By After forty days of desert walking
out of the clean baptism waters
of the Jordan, still he
remembered how it was:
to float, to be pushed into the cool deep blue,
to come out caressed
by the words:
Beloved. Blessed. Continue reading “To Be Called Blessed”
All Those People
From Cornelius Eady’s “The Cab Driver Who Ripped Me Off” in The Autobiography of a Jukebox (1997):
That’s right, said the cab driver,
Turning the corner to the
Round-a-bout way,
Those stupid, fuckin’ beggars,
You know the guys who
Walk up to my cab
With their hands extended
And their little cups?
You know their problem?
You know what’s wrong with them? Continue reading “All Those People”
Spirit
From a young Alice Walker in “From An Interview” (1973):
If there is one thing African-Americans and Native Americans have retained of their African and ancient American heritage, it is probably the belief that everything is inhabited by spirit. This belief encourages knowledge perceived intuitively. It does not surprise me, personally, that scientists now are discovering that trees, plants, flowers, have feelings…emotions, that they shrink when yelled at; that they faint when an evil person is about who might hurt them.
40 Birds of Lent: A Siege of Herons
By Laurel Dykstra
I was beyond excited to discover that the Aberdeen Bestiary (right) has been digitized and is available online. In recent years there has been, among a certain set, a revival of Herbals—illustrated volumes for the identification and medicinal use of plants, with an emphasis on women’s and Indigenous knowledge traditions. But the faunal analog, the Bestiary has seen no parallel resurgence. Composed in medieval monasteries, these often anecdotal sometimes allegorical, encyclopedias of animals were the height of scientific
learning. Perhaps such “facts” as weasels giving birth through the mouth, deer eating poisonous snakes as a restorative, and the dove’s eye color indicating their maturity and discernment, dissuade modern would-be champions of the genera. Continue reading “40 Birds of Lent: A Siege of Herons”
Wild Lectionary: Thoughts from a reluctant farmer
Lent 3B
Exodus 20:1-17
John 2:13-22
By Svinda Heinrichs
I recently moved from southern Ontario near Toronto to a north-ish rural community near Bancroft, Ontario – north-ish because we are really at the southern end of the north. My partner and I live most of the time in the manse in town, where she is the minister, and the rest of the time in the cabin on a 64-acre piece of mostly forested Land which has been deemed “marginal agriculture” by those who are supposed to know these things. I left my congregational ministry position to move here to live and labour on the Land and in this community. It has never been my dream to be a farmer, but I keep reminding myself that the Spirit moves in mysterious ways and that I may just bloom where I am planted. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Thoughts from a reluctant farmer”
Re-Defining Greatness
From Ken Sehested, the curator of prayerandpolitiks.org:
Only she can tell her story
This piece was developed during the second Bartimaeus Institute Online (BIO) Study Cohort 2016-2017. These pieces will eventually be published in a Women’s Breviary collection. For more information regarding the BIO Study Cohort go here.
Hos. 1:2-3 When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” 3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
Hos. 3:1-3 And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. 3 And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.”
Call for Content: 2 More Days!
From Joanna Shenk, the author of the newly released The Movement Makes Us Human and the co-curator of Jesus Radicals:
In a time when the inhumanity of racism and greed are publicly normalized by the powerful, Jesus Radicals want to share stories of resistance, love, and transformation. The Movement Makes Us Human, the title of a newly released book on the life and thought of social movement veteran Dr. Vincent Harding authored by co-organizer Joanna Shenk, is also the theme of the first issue of the Jesus Radicals’ online journal, Rock! Paper! Scissors! Tools for anarchist + Christian thought .
We believe that involvement in movements for justice — like #metoo and Black Lives Matter and the resistance at Camp Makwa — invites us to embody our deepest humanity. This way of being human connects us across lines of difference and normalizes solidarity in the face of alienation and hate. Continue reading “Call for Content: 2 More Days!”
A Prayer for Migrants
By Katerina Friesen. Reposted from Watershed Discipleship blog.
Christ our Resurrection and Life,
We call to your presence
los desplazados, los desconocidos.
We call to your presence those lost in the desert,
those killed in the name of border security.
Rescue the perishing, strengthen the faltering,
and guide those finding their way tonight. Continue reading “A Prayer for Migrants”
Ego-Tripping (there may be a reason)
By Nikki Giovanni
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
Continue reading “Ego-Tripping (there may be a reason)”
Radical Discipleship 