The Dysfunction of Denial

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

BillFrom Bill Wylie-Kellermann’s newest release Dying Well: The Resurrected Life of Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann:

I don’t intend to use it as a frame, but I do want to say something about denial. I understand how healthy a survival mechanism denial can be in certain circumstances, a sane way to cope in the short term. So let me affirm it up front and in passing, but add that as a long-run tactic it is dysfunctional. As already stated, I also believe it is politically endemic to the culture. On societal scale, it hides the body bags, renders the tortured or the prisoners or mistreated workers invisible, obfuscates privilege, distances us technologically from the explosion, misdirects our gaze with media, deadens us to suffering (of others), and outsources the necessary violence of empire. Among other things.

Wild Lectionary: Discerning the Body Learning to Be Aware Before We Act

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Proper 8(13)B
Mark 5:21-43

By Ragan Sutterfield

I have a small garden in my front yard, a smattering of plants, haphazardly planted–perennials and annuals, flowers and herbs and vegetables, “weeds” that I’ve welcomed and cultivated for their benefits to the soil and small wild things that make my yard their home. I water infrequently and mulch heavily–a plant must do well here or I take it out for something that won’t be too much trouble to grow.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Discerning the Body Learning to Be Aware Before We Act” →

Treat Me Like I’m White

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Treat MeFrom the prophetic imagination of Nick Peterson, currently pursuing his PhD in Liturgics and Ethics at Emory University:

Do you find that your race or ethnicity prevents you from getting humane treatment in life? Well, this product is for you. This bracelet will instruct those who you encounter in the real world to treat you like you are white. In an age of colorblindness and implicit bias, nothing can communicate more clearly how you should be treated. When an officer pulls you over – treat me like I’m white. When you are being followed by a clerk in a nice store – treat me like I’m white. When you are in a restaurant and they don’t want to seat you or let you use the restroom – treat me like I’m white. When you go to the bank – treat me like I’m white. Basically, in any formal and mainstream circumstance, there is no better way to be treated. For less than $5, you have a wearable reminder to the world to – Treat You Like You’re White!  Order Here!!

Let Justice Roll Like Rivers: A Court Statement

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IMG_5916
photo by Kimiko Karpoff

By Céline Chuang

June 12, 2018

My Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I want to acknowledge that this courtroom, this city, and all of us stand on traditional, ancestral and unceded territory, that of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh, stewards of this land since time immemorial. I am here today as I was on the day I was arrested for participating, like others, in nonviolent civil disobedience – standing in solidarity with Indigenous people, here on these territories, and across Turtle Island. I mean no disrespect to the court in my actions. I simply wish to live in a way that honours those whose voices, stories, and wisdom predate the court system on these lands, and whose rights remain unrecognized. I hope that one day we will not only adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People in theory, but put each of its articles into practice as a starting point for true reconciliation. Continue reading “Let Justice Roll Like Rivers: A Court Statement” →

Abolition Spell (summer solstice)

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

015D4709-872B-4C04-8011-54999221350C-300x300.jpegBy adrienne maree brown. Re-shared from her blog.

the other small thing i can offer is an abolition spell, for siwatu, for the babies at the border, for their families, for all political prisoners, for all nonviolent offenders, for all those who have caused harm and are not being helped to find a different way.

all that is light
break bars between teeth
grind bricks down to dust
explode a sunscale life force
in each direction
until the cages shed like dead skin Continue reading “Abolition Spell (summer solstice)” →

The Other Side

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BindingWe continue our celebration of the 30th anniversary of Binding The Strong Man, Ched Myers’ political reading of Mark’s Gospel. Mark, according to Myers, represents a dissenting socio-political movement.  As the narrative continues, Jesus breaks through the social and economic barriers to the realization of human solidarity.  Today’s passage is Mark 4:35-41.

“On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat…”–Mark 4:35-36

…the two sides of the Sea of Galilee symbolize Jewish and gentile territory, and the two major boat journeys represent the crossing from one side to the other.

…Throughout the Gospel, Mark is far more interested in articulating geo-social “space” in terms of narrative symbolics than actual place-names.  Indeed, it is not impossible that Mark may have intentionally dissociated the coordinate “other side” from a literal correspondence with eastern and western shores of the sea;  straining the geographical credulity of the sea narrative would have forced his first readers to focus upon the journeys as symbolic action (which is their purpose) rather than upon details of marine transit around the Sea of Galilee (which is not).  Continue reading “The Other Side” →

The Major Philanthropists of Our Society

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BarbaraFrom Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2011):

When someone works for less pay than she can live on—when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently—then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The “working poor,” as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.

Why is Grandpa in Jail?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized12 Comments

33116241_10214353738810852_6880318968586829824_oBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

I wrote this as a children’s book for Isaac during the Poor People’s Campaign. He was very concerned about why Grandpa kept going to jail when we were also teaching about how we dont believe in jails and prisons. So, I wrote this to try to explain it to him. We printed it out and he and Cedar and Ira and their friend helped illustrate it as a birthday gift to my dad.

Why is Grandpa in jail?
We don’t like jails. We think they shouldn’t exist.

If people make bad choices, there are better ways to help them be better.
Talking.
Caring.
Paying attention to what they need.
Teaching.
Loving.

Locking people up for years of their life only….
Takes them away from their families.
Makes people feel lonely.
Takes them away from the sun and the trees.

It is a broken, sad system.

So, why is Grandpa in jail? Continue reading “Why is Grandpa in Jail?” →