Category: Watershed Discipleship

Taking the First Step: Addiction, Ecology & Recovery

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SNGBy Rev. Solveig Nilsen-Goodin of the Wilderness Way Community in Portland, a team of Jesus-followers committed to “discovering wisdom for our time, healing for ourselves and our planet, and the power of untamable (resurrection!) life!” She and her partner Peter are also active participants with Eco Faith Recovery, a growing network of faith-based people and institutions within the Christian tradition, waking up to the enormity of the ecological-economic-spiritual crisis before us. Their children, Soren & Stig, recently interrupted our dinner conversation with chants of “We hate coal! We hate coal!” (above: the Nilsen-Goodin family)
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The profound ecological degradation we are currently witnessing and the rise of addictive behaviors such as alcoholism and drug addiction are two sides of the same coin.
Albert LaChance

Waking up to the developing global ecological crisis is like moving from being a child in an alcoholic family to growing up and going into recovery.
Continue reading “Taking the First Step: Addiction, Ecology & Recovery” →

Somewhere Between Sturgeon, Graffiti, and Jubilee

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jimBy James W. Perkinson. Written in preparation for the Detroit Spirit and Roots Gathering this upcoming weekend in Detroit hosted in part by Word and World. Published on On the Edge, a Detroit Catholic Worker Paper.

This summer in Detroit, some of us will attempt a new thing. Tentatively, slowly deliberately—we will convene a dialogue among three communities of inspiration. One is rooted in postindustrial soils, breaking street savvy into spit finesse, spun bodies, and tagged walls. Another is deeply historical, born of peasant resistance against ancient Roman might, itself gone genocidal and colonizing. The third, most rooted, is embedded in soils and waters, seasons and weather, enculturated by the place itself. Hip-hop, Christian, and indigenous by other names—three constituencies roughly demarked, will make common cause in concern for the future of de troit, the strait. We have named it the “Detroit Spirit Roots Gathering” and seek to serve a re-spiriting of the city in part by learning from each other’s stories. Continue reading “Somewhere Between Sturgeon, Graffiti, and Jubilee” →

A Storm Blowing From Paradise…

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Pope Francis delivers his speech in St. Peter's square at the Vatican during his weekly general audience Wednesday, June 26, 2013.(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis delivers his speech in St. Peter’s square at the Vatican during his weekly general audience Wednesday, June 26, 2013.(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

By Ched Myers (4 Pentecost: MK 4:35-41)

Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.

This Sunday’s gospel text is the poignant story of Jesus and his disciples caught in a storm at sea, which threatens to drown them. It is a profound, archetypal scenario that Mark narrates twice (again in 6:45-52). Because today is the day that Pope Francis’ historic encyclical on climate crisis is being published, I will focus on how this appeal addresses the storm that is Climate Catastrophe. A month from now I will return to Mark’s sea stories for Pentecost 8 (on which day the Lectionary inexplicably hops over the second boat journey in its piecemeal gospel selection, which we’ll rectify!). Continue reading “A Storm Blowing From Paradise…” →

Learning from Laughter: Beside the Beaver’s Dam

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

DSC00655“I love nature. Nature is cool. The forest is my classroom. The earth is my school. Trees are my teachers. Animals are my friends. And on this school all life depends.” Joe Reilly, I Love Nature

Isaac tiptoes through the forest, climbing over fallen branches and stopping to smell each flower. We follow behind delighting in the comfort he finds in the place. Down the hill and around the bend of the stream, we walk the deer’s path honoring their daily wisdom and knowledge of this wood. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Beside the Beaver’s Dam” →

When they turn off our water..

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water stationWritten by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann for the Detroit Peace Community’s Stations of the Cross. This week the City of Detroit has resumed shut offs to 30,000 homes.

When they turn off our water, prohibiting us from cleaning our clothes or our bodies, they strip us of our dignity.

When they turn off our water, leaving us unable to care for medical needs and sewage backs up, they strip us of our health.
Continue reading “When they turn off our water..” →

The Only Path to Resurrection

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abundant table farm projectRepost from The Abundant Table Farm Project–a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Flight to Arras (1969):

Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed.

The Pedagogy of Place: The Whisper of the Wind

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DSC00079By Tommy Airey, the final post in a series about how we learn from our location about what is truly Divine
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In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.
Toni Morrison

Immediately, he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side…
Mark 6:45

The wind is deceptive in Detroit. When it is at your back, you forget it’s even there. On the bike, on my way to the church, the electronic marquee at the Prince Valley Supermercado registers 25 degrees. I doubt it. I’m traveling fast and I’m working up a sweat. But at the end of the work day, trekking west back to the block, I have a stubborn epiphany, once again, that the wind was there all along. Now it’s 40 out, but the wind is blustering my face off, cracking my lips into a pot pie crust. It’s virtually impossible to complete the journey without cussing. A lot.
Continue reading “The Pedagogy of Place: The Whisper of the Wind” →

The Pedagogy of Place: Psalms & Seinfeld

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DSC00005By Tommy Airey, the 2nd post of a 3-part series about how we learn from our location about what is truly Divine

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
Jerry Seinfeld

When I met Reggie on a Tuesday morning a few weeks ago, he was beaming a world-class smile. He was copping a holy swagger. After his second cup of coffee, he hollered at me from his seat 20 feet away: “is it the 7th?” His curiosity was cut off by another guest asking me for a cup of hot tea with sugar. Reggie flew into a spontaneous fit of rage. Shortly thereafter, he approached me to apologize for the outburst: he just needed a confirmation of the date, he explained, so he could resume his daily reading of the Psalms.
Continue reading “The Pedagogy of Place: Psalms & Seinfeld” →