworthy that November 8 is Election Day and Dorothy Day’s 110th birthday. Dorothy was co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement and is currently on track for sainthood in the Catholic tradition.

Long before Dorothy was involved with the worker movement she was a journalist writing for The Call and The Masses in New York City. She was also a suffragette advocating for the right of all women to vote. She was arrested at the White House demanding that right and went on a bitter hunger strike while imprisoned in Occoquan, Va. Continue reading “Change comes from actions, not votes” →

Solidarity at Standing Rock

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Subverting Empire, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Oil Pipeline Key PlayersOn Thursday, November 3rd, 2016, over 400 clergy will be in North Dakota, hosting a multi faith solidarity circle for Standing Rock. We all cannot be there physically, but we can be there spirituality. We urge everyone around the country to take a few minutes at 9am Central Time to pray with them.

We offer this prayer, written by Lyla June Johnson (a descendent of Diné (Navajo) and Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) lineages) to say:

We pray for our family at Standing Rock.
We pray for Our Sister Water who is our life.
We pray for the healing and safety of the Water Protectors. Continue reading “Solidarity at Standing Rock” →

Remembering the Cloud of Witnesses

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, UncategorizedLeave a comment

cemThis All Saints Day, we pause to remember those saints who have crossed over this year especially mindful of those who have filled these pages and gifted our movements. Here are those we have covered this year. We invite you to add names and stories. We give thanks for their lives and rejoice that they are among us still. Presente!

Teresa Grady

Joe Morton Continue reading “Remembering the Cloud of Witnesses” →

Digging

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

bury-the-deadBy Andrea Ferich. An excerpt from Bury the Dead: Stories of Death and Dying, Resistance and Discipleship

Our bodies and the land are one. Move the earth with your body, dance on it, farm in it, play with it; our final return to it is sacred. The soil is made of clay, like you and me–  hydrocarbon molecules, layers of geological and muscular formations, alive. The soil, mountains, and valleys are layered with time like our layered muscle tissue. We dance on the earth in the face of death, for the healing of ourselves and the healing of the land, connected as farmers, dancers, painters, musicians, and lovers of the goodness of the good green earth moving through lament. Our bodies and the earth are one and their healing and grieving are interconnected. Continue reading “Digging” →