By Katerina Friesen. Reposted from Watershed Discipleship blog.
Christ our Resurrection and Life,
We call to your presence
los desplazados, los desconocidos.
We call to your presence those lost in the desert,
those killed in the name of border security.
Rescue the perishing, strengthen the faltering,
and guide those finding their way tonight. Continue reading “A Prayer for Migrants”
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”
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”
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”
As 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
By 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”
Lent 1B
Genesis 9:8-15
Mark 1:9-15
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”
A 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”
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”
Radical Discipleship 