Category: Watershed Discipleship

The 40 Birds of Lent: Observe

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments
Song Sparrow
Song Sparrow

By Laurel Dykstra

Observe a holy Lent—the prayerbook enjoins, then spells it out with this austere prescription: self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and reading and meditating on the word of God.

I am someone with a Lenten disposition. My own natural reserve, saying “no” for its own sake, and avoiding extravagance, were honed by my family and by my participation in certain discipleship traditions. Whatever the liturgical season, I engage in above average quantities of penitence, fasting, almsgiving, and no shortage of (critical) self-examination. But there are places where rigor can’t take you, and the 40 Birds of Lent is one of those places. Continue reading “The 40 Birds of Lent: Observe” →

Wild Lectionary: Meeting Myself in the Mountains

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
mountains-in-the-landscape-behind-the-skyline-of-vancouver-canada.jpg
Photo credit: Deb Rousseau

Lent 2B
Mark 9:2-9

By Casper Zuzek

A little over a year ago as I entered the season of lent, I was feeling close to Jesus in a way I never had before. I was attending Catechism classes at my parish while preparing for my impending baptism- a time in my life that would mark a significant transition. At least that was the transition that I was preparing for publicly. Privately I was preparing for a different kind of transition. I knew that shortly I would be showing my whole self to people for the first time ever. This was the season I spent preparing to be honest with others (and honest with myself) about my gender identity as a trans person. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Meeting Myself in the Mountains” →

A Sermon, A Poem, A Prayer? To Speak as Water

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship3 Comments
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A dam in Pennsylvania. Photo by Erinn Fahey.

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
Preached at Day House Detroit Catholic Worker, February 18, 2018

Genesis 9:8-15
1Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:12-15

Who am I?
I am fierce and gentle.
I am life and death.
I am ancient and new.
I am solid and fluid and gas.
I am in you and around you.
I am above you and below you.
I am the snow and the rain,
The creek, the stream,
the river, and the sea. Continue reading “A Sermon, A Poem, A Prayer? To Speak as Water” →

Straight Facts on Water Consumption

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

WaterAs the issue of water accessibility and affordability intensifies more and more every waking hour, let’s tap into the facts in the ground regarding actual consumption (from a Wall Street Journal article from a few years back).

Households: 4 billion gallons/day

Mineral Extraction: 4 billion gallons/day

Industry: 18.2 billion gallons/day

Agriculture: 128 billion gallons/day

The 40 Birds of Lent

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

Eagle WMMBy Laurel Dykstra

Several years ago I participated in the Wilderness Way Community’s Lenten challenge: to spend 10 minutes each day outdoors in prayer or meditation. Due both to my own inclination and the fact that Lent falls where I live during spring migration, mating and nesting season, this experience, which I described to others as “going outside and paying attention,” quickly turned into going outside and paying attention to birds. Continue reading “The 40 Birds of Lent” →

Wild Lectionary: God’s Gonna Trouble the Waters

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

IMG_7545.JPGLent 1B
Genesis 9:8-15
Mark 1:9-15

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Water flows through our ancient Judeo-Christian texts. Righteousness pours down like a mighty stream (Amos 5:24), and Jesus offers relief to those who thirst (John 4:13–15). Before whales or eagles or humans did, God dwelt among the waters (Gen 1). The creation of heaven and earth commenced through a parting of the seas. Rains fell, destroying all creatures except those aboard an ark, awaiting a rainbow covenant that promised an end to the waters of judgment (Gen 9:11–17). The Israelites flee from their oppressors to freedom through the miracle of a parting sea that offered safe passage from empire into the wilderness (Exod 14). In the Gospels, Jesus was baptized into the wildness of the river Jordan (Mark 1:9f), became living water at the well (John 4), and shed tears over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). From the beginning, water has offered a call to discipleship. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: God’s Gonna Trouble the Waters” →

For Ash Wednesday: Let Us Join With Creation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

CedarA litany of repentance from the Salal + Cedar community, seeking transformative encounters with the species and geography of the Fraser River to Salish Sea basin and the wider Cascadia bioregion:

May all I say and all I think
be in harmony with thee,
God within me,
God beyond me,
maker of the trees.
Chinook prayer, Pacific Northwest

We stand in this place, this watershed, this holy ground, remembering its creatures and asking them respectfully to stand with us. Stand to remember together our stories. Stand to be in conscious, respectful relationship. Stand to resist commercial interests at creation’s expense. Let’s join with creation in pledging ourselves to live to praise God’s holy name. Continue reading “For Ash Wednesday: Let Us Join With Creation” →

Wild Lectionary: Transfiguration

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
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Fresh buds on Tiger Mountain

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” →

No Additional Comments

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment
Mike Lansing
PC: Michael Smith

By Tommy Airey

Lansing, Michigan

Decades ago, Alice Walker suggested that the White House should be run by twelve grandmothers. I spent my Wednesday at the state capital bearing witness to the obvious brilliance of her proposal.

It was almost two years since my first visit to Lansing, days after the Flint water poisoning scandal broke out like an upper respiratory infection.  The brutal part: both viruses still linger.

Back then, business brought my friend Mike to Michigan. But his heart and his camera prodded him all the way to Capitol with me to brave a single-digit-wind-chilled protest during the Governor’s annual State of the State address.  A year later, the state’s Civil Rights Commission issued a scathing 135-page report naming “systemic racism” as a major factor in Flint’s water contamination. Redlining, white flight to the suburbs, intergenerational poverty and “implicit bias” were all chronicled as contributing to the unnatural disaster.  Fifty years after the Kerner Commission report, history came full circle. Continue reading “No Additional Comments” →