Category: Watershed Discipleship

Abundant Community

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Scouts_readingThe following is the third post in a series by Kate Foran about exploring an alternative kindergarten education for her daughter Sylvie.

This picture was taken last November at a harvest gathering (note the bowls of squash soup) that I participated in with other children and parents. At the time, I was still wrestling with whether to enroll Sylvie in school or not, and the moment captured in the picture stands out for the way it tipped the balance toward “DIYing” her education instead. It was in some ways a typical preschool group story time (I think we were reading Curious George), but in other ways it was remarkable, because it was not a moment I organized. Instead, a child handed me the book and asked me to read it. And soon the other children crowded around, piling onto my lap and leaning on my shoulders. I was aware at the time of the great privilege of having the trust of these children, and it occurred to me that the spontaneous connection and even the physical closeness was not something that could easily occur in an institutional setting.   Sylvie was a bit ruffled at having to share her mom, but she was satisfied when I explained to her that I got to be a teacher to these other kids the way that their parents got to be a teacher to her. Continue reading “Abundant Community” →

Opening Statement- Homrich Trial

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Watershed Discipleship1 Comment
homrich trial
Photo credit: Cait De Mott Grady

Last week began the trial for Bill Wylie-Kellermann and Marian Kramer for blocking the water shut off trucks in Detroit a year and a half ago. The trial continues to be underway. Here is Bill Wylie-Kellermann’s opening statement to the jury.

11/20/15

Good afternoon…

Thank you for serving on this jury. I myself am called to serve on a jury the week after Thanksgiving so, depending on how long this trial goes, I could be very soon sitting in your seat. Part of me frets about how I’ll do it after a week of trial (who will cover pastoral calls and soup kitchen), but I do understand the importance of it, especially given the seat I’m in today. I’m a native-born Detroiter and honored to be counted among the people of Detroit, eligible for a jury, part of a body that brings conscience and care to serving justice in the City. Continue reading “Opening Statement- Homrich Trial” →

i thank You God for most this amazing

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Photo Credit: Meg Marshall
Photo Credit: Meg Marshall

By e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

A Different Kind of Movement

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Tim DeChristopherCompelling quotes from Tim DeChristopher in Wen Stephenson’s recent piece on climate justice in The Nation:

Our job as a movement is no longer just about reducing emissions—we still have to do that, but we also have this new challenge of maintaining our humanity as we navigate this period of rapid and intense change. And with that challenge, with that job, we can’t avoid the spiritual aspect of what we’re doing. We can’t avoid talking about our most fundamental principles, and our most fundamental values, and the things that we want to hold on to the most. We can’t avoid talking about our larger worldview and our vision for the world.
———— Continue reading “A Different Kind of Movement” →

Bees and the Great Economy

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beesBy Dave Pritchet. Second post in a series on bees from the Wilderness Way, Portland, OR

For millenia, people around the world have noticed the economy of bees.  The Roman writers Virgil and Varro lauded bees for their thrifty behavior, and the Greek philosopher of economics Xenophon used them as an example of economic well-being.

For over 100 million years, bees have been evolving with plants, providing the service of pollination in return for nectar.  As the agents of genetic exchange for a host of plants, bees are at the heart of what Wendell Berry called the Great Economy.  Berry notes that if the biblical Kingdom of God includes all and that humans by default, whether they are aware or not, live within it, a modern rendering of the phrase would allude to the economy of nature. Thus, the “Great Economy” becomes shorthand for that which humans both live within and live by. Continue reading “Bees and the Great Economy” →

Care for our Common Home

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pope francisBeginning in the middle of the last century and overcoming many difficulties, there has been a growing conviction that our planet is a homeland and that humanity is one people living in a common home. An interdependent world not only makes us more conscious of the negative effects of certain lifestyles and models of production and consumption which affect us all; more importantly, it motivates us to ensure that solutions are proposed from a global perspective, and not simply to defend the interests of a few countries. Interdependence obliges us to think of one world with a common plan. Yet the same ingenuity which has brought about enormous technological progress has so far proved incapable of finding effective ways of dealing with grave environmental and social problems worldwide. A global consensus is essential for confronting the deeper problems, which cannot be resolved by unilateral actions on the part of individual countries. Such a consensus could lead, for example, to planning a sustainable and diversified agriculture, developing renewable and less polluting forms of energy, encouraging a more efficient use of energy, promoting a better management of marine and forest resources, and ensuring universal access to drinking water.  – Laudate Si!, POPE FRANCIS’ ENCYCLICAL ON THE CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

When Bees Talk…We Listen

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

BeesBy Solveig Nilsen-Goodin, Wilderness Way Community, Portland, OR

“I heard something…” she said.

I had just spoken the final, “Amen,” closing the prayers at our weekly gathering as the Wilderness Way Community on a sunny Sunday afternoon in early June. But she had heard something. And she needed us to hear it too.

It was a message from the bees.
Continue reading “When Bees Talk…We Listen” →

Composting as Spiritual Discipline

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Watershed Discipleship3 Comments

DSC01674By Kyle Mitchell

Kyle lives with his wife Lynea on the 3rd floor of an old house in Cleveland. They have a couple egg-laying hens in the backyard and tons of red wiggler worms. Kyle spends his days working alongside folks with developmental disabilities on a 2-acre urban farm down the street from his house. In his spare time, he works alongside Lynea in the 2 youth gardens she started in the neighborhood. They are both passionate about growing food, spreading that knowledge, and figuring out ways to get healthy food to folks that don’t have access to it.
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A few years ago I was reading a book on permaculture and I came across a quote about soil that captured my imagination: “The soil is miraculous. It is where the dead are brought back to life.” This launched me into the slow process of being re-wired – seeing with new eyes, altering my actions, converting myself to the truth that the soil is not dead, but alive! I could no longer waste what I once thought was waste. I had to get in touch with the death-brings-life cycles of creation, and I had to do this through a tradition called composting. Continue reading “Composting as Spiritual Discipline” →