When it Rains

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

rainBy Jordan Leahy

When I was a kid, I was terrified of thunderstorms. Celestial rumblings and quaking ground elicited great anxiety until much later in life than I care to admit. When I saw the clouds approaching, I’d prepare a makeshift nest in the closest beneath the staircase. I’d take books or a card game and hide out until the storm passed.

In adulthood, I find such storms soothing, a relief from summer heat and time to be close with my family. Storms create a time for various activities of stillness and rest. When the clouds come into view, anticipation builds at the coming refreshment. Continue reading “When it Rains” →

Wild Lectionary: Parting the Water or Crossing Over, The Trouble Remains

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

IMG_2162.JPGBy Edward Sloane
Proper 26 (31)
Joshua 3: 7-17

The movement of crossing-over offers a theologically rich metaphor, but one that is not without troubles. The Israelites crossed-over the Red Sea and the Jordan River to establish a Promised Land; Jesus crossed over from death in the resurrection; the colonization of indigenous communities and the exploitation of more-than-human communities are the result of crossing oceans and bioregions; enslaved black bodies in the United States travelled the Underground Railroad to cross over into free territories; migrants cross borders seeking refuge from political, economic, and climate instability. Crossing over suggests a happy ending—we have arrived. Leaving behind a troubling, or unsatisfying, past, we are on our way to something better, perhaps even salvation. Depending on who tells the story and how, it is easy to read such crossings in multiple ways.   Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Parting the Water or Crossing Over, The Trouble Remains” →

50/500: A Season of Protest and Remembering

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

PhilBy Ched Myers, originally posted yesterday on ChedMyers.org

Right: Fr. Phil Berrigan pouring blood on 1-A draft files at the Customs House, Baltimore, MD, October 27, 1967.

Today, October 31st, we prepare to embrace that great feast of remembering, the “Triduum of Saints”: All Hallow’s Eve, Saints and All Souls Day, or Dia de los Muertos (learn more about the Triduum by reading this blog or linking to this free 2012 BCM webinar).

As I have gotten older this season of the Saints has become my favorite time of year.   This morning Elaine and I sat and prayed at our table, pictures of parents and other missed loved ones spread out.  We both cried telling stories.  Tears always help. Continue reading “50/500: A Season of Protest and Remembering” →

My spouse was one of the clergy standing before the white nationalists in Charlottesville

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

PASTORS+By Liza Neal

My spouse was one of the clergy standing in a line before the white nationalists in Charlottesville.  We both knew God is calling us to stand up to white supremacy.  We understood the risk.  Only one of us was going because we didn’t want our child to lose both parents.

That weekend I thought a lot about Peter’s wife.  She is barely mentioned.  In the synoptic gospels Peter’s mother-in-law has a fever, Jesus heals her, and she offers hospitality.  You can’t have a mother-in-law without a wife… Continue reading “My spouse was one of the clergy standing before the white nationalists in Charlottesville” →

All of Us is Still Tired

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

ImaniHighlights from Imani Perry’s response in a forum entitled “The Logic of Misogyny.” Perry is currently the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Her comments were originally posted on the Boston Review website on July 11, 2016:

…dismantling patriarchy seems a virtually impossible task. Its current form is rooted in the Age of Exploration and the Enlightenment and supported the conquests, geopolitics, and philosophies of those eras. It was formative to the Western legal concepts of both personhood and property, as well as to the rise of the sovereign European state, the Atlantic slave trade, the practice of settler-colonialism, the mass murder of black and brown peoples, and the exploitation of those denied legal and political recognition. The patriarch—the conceptual ideal man and citizen—was and is defined and protected by his power over intimate associations, and that power remains supported by politics, law, capital, militarism, and police power… Continue reading “All of Us is Still Tired” →

Register NOW: SOA Watch Border Encuentro

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Encuentro

Click HERE to Register.

School of the Americas Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement working to close the SOA / WHINSEC and similar centers that train state actors such as military, law enforcement and border patrol. We strive to expose, denounce, and end US militarization, oppressive US policies and other forms of state violence in the Americas.  We act in solidarity with organizations and movements working for justice and peace throughout the Americas.

Our demands:

  • An end to US economic, military and political intervention in Latin America
  • Demilitarization and divestment of the borders
  • An end to the racist systems of oppression that criminalize and kill migrants, refugees and communities of color
  • Respect, dignity, justice and the right to self-determination of communities
  • An end to Plan Mérida and the Alliance for Prosperity

Our Lady comes

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment
09e961d888df6fcd72b2fb3b9e9def59--blessed-virgin-mary-window-ideas
Taize

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.

By Katherine Parent

In the cave of a great sanctuary, a granite womb full of light and bones, I sat among songs of the annunciation next to a new friend. Listening next to me, she didn’t know that I was having a holy moment of uncertainty. Each apex was an almond reminder of sacred arches, gateways of birth and body: seen, sacred, secret and silenced. I was considering, fiercely and privately, a surgery that would open my thick sealed hymen, a birth defect known as “Virgin Mary.” Continue reading “Our Lady comes” →

Wild Lectionary: Who Is My Neighbor?

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P1260327(1)
Sacred Earth Camp youth catalogue species at Coleman Creek Credit: Devin Gillan

Proper 25 (30)
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 22:34-46

By Laurel Dykstra

In today’s Gospel when asked about the greatest of all the commandments, Jesus’ reply is simple, “love God, love your neighbor.” In Luke, this same exchange is followed by the question, “who is my neighbor?” which Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story of upstanding citizens who fail to respond to suffering after an assault has obvious parallels for first world Christians confronted by climate crisis, species extinctions, and environmental racism. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Who Is My Neighbor?” →

Black Women & Equity at UPenn

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, RaceLeave a comment

JyarlandBy Jyarland Daniels (right), founder of Harriet Speaks, doing diversity differently by providing a Black voice and perspective in diversity, equity, & inclusion

Today my newsfeed greeted me with a story of a PhD student assistant at The University of Pennsylvania with the following headline:

This instructor calls on black women first and white men last. Critics want her fired.

In a world where we are bombarded by information and everyone wants to be in the know, going beyond the headline can seem passé. Yet, being “Headline Hoppers” is one way we give our implicit consent for the media to dominate the narrative on race in a way that does not reflect reality; these narratives are why, in a recent study, 55% of whites reported they believe they are discriminated against, but a much smaller percentage say they have actually experienced this discrimination. Continue reading “Black Women & Equity at UPenn” →