Death is All They’ve Got to Stand On

On February 18, 2019February 15, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

By Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann (right)

*This is the 8th installation of a year-long series of posts from contributors all over North America each answering the question, “How would you define radical discipleship?” We will be posting responses regularly on Mondays during 2019.

If you would be my disciples… take up your cross and follow me.

I am so glad for this beloved mosaic, a series piecing together the shape of radical discipleship in our moment (plus the history we stand upon and with). The calls to the discipline of Jesus are here rooted in spirit, heart, earth, watershed, creaturehood, beauty, community and the stories of a Way incarnate. Continue reading “Death is All They’ve Got to Stand On” →

Practices Cannot Be Separated From The Bodies That Practice Them

On February 17, 2019February 11, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

An excerpt from Tada Hozumi‘s brilliant piece “The Key to Healing Whiteness is Understanding Cultural Somatic Context,” originally posted on the Selfish Activist site last month.

Intellectualism itself is a white colonialist pattern. It’s only natural that whiteness can’t be solved through brain wrangling. Usually what happens is that the intellectual quality of systemic analysis often leads people to burn out, usually with their micro-aggressing behaviors intact. Continue reading “Practices Cannot Be Separated From The Bodies That Practice Them” →

We Are the Offspring of the Ignorantly Discarded

On February 16, 2019February 5, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

A sample from Alice Walker’s newest book of poetry Taking the Arrow Out of The Heart (October 2018). This is called “I Am Telling You, Discouraged One, We Will Win.”

I am telling you
Discouraged One
we will win.
And I will show you
why.
We are the offspring
of the ignorantly
discarded:
we conjure
sunrise
with our smiles
and provoke music
out of trash.
Who can completely
disappear
such genius? Continue reading “We Are the Offspring of the Ignorantly Discarded” →

No words

On February 15, 2019February 15, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

By Kateri Boucher

What would the trees say, if we asked them now?

What have we done?

What shall we do?

The Climate Report said 12 years.

Now, even closer to 11.

How is a little body like mine supposed to hold news that big?

The wheels keep turning,

hurtling us all forward, or

backward.

Whatever direction —

unceasing.

And where will this little body be in 11 years?

Will I still be one of the ones who can continue pretending?

The trees outside don’t say a thing.

Or maybe they do,

but I never listen long enough

to hear them.

Wild Lectionary: Parched Shrub and Watered Tree

On February 14, 2019February 15, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

RDnetlogo7 6^th Sunday after Epiphany C

Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1

By Laurel Dykstra

Psalm 1 and the verses from Jeremiah 17 are two of many passages where something valued or successful is compared to a tree by water.

For the preacher engaging with ecological themes, reading these two passages together suggests several overlapping subjects for exploration to “test the mind and search the heart.” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Parched Shrub and Watered Tree” →

Winter’s Harshness

On February 13, 2019February 15, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

In January, over twenty women gathered for a Word and World weekend of rest and writing using winter as their guide and teacher. This is the first reflection offered which also gives some writing prompts. May it be company in these longer winter days.

By Kate Foran

Ceremony

I will tell you something about stories,
[he said]
They aren’t just entertainment.
Don’t be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off
illness and death.
You don’t have anything
if you don’t have the stories.
Their evil is mighty
but it can’t stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories
let the stories be confused or forgotten.
They would like that
They would be happy
Because we would be defenseless then.
He rubbed his belly.
I keep them here
[he said]
Here, put your hand on it
See, it is moving.
There is life here
for the people.
And in the belly of this story
the rituals and the ceremony
are still growing.

Continue reading “Winter’s Harshness” →

Anti-Semitism and Hypocrisy at the Top: a Jewish response

On February 12, 2019February 11, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire7 Comments

By Wes Howard-Brook

Three, young, powerful, brash women of color have come down upon the Capitol and left the old while folks there sputtering in their wake. The most well-known—so much so that she already can be recognized by her initials, AOC—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY)—has blown the doors off Congress by daring to offer her “Green New Deal” vision. The other two are both Muslim women, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar. Tlaib and Omar have strongly promoted the international “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction” campaign to pressure the Israeli government to withdraw from West Bank settlements. Continue reading “Anti-Semitism and Hypocrisy at the Top: a Jewish response” →

For What Do We Hope

On February 11, 2019December 23, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Ken Sehested (right with grandchildren), whose fluency tends toward poetic expression, in response to our 2019 question, “What is your definition of radical discipleship?”

“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone
who demands from you an accounting for the hope
that is in you: yet do it in gentleness and reverence.”
—1 Peter 3:15-16

To your feet, you pilgrims of faith’s long journey! Stand and pledge your allegiance to that nation-supplanting Realm to come.

For what do we hope?

We hope for the Beloved’s Promise to overtake the world’s broken-hearted threat. Continue reading “For What Do We Hope” →

The Failed Attempts That Lead to Bigger Successes

On February 10, 2019January 31, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

An excerpt from Jacobin’s recent interview with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, professor of African-American studies at Princeton University.

…a lot of people who are unfamiliar with organizing, through no fault of their own, have little idea that it’s often the failed attempts that lead to the bigger successes. Big, successful marches that are connected to social movements — especially in the 1960s — don’t come from heaven. They have to be built and organized. And sometimes that lesson today can be distorted, because you can have lots of money from foundations that swoop in and make all of these resources available, but you still have the same problem: if it’s not connected to ongoing organization or organizing, then it’s a flash in a pan that can bring attention to a particular issue but doesn’t create the means to actually do anything about it.

What Freedom Means

On February 9, 2019January 28, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

An excerpt from Robin D.G. Kelley’s 2016 “Yes, I Said ‘National Liberation.'” Re-posted from Verso.

Whatever the reasons, our solidarity ought to be based on building a new world together. I am not suggesting that we abandon the struggle to hold Israel accountable for its continued crimes against humanity and violations of international law, or that we stop mourning and honoring the dead, or that we cease any of the immediate actions designed to sustain life and bring a modicum of peace. But peace is impossible without justice. The brilliant Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif put it best: “The world treated Gaza as a humanitarian case, as if what the Palestinians needed was aid. What Gaza needs is freedom.” And what is freedom for Palestine? “Free Palestine” means, at a minimum, completely ending the occupation; dismantling all vestiges of apartheid and eradicating racism; holding Israel accountable for war crimes; suspending the use of administrative detention, jailing of minors, and political repression; freeing all political prisoners; recognizing the fundamental rights of all Palestinian and Bedouin citizens of Israel for full equality and nationality; ensuring all Palestinians a right to return and to receive just compensation for property and lives stolen, destroyed, and damaged in one of the greatest colonial crimes of the twentieth century.