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Where Does It Hurt?

Council on the WayBy Nathan Holst, a sermon 

O Spirit guide us now, O Spirit guide us now, O Spirit guide us now, in your way, guide us; Spirit guide all of us today as we listen for where you are moving. Amen.

That song by Sara Thomsen is one I used quite a bit at a gathering in Washington DC just last month where 20 white Christian men came together with Ruby Sales, a Black civil rights and freedom movement leader, to talk about a theology of redemption for white men in this time. My friend and colleague, Tommy Airey, invited me to come and be a part of the group that he and Ruby Sales had put together, and partly because Mother Ruby is one of my heroes and because I was drawn to the work, I said yes. When I shared about it with Pastor Kathy, she asked me to preach and share about my experience, so that’s what I intend to do this morning. And as I share, I want to put up a picture of Mother Ruby to honor her and bring her into this space because she was our spiritual guide in this work. Continue reading →

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Celebrating The Resurrection – Pittsburgh Style

fpDMSscrap ironBy Oz Cole-Arnal, former professor emeritus at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary

My wife Marian, my oldest boy Bill, three friends from my first parish (George and Julie MacLeod and their daughter Stacy) and,I chose to celebrate Christ’s resurrection at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This congregation shares with East Liberty Presbyterian 
Church the distinction of being the church of the prominent, wealthy and respectable. At Shadyside Presbyterian worship some of Pittsburgh’s leading banking and steel magnates representing such corporate heavyweights as Mellon Bank, United States Steel and Dravo Corporation. There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to this neighborhood and church. The lawns are
manicured and spacious, the houses made of stone and surrounded by trees and shrubbery which bear the mark of the finest in professional gardeners. And the church? It too has the stamp of breeding – large, reddish brown stone, an usher in tuxedo waiting to lead the stylish worshippers to their pews. Continue reading →

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Looking for our Advent store?

Advent 1

By Sarah Holst

Dear RadicalDiscipleship readers,

For the last several years, we have been putting out a RadicalDiscipleship store in November full of advent reflection books, kids’ calendars, greeting cards, and books. We have loved putting it together and the ways it felt like we were physically in touch with communities who read and contribute to this space.

This year we do not have a store up through RadicalDiscipleship, however that energy and creativity of making resources for radical Christian communities has not stopped, we are simply turning it over to Geez magazine’s website where there is much better capacity and technology to accommodate such things. Continue reading →

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Wild Lectionary: We Live in Relation

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Landscape with Shepherd and Sheep; Anton Mauve, Vanderbilt lectionary project for art

Proper 29(34)

Jeremiah 23: 1-6

By Reverend Kelly Giese

Jeremiah’s oracles of a future king, a messiah, indicate that the sheep, the pasture, the people, the flock, never leave the watchful eye of the Lord.  All are referred to as “mine” belonging to Yahweh. There is a close association of the Lord the God of Israel to those who  shepherd and know the sheep; and to the land, its fecundity, and even to the spiritual lives of the sheep and shepherds: God dispels fear, corrects those who are in error, and even finds the missing. Continue reading →

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The Zeitgeist of Grief

By Lane Patriquin, originally printed in Geez 54: Climate Justice

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Grief Rituals Credit: Molly Costello (link below)

Tolstoy believed that every generation has a zeitgeist – an emotion that acts as the unspoken guiding force of a time in history.

^Lane Patriquin reads their piece as part of Geez Out Loud. The audio is an exact reading of the written article.

For those of us coming of age in the climate-changed world of late-capitalism, it could be said that the predominant guiding force of our generation is grief.

With the news media surrounding us every day, we are steeped in images of grief. Whales washing up on shores with stomachs full of plastic. Pollinators dying off. Climate change records surpassed decades before predicted, and neo-fascist governments suppressing environmental conservation efforts around the world. Continue reading →

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Listen to the Stones

HumphreyBy Matthew Humphrey (right),

Not one stone will be left stacked upon another
the teacher said, the twinkle in his eye dimming just a moment,
as they all gasped, Say it’s not so!
Their human gaze traced in adorned temple stones.
Listen to the stones, my friends.

The stones… on which Jacob dreamed at Bethel – the house of God.
The 12 stones… circled round, gathered up from Jordan rivers banks,
by ancestors, all gathered at Gilgal, the circle of standing stones. Continue reading →

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A Hole in the Roof or a Whole New Roof?

Chava

PC: Lisa, a guest at the Catholic Worker

By Chava Redonnet (right), from the most recent bulletin of Oscar Romero Inclusive Catholic Church.

In July of 2017, when we were trying to buy the house that is now Serenity, the man who came to inspect it had good news for us. Although there were some holes in the roof at the back of the house, and some water damage, his opinion was that if we could get those holes mended we could wait five years to replace the roof. Yay! That was good news. Chuck and Mike did a lot of work that first year and got those holes fixed and the water damage repaired. It was one of our many miracles, that getting the house useable happened without a huge expenditure of funds, thanks both to the volunteer work of Chuck and Mike, and to the damage being fixable.

When we hit the two year mark this summer, realizing that we were just three years away from replacing the roof, we talked about starting a roof fund for the $10-15,000 it is likely to cost. Continue reading →