I Was A Stranger

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment
martinFrom the Facebook page of Fr. James Martin:
President Trump has announced that he will order the construction of a Mexican border wall, the first in a series of actions to crack down on immigrants, which will include slashing the number of refugees who can resettle in the United States, and blocking Syrians and others from what are called “terror-prone nations” from entering, at least temporarily.

These measures, which mean the rejection of the stranger, the rejection of the person in need, the rejection of those who suffer, are manifestly unchristian and utterly contrary to the Gospel. Indeed, last year, Pope Francis said, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the Gospel.”  

Continue reading “I Was A Stranger” →

Survival Skills

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

bowBy Ric Hudgens

I resent your condescending remarks
about my fetal position. I am not overly
sensitive, depressed, incapacitated, nor
escaping adult responsibilities. When
I curve my back, bow my head, pull both
knees to my chest it is not weakness
that bends me so. What you never
understand is that this is my haven
of health, my reservoir of renewal. If
womblike, it is some placenta of hope
that nourishes and sustains me. We
must all find strength where we can.
I will unfold a fiercer soul.

Sojourners in Our Midst

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Theological AnimationLeave a comment
undocumented
Art by Julio Salgado

From the introduction to Ched Myers’ “A House For All Peoples?  A Bible Study on Welcoming the Outsider” (2006):

There have always been two Americas: that of rich and poor, of inclusion and exclusion. The America of inclusion found expression in the ideal of “liberty and justice for all,” and has been embodied whenever Indian treaties were honored, and in the embrace of civil rights, women’s suffrage, or child labor laws. The America of exclusion, on the other hand, was articulated in a Constitution that originally enfranchised only white landed males and has been realized in land grabs, Jim Crow segregation, Gilded Age economic stratification, and restrictive housing covenants.

These two visions of America continually compete for our hearts and minds, not least in our churches. On one side are the voices of Emma Lazarus in her poem “The New Colossus” (“Give me your tired, your poor…”), and Martin Luther King Jr. when he preached “I Have a Dream.” On the other side are those of George W. Bush’s imperial politics and James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family.” Click HERE to read the whole article.

 

 

 

 

Other lives

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

pigeon.jpgBy Talitha Fraser

A pigeon and I shared morning tea,
Coconut rough and brine of the sea
Our feet rest on yellowed moss over stony cement
I think he talked, or perhaps I dreamt
“see these clouds, this sky, the fountain,
The roads, the houses and there a mountain
…these are connected but you cannot see
These must co-exist in harmony
You affect I and I affect you
In the ways that we go and the things that we do
Some have plenty and some not a lot,
It seems that we ought to share what we’ve got
It is as clear as the water, firm as the ground
Certain as sunrise, at least, I have found.””But pigeon,” I ask, “”What can we do?”
“Next time,” he answered, “You might buy two.”

Wild Lectionary: Holy Fools

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

holyfoolimagewquote32.jpg4th Sunday after Epiphany

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

by Tevyn East and Jay Beck, excerpted from Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice

The Catholic Feast of Fools was a day for liturgical dramas that dissolved church hierarchy, celebrated becoming a “Fool for Christ” (1 Cor) and enacted the Magnificat’s call to turn society upside down (Luke 1:52–53). This feast day was later suppressed by authorities lived on for centuries within medieval folk culture. Europeans eventually brought many such religious festivities to the New World under the common label “carnival.” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Holy Fools” →

Stewing in Grace and Gratitude

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

hobo dinners.jpgBy Joyce Hollyday

My memories of childhood family camping trips swirl around discomfort and disaster: rocky ground and a leaky air mattress, a skunk ambling through our campsite at dinner time, the hurricane that pelted us with rain and blew over our tent in the middle of the night, a sneak attack by a swarm of black flies the size of blue jays. But in every summer misadventure, there was always one moment of grace. Amid the endless parade of canned-soup suppers heated to either lukewarm or scalding over the camp stove, there was always a night when we fixed “hobo stew.” Continue reading “Stewing in Grace and Gratitude” →

Learning from Laughter and the Trees: Yogurt and Blueberries

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized2 Comments

kiddos-2By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. Written on January 11, 2017.

11 years ago today, I was heading back to school, to community two weeks after my mom died.
9 years ago today, I was getting off a plane from France having just met the love of my life.
8 years ago today, I was in Washington DC protesting Guantanamo as Obama prepared to take office.
2 years ago today, I was working on a Word and World school in Detroit on Environmental Justice.
1 year ago today, after a labor that was cooped by the medical industry, I gave birth to Cedar.
And today?….

Today I lost the battle to get Isaac to school. I couldn’t get him out the door. Knowing that I couldn’t let him just stay home and have fun if I wanted him to go next week, I told him that I could not play or engage. That this was my working time. I set a timer for when school would end. Told him I loved him and I would talk to him when the timer went off (a mantra I would repeat a hundred times over the next two hours). I handed him a yogurt stick and a box of blueberries and left him alone. After some protesting, he got quiet…so I peaked in. There he was in the living room, using his yogurt stick to make twenty yogurt circles on the floor and carefully putting one blueberry on top of each pile. When his work was finished, he yelled “Mommy!” He was good at this game. He wasn’t going to let us not engage for two whole hours. He was ready to destroy the house if need be. I took a deep breath and told him I would talk to him after the timer. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter and the Trees: Yogurt and Blueberries” →

Reclaiming Hope Through Remembering

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

meeksBy Catherine Meeks, originally published in the January 2017 edition of Hospitality, the newsletter of Atlanta’s Open Door Community

Without memory, our existence would be bar- ren and opaque, like a prison cell into which no light penetrates; like a tomb which rejects the living. … If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity. For me, hope without memory is like memory without hope.
Elie Wiesel, Nobel Lecture 1986

The Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta took a bold step forward on October 22, 2016, kicking off a three-year cycle of pilgrimages to Georgia martyrdom sites, more commonly known as lynching sites. These pilgrimages are being organized by the Beloved Com- munity: Commission for Dismantling Rac- ism, whose members believe that these sites need to be viewed as places where martyrs were made. And all of us, whites and people of color, who make up the generations of their descendants need to acknowledge these martyrs and mark the places where their lives were sacri ced so that we can make more progress in moving toward the day when this legacy of terror will be vanished forever and hope can have the opportunity to break fully into the dawn.  Click HERE to read the full piece (page 2 of Hospitality).

A Modest Proposal for Radical Disciples: Swearing Off

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Watershed Discipleship4 Comments
road
Photo: Michael Smith

By Tommy Airey

Many of us have been unpleasantly awakened to the fact that “national politics” does matter, as Princeton’s Jeffrey Stout concisely articulated in Blessed Are The Organized (2010), his aptly-titled Obama-era book on grassroots democracy:

Presidents, federal legislators, judges, bureaucrats, Wall Street bankers, insurance executives, media moguls and generals are making decisions every day that have a massive impact on our lives.

A couple of weeks ago, our flight to snow-driven Portland diverted, Lindsay and I found ourselves laid over and out for two nights in Seattle. There we were, deliriously sharing a falafel burger at a hotel bar with Fox News on surround sound. After compulsory knee-jerk lamentations, we grounded ourselves in the reality of the next four years of banality. We acknowledged the tension, though, of committing ourselves to “knowing what’s going on in the world” with being bombarded with a plethora of despairing headlines and sound-bites, news spin a no-win situation. What now with the need to protect ourselves emotionally and spiritually more important than ever? Continue reading “A Modest Proposal for Radical Disciples: Swearing Off” →