Wild Lectionary: Trembling Birds

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 Pigeon Pair by Hal Trachenberg, Creative Commons

Proper 13(18) C

Hosea 11:1-11

By Laurel Dykstra

Today’s lectionary passage from Hosea is a potent cocktail that mixes parental love and anger with political violence and nature imagery. More broadly and more problematically, the prophet’s oracles:

  • imagine religious fidelity and commitment to justice, as sexual fidelity within patriarchy
  • conflate non-monogamy and sex commerce
  • assume that sexual violence (reparative rape) is a husband’s prerogative
  • equate military violence and invasion with divine judgement.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Trembling Birds” →

A Cross of Human Bodies: How 71 Catholics Were Arrested for Protesting Immigrant Child Detention

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Uncategorized3 Comments
aerial_in_rotunda_v.2
Image via Kayla Lattimore

By Rose Marie Berger, re-shared from Sojourners

I spent five hours as a guest of the U.S. Capitol Police last week. It was hot, really hot. And those plastic handcuffs leave bruises.

I was one of 71 Catholics arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police in the rotunda of the Russell Senate building in Washington, D.C., for “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding” while praying the rosary. My prayer was — and is — to end the warehousing of immigrant children in cages — 63,624 of whom have been apprehended by border patrol at the southwestern border between October 2018 and June 2019 and seven of whom have died after being in federal custody since September. More than a dozen Catholic orders and organizations sponsored the event. Seven Catholic bishops sent letters of support. Continue reading “A Cross of Human Bodies: How 71 Catholics Were Arrested for Protesting Immigrant Child Detention” →

Named and Claimed By God

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized3 Comments
2019-07Jul-21 Oscars Baptism_0060
Photo by Chris Baker Evens

Katie Aikins is pastor of Tabernacle United Church in Philadelphia. She and her wife Heather Bargeron are parents to their adopted 20-month-old son Oscar Emmanuel Aikins-Bargeron.  Katie preached this sermon on the occasion of Oscar’s baptism on July 21.

Baptism without the church, without the community of faith, would make no sense. One of the promises we make as parents is to raise our child in the community of faith.

This Heather and I know: That though we will make our promises to Oscar and to this church to raise him to follow in the way of Jesus Christ, to show love and justice, to resist oppression and evil, we also know that alone, we as parents will not be enough for Oscar to live into his full calling and identity as a child of God. The community of faith —the place where we are practicing resisting evil together, where we are growing together in our practices of justice and love – this is the context in which baptism unfolds in its meaning and fruitfulness.  Continue reading “Named and Claimed By God” →

Narcissus

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OzBy Oz Cole-Arnal, former professor emeritus at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary

Penned barely two months after “My Prayer” in the same year (October, 1980), the poem below shows how painful is the continuation of forbidden hungers vying against my effort to sustain integrity in my relationships with my dear wife, two boys, students and friends. Above all, although 1980 proved healthier than the next five years when my marriage fell apart, the poem below shows how fragile this “calm before the storm.”

Lonely man sitting by the water—
Transfixed by its mirror image,
Clinging to the pond’s stillness,
Fearful of its changing ripples,
And chained within! Continue reading “Narcissus” →

The 2020 Poor People’s Moral Budget

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PPCAnother compelling resource from the Poor People’s Campaign. Click here for the full report.

In April 2018, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival released a Moral Agenda and Declaration of Fundamental Rights. The demands contained within that document present a comprehensive response to the systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism, and war economy plaguing our country today. For the 140 million people who are poor, or one emergency away from being poor, we know these demands are necessary. This Poor People’s Moral Budget asks, given the resources of our society, whether these demands are also possible. Our answer is a resounding yes. Continue reading “The 2020 Poor People’s Moral Budget” →

My Remorse and Tears

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RubyFrom the Front Porch of Mother Ruby Sales (July 25, 2019).

Feeling remorse!

Yesterday I wrote a very biting critique of Mueller’s testimony and his posture. In retrospect my heart bleeds for him. It is clear as I replay his testimony that he is experiencing a physical challenge that compromises his memory and intellectual reflexes.

I finally understood his unwillingness to testify. What appeared to be his arrogance might simply have been a fear of not being able to testify in full form. Yet , this old marine faithful to the call of duty showed up and exposed his most vulnerable self to the nation to perform what is perhaps his last duty for this country. Continue reading “My Remorse and Tears” →

Wild Lectionary: Swimming in the Wastestream

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for wild lectionary.jpeg
Photo credit: Laurel Dykstra

Proper 12(7) C

By Lini Hutchings

O God, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Glory be to the One who is making the heavens and the earth
and to the One who comes in solidarity to heal all division,
and to the One who sustains us in the Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Swimming in the Wastestream” →

What We Learn in the Kitchen: An Introspection on the Black Queer Daughter

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Kendall Waterman, Re-shared from Geez magazine.

What_We_Learn_in_the_Kitchen_800_644_90
Amanda Greavette, “With Woman,”

“My mother connects me to a past I would have no other way of knowing. And in this sea of whiteness, of friends, enemies and strangers, I look at her and know who I am.”
– Michèle Pearson Clarke, Transition

Two minutes into a phone call with my mother and she has launched into a full review of her church’s leadership transition, recounting details of a recent board meeting in which she was obliged to provide her unique clarity.

“Visionaries need me, they can’t explain what they want but I can see it. If you shut up and leave me alone, I can make it happen.”

We go on to chat about a young family friend who just broke up with her first girlfriend.

“It’s a big mess. This is why God never designed women to be romantically involved with other women. Too many emotions.” Continue reading “What We Learn in the Kitchen: An Introspection on the Black Queer Daughter” →

Pastoral Letter

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

8699828939_8a53b785ab_bBy Laurel Dykstra

in those days before the flood
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage

My scarred and raging
weary-eyed beloveds

ordinary defiant
with your teaching-outfit selfies
purple hair
fancy waistcoats
songs in a new range
carpentry projects
surfboards
magic card tricks
raspberry canes

You are magnificent Continue reading “Pastoral Letter” →