The Fierce Urgency of Now

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FierceBy Ched Myers, originally posted in the June 2017 BCM eNews

Note: Below are edited and excerpted comments from Ched’s keynote to the annual dinner of the Cal-Pac Chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action and Reconciling Ministries Network, at the University of Redlands, CA on June 17, 2017.

It’s a formidable task to come up with 15 minutes of inspiration and exhortation to a group like this, given that your vocations have long been forged around the work of inspiring and exhorting. So I’ll leave that task to one who inspired and exhorted all of us, and does so still: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the author of tonight’s thematic meme: “The fierce urgency of now.”

It is both relevant and poignant that this very phrase anchored two of Dr. King’s most famous public addresses, speeches that bracketed the second half of his public career as a civil rights leader. It first appeared in his most well-known exhortation to the nation–you know, that one in front of the Lincoln memorial on Aug 27, 1963. “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now,” intoned our greatest prophet. “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.”
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Intricately Commingled

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Wild EdgeFrom Francis Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow (2015):

…our lives are intricately commingled with one another, with animals, plants, watersheds, and soil.  For the last several centuries, we have envisioned a split between our inner lives and the surrounding world.  Psyche, however, is not confided to the deep interior of our lives; it overlaps with the wider world and perhaps, in these times, is most evident in the sorrows and suffering of the earth itself.

Wild Lectionary: Seeking at the Essence

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Screen shot 2011-04-02 at 11.49.13 AM
Women at the well in Akot, South Sudan

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 9 (14)

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

By Judith Doll

Water – the essence of life. It is absolutely necessary for all living things to survive and has been since the beginning of time.

Water – Where does it come from? From the rain, falling from the heavens; from the streams, the rivers, the lakes, the ocean, and the rivers under the earth accessible by wells. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Seeking at the Essence” →

Wild Lectionary: Reintegrating God in Everything

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imageBy Naim Edwards

(This post is a Bonus Wild Lectionary Reflection from the readings a month ago)

The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. Acts 17:24-25

Clifton and Vanessa named me Naim Kenyatta. We are the descendants of Black West Africans (and an Irishmen or two) taken from their homelands and transplanted to these so-called United States of America. Our lineage has been traced back twelve generations geographically all the way to Maryland and Virginia. Besides that, we understand that forced separation from our indigenous language and region has essentially vanquished all direct ties to Africa. My family has been here since before the U.S. was even the U.S. We are more American than America, yet most Black people continue to be treated like second class citizens. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Reintegrating God in Everything” →

Happiness?

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SolnitFrom Rebecca Solnit, excerpted from her essay “The Mother of All Questions” (Harper’s Magazine, October 2015): 

Questions about happiness generally assume that we know what a happy life looks like. Happiness is understood to be a matter of having a great many ducks lined up in a row — spouse, offspring, private property, erotic experiences — even though a millisecond of reflection will bring to mind countless people who have all those things and are still miserable.
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A Value Worth Working For

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bellAn excerpt from an i-D.vice.com interview with author bell hooks:

What does the word ‘justice’ mean to you?

What we see in many cases is a white supremacy and what defines that as a political system is grave injustice. So justice has a value worth working for, worth sacrificing for. Dr Martin Luther King did talk a lot about justice, but I also think of a modern day activist like Bryan Stevenson, who is committed to trying to create justice for black children and black people who are unjustly imprisoned; he’s just amazing. Conversation is very connected to this, one of the books that we are looking at, at the institute, is called The Soul Making Room by Dee Dee Risher, who used to write for a Christian magazine called The Other Side. Her whole thesis is around the degree to which hospitality and willingness to engage the stranger aids us in efforts to end domination. I can’t think of a more appropriate moment to discuss this, as we going through such a rise in xenophobia and white supremacy at the moment. We need to talk about what it means to embrace people who are not like ourselves. Continue reading “A Value Worth Working For” →