Happy Birthday, Audre!

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance3 Comments

audreToday we honor the Lorde with “A Litany for Survival.”

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours: Continue reading “Happy Birthday, Audre!” →

Straight Facts on Water Consumption

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

WaterAs the issue of water accessibility and affordability intensifies more and more every waking hour, let’s tap into the facts in the ground regarding actual consumption (from a Wall Street Journal article from a few years back).

Households: 4 billion gallons/day

Mineral Extraction: 4 billion gallons/day

Industry: 18.2 billion gallons/day

Agriculture: 128 billion gallons/day

The 40 Birds of Lent

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

Eagle WMMBy Laurel Dykstra

Several years ago I participated in the Wilderness Way Community’s Lenten challenge: to spend 10 minutes each day outdoors in prayer or meditation. Due both to my own inclination and the fact that Lent falls where I live during spring migration, mating and nesting season, this experience, which I described to others as “going outside and paying attention,” quickly turned into going outside and paying attention to birds. Continue reading “The 40 Birds of Lent” →

Wild Lectionary: God’s Gonna Trouble the Waters

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

IMG_7545.JPGLent 1B
Genesis 9:8-15
Mark 1:9-15

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Water flows through our ancient Judeo-Christian texts. Righteousness pours down like a mighty stream (Amos 5:24), and Jesus offers relief to those who thirst (John 4:13–15). Before whales or eagles or humans did, God dwelt among the waters (Gen 1). The creation of heaven and earth commenced through a parting of the seas. Rains fell, destroying all creatures except those aboard an ark, awaiting a rainbow covenant that promised an end to the waters of judgment (Gen 9:11–17). The Israelites flee from their oppressors to freedom through the miracle of a parting sea that offered safe passage from empire into the wilderness (Exod 14). In the Gospels, Jesus was baptized into the wildness of the river Jordan (Mark 1:9f), became living water at the well (John 4), and shed tears over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). From the beginning, water has offered a call to discipleship. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: God’s Gonna Trouble the Waters” →

BONHOEFFER: A LEGACY OF FAITH AND RESISTANCE FOR OUR WORLD TODAY

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Dietrich BonhoefferIf you are in the Philly area this weekend, check out this adventure in radical discipleship:

Saturday morning, February 17
9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Project HOME, 1515 Fairmount Avenue

Bonhoeffer is a 93-minute documentary film that tells the dramatic story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young German theologian who offered one of the first clear voices of resistance to the Nazi regime.  Bonhoeffer openly challenged the church to stand with the Jews, and eventually joined his family in a plot to kill Hitler. His books, Cost of Discipleship, Letters and Papers from Prison, and Ethics, have had an enormous influence on people of faith and conscience seeking to live with integrity in a world of evil and oppression.  We will view the film together and discuss its relevance to our life of faith and witness, with very particular emphasis on the current political realities under the Trump Administration and a world endangered by climate change, increasing wealth inequities, and violence.  Join us for this important time of reflection and discernment.  A light breakfast will be served.  A $10 donation is requested to cover costs (though if you can’t pay, please feel free to come anyway!).

See the Facebook posting here.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Will O’Brien 
at 215-842-1790 or willobrien59@gmail.com by February 13.
For more information on The Alternative Seminary,
see www.alternativeseminary.net.
 

For Ash Wednesday: Let Us Join With Creation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

CedarA litany of repentance from the Salal + Cedar community, seeking transformative encounters with the species and geography of the Fraser River to Salish Sea basin and the wider Cascadia bioregion:

May all I say and all I think
be in harmony with thee,
God within me,
God beyond me,
maker of the trees.
Chinook prayer, Pacific Northwest

We stand in this place, this watershed, this holy ground, remembering its creatures and asking them respectfully to stand with us. Stand to remember together our stories. Stand to be in conscious, respectful relationship. Stand to resist commercial interests at creation’s expense. Let’s join with creation in pledging ourselves to live to praise God’s holy name. Continue reading “For Ash Wednesday: Let Us Join With Creation” →

Sermon: Prophet Will Rise Up

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment
metoo
Pedro Fequiere for BuzzFeed

By Michael Boucher
Spiritus Christi, January 28, 2018

The year was 1968.  Almost five hundred women from the feminist and civil rights movements had gathered outside of Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey to protest the Miss America pageant.  The organizers of the protest were opposed to the objectification and mistreatment of women and saw the Miss America pageant as an embodiment of so much that was wrong in our culture.  But they also saw the pageant being linked to other major social ills like racism (no woman of color had been allowed to participate), war (the Miss America winner would go ‘visit the troops’ in Vietnam) and materialism (because of all of the products that women were encouraged to buy to be ‘beautiful’).  So they literally crowned a live sheep Miss America to represent how women were being treated like livestock, threw objects of female oppression – like girdles, curlers and tweezers – into trash cans (no bras were burned, for the record, but women got blamed for it anyway!), they sang songs, and even secretly made their way into the actual Miss America pageant and unfurled a banner from the balcony that read “Freedom for Women”.   Their actions caused quite a stir to say the least. Continue reading “Sermon: Prophet Will Rise Up” →

From A Birmingham Jail to the Modern Black Athlete

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

MLKFrom The Undefeated and ESPN collaborating on a tremendous series called  The State of the Black Athlete:

Martin Luther King Jr. penned his Letter from Birmingham Jail in a narrow cell on newspaper margins, scraps of paper and smuggled-in legal pads. He had no notes or reference materials. Yet, King’s eloquent defense of nonviolent protest and searing critique of moderation continues to resonate in a nation still divided by race. Continue reading “From A Birmingham Jail to the Modern Black Athlete” →

Just Trying to Survive

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

WinonaFrom Winona LaDuke, the executive director of Honor the Earth, responding to an interview question from Amy Goodman about PTSD in the Native American community:

You say “Enbridge,” and I get this little like quirk because the Indian wars are far from over out here. But what you get is intergenerational trauma, is what it is known as, historic trauma. And other people have it. But you have a genetic memory, and every day you wake up, and you see that your land was flooded. And that big power line that runs through this land, that doesn’t benefit you. Everything that is out here was done at your expense, but you still have to pay for it. And every day you go out there, and you got a roadblock, that the white people put up, coming into your reservation. And every day you go out there, and you look at your houses, and you see that you’ve got crumbling infrastructure, and nobody cares about it. And you’ve got a meth epidemic, and you’ve got the highest suicide rates in the country, but nobody pays attention. So you just try to survive. That’s what you’re trying to do. Like 90 percent of my community, generally, I would say, is just trying to survive. Continue reading “Just Trying to Survive” →