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

On December 23, 2018December 21, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

From 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

On December 22, 2018December 21, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Nativity 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

On December 21, 2018December 21, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

By 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 December 20, 2018November 1, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

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

On December 19, 2018December 18, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

20181211_192911 By 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

On December 18, 2018December 18, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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” →

Rejoice! Joy is Like Water in the Desert

On December 17, 2018December 16, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Kim Redigan, an Advent reflection on Luke 3:10-18 for the Faith Outreach Committee of the Detroit Peoples Water Board

Today we light a pink candle on the Advent wreath and sit with the demand of the day – Rejoice! In these waning days of the season, Laudate Sunday calls us to joy. Not superficial optimism or the mindless distraction of malls and materialism but, rather, a deeper dig into Advent darkness where new roots are taking hold and joy lies waiting like a buried treasure. Continue reading “Rejoice! Joy is Like Water in the Desert” →

Loving our Way through the Darkest of Days

On December 16, 2018December 13, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

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

“They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher,^* let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.”–Mark 10:46-52

Week Three’s Skill of Loving is RESPONDING TO NEEDS:

“I will respond to your needs and be there for you, within the limits of my value system, when those needs are made known. I also take the responsibility to make my needs known.” Continue reading “Loving our Way through the Darkest of Days” →

An Opportunity to Connect and be Transformed

On December 15, 2018December 12, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

Another important offering from The Center of Prophetic Imagination:

This weekend intensive explores the ways in which our society’s systems of oppression are legitimized by an imperial spirituality that we rarely recognize as such. The goal of this intensive is to examine the nature of this “spirituality of empire,” how it shapes our imaginations, why it is hostile to life, and and how we might begin to resist it.

Please note: The lecture portions of this intensive will be filmed, in fulfillment of a curriculum grant from FTE to create an 8-week online course. Our goal is to break the lecturing portion of the intensive into eight 30-45 minute sessions that will be enhanced with additional multimedia elements and turned into the core content for an online course, which will be released in January 2020.

Because of this, we are offering the weekend retreat for free. Continue reading “An Opportunity to Connect and be Transformed” →

The Work of Reclaiming Imagination

On December 14, 2018December 4, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Michael Boucher (right), from a letter to spiritual communities within Spiritus Christi Church in Rochester, NY

In our faith community, our pastoral leaders encourage people to spend 10 minutes/day in prayer/quiet with a candle, cup of coffee or tea (the beverage is not crucial but as it gets colder it kind of is!) and no distractions. While 10 minutes may not sound like much (and many of you, perhaps, already do this), it is amazing what can happen when we get more disciplined about creating intentional quiet space.

I have always loved in books when they print in the middle of a page, “This space left intentionally blank.” We might all need a bit more of that… Continue reading “The Work of Reclaiming Imagination” →