Wild Lectionary: From the Heavens and Earth

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First Sunday after Christmas C
Psalm 148

By Laurel Dykstra

Salal + Cedar is the church that hosts and curates Wild Lectionary. We are in the middle of our fourth year as a community and this post marks the two-year anniversary of Wild Lectionary. Psalm 148, the praise hymn of all creation, is read every year on the first Sunday after Christmas and for Salal + Cedar it is an opportunity to reflect on the previous year. In 2018 we worked on restoring wildlife habitat on a trout and salmon stream, ran an environmental justice camp for youth, helped to midwife some emerging Wild Church projects, and continued in our resistance to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

Praise the Lord!

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Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his host! Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: From the Heavens and Earth” →

For the Least of These

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment
feast1
Woodcut by Julia Jack-Scott

By Kelly Gallagher

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these siblings of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25: 35-36,40

The Rev. Dr. William Barber and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis have created a core principal in the Poor People’s Campaign that they have held firm to and modeled over and over again – to lift up and deepen the leadership of those most impacted by racism, poverty, environmental devastation, and militarism. I like the language of “most impacted” better than “the least of these,” because “least of these” in today’s society can have connotations of “not as good as” or “not as important as.” Either way, the point is the same. Like Jesus, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, is calling us to engage the margins in an intimate and profound way. A way, I daresay, that has become foreign for many in the mainline church. Continue reading “For the Least of These” →

Mary’s Promise: God’s Gonna Trouble the Water

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Windsock
The Windsock Visitation by Mickey McGrath, OSFS

By Kim Redigan, an Advent reflection on Luke 1:39-55 for the Faith Outreach Committee of the Detroit Peoples Water Board

For a very long time now, I have been on a mission to liberate the white porcelain hands of Mary from clerics and capitalists who have turned our tough sister into little more than a cooing dove. A saccharine symbol of passivity. A willing tool of the patriarchy. A voiceless virgin who is venerated but never listened to, much less followed.

If I had a dollar for every time I squirmed in church pews and internally screamed, “No, no, NO!!!!!” as Mary was hijacked in homilies that completely denied her humanity and political-cultural context, I could pay for several of the exorbitant water bills that have resulted in shutoffs for so many of our neighbors. Continue reading “Mary’s Promise: God’s Gonna Trouble the Water” →

Loving our Way through the Darkest of Days (Advent Week Four)

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WWCFrom our comrades at The Wilderness Way in Portland, OR:

Week Four’s Skill of Loving is HONORING:

I honor your feelings and ideas. I recognize your right to think and feel as you do, as well as my own.

Connection with Christian Scriptures — Luke 2: 1 – 20

This text is the classic “Christmas Story” — the story of the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. The practice of honoring in this story is captured by one simple sentence that comes near the end of the story. “But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Continue reading “Loving our Way through the Darkest of Days (Advent Week Four)” →

Wild Lectionary: Cow Dung and Conversation

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IMG_1953Nativity of the Lord, Proper III C

Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 98
Hebrews 1:1-12
John 1:1-14

By Victoria Loorz

John 1, as a high Christological song, is selected for reading for Christmas this year, along with the triumphant Psalm 98 and Isaiah 52 (“God’s holy arm has gotten victory!”) and the extravagant Jesus praises in the opening of Hebrews (“the earth will fold up but you are the same and your years will never end!”). Placing them all together makes for a victorious vindication of Israel, a triumphalist celebration for honoring the holiday of the humility of the Nativity. I wonder if the irony occurred to the lectionary committees. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Cow Dung and Conversation” →

Strengthening Community, Nurturing Souls, Amplifying Hope

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Caring for Souls, ImageBy Tommy Airey, a review of Bruce Rogers-Vaughn’s Caring For Souls in a Neoliberal Age (2016)

It’s the economy stupid. This was the pundit-driven explanation for Bill Clinton’s victory almost three decades ago. It is also the root of our present crises. What we’ve been hearing is true. Times have changed. Not so much in the past two years. More like the past thirty. Yet as depression, addiction, panic attacks, suicide and debt have all skyrocketed, pastoral attempts to get at the roots of the pain and suffering can tend towards family dynamics, relational patterns and trauma.

These factors are real and important. However, in his recent Caring For Souls in a Neoliberal Age, Bruce Rogers-Vaughn implores readers that there are interweaving socio-political powers that shape us in destructive ways too. We must dismantle racism and hetero-patriarchy. But Rogers-Vaughn writes, “Any form of identity politics that ignores class, therefore, will be fated to support the ongoing domination of neoliberal interests” (216). It’s the profit-driven, wage-reducing, deregulating, free trading economy stupid. Continue reading “Strengthening Community, Nurturing Souls, Amplifying Hope” →

Wild Lectionary: Dear Elizabeth

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
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Art by Jonathan Dyck

Advent 4C

And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.        Luke 1:46-55

An excerpt from and urgent letter

By Kwok Pui-lan

Dear Elizabeth,

You may be surprised that I am writing you, since I don’t have much education and don’t often write. But I am so distraught and must ask your advice for you are much older and wiser than me… Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Dear Elizabeth” →

Journaling on the outside of the Jail

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20181211_192911By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

This Advent my dad, Bill Wylie-Kellermann, spent 10 days in jail for an action he was part of in the spring with the Poor People’s Campaign. Each night I journaled and shared them on facebook. It was a practice that held my heart steady in a rather chaotic week and a half.

Day 1 of Dad in Jail for Advent
“But who will….”

My morning was crappy. Both kids with tantrums leaving it almost impossible to get everyone where they needed to be on time. On the way to school, I pulled a completely unnecessary turn around, scraped a log next to someone’s driveway which pulled off my bumper.

So, I am driving down 96 to concerning sounds of things scraping against my tires and wind rushing through the exposed mechanics of my car. I am running late, but trying to still make it to see my dad and Tommy Tackett turn themselves in at court today. I want to get video statements. I want to help alert press releases with on the ground information. I want to say thank you to my dad and hug him goodbye. Continue reading “Journaling on the outside of the Jail” →

Don’t Wake a Sleeping Dragon

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fritz
By Fritz Eichenberg

By: Anonymous

A few weeks ago I was sitting in Jose’s kitchen, waiting for his monthly phone call. Once a month he gets a call on a voice-recognition system: at some point during a two hour window, the phone will ring. He answers, then has to call back within three minutes. A machine recites a string of numbers, which he repeats, and then he is okay for another month. Since getting Administrative Closure of his case a few years ago, this has been the only contact he has had with the immigration folks. Finally the phone rang. I watched as he called back, heard him repeat the string of numbers. And repeat it again, and again, four times altogether. Finally he turned to me, ashen-faced. “It says it’s going to report me,” he said. Continue reading “Don’t Wake a Sleeping Dragon” →