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The Mushroom Hunters

mushroom.jpgBy Neil Gaiman
Listen hear read by Amanda Palmer

Science, as you know, my little one, is the study
of the nature and behaviour of the universe.
It’s based on observation, on experiment, and measurement,
and the formulation of laws to describe the facts revealed.

In the old times, they say, the men came already fitted with brains
designed to follow flesh-beasts at a run,
to hurdle blindly into the unknown,
and then to find their way back home when lost
with a slain antelope to carry between them.
Or, on bad hunting days, nothing. Continue reading →

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Book Announcement: Where the Water Goes Around: Beloved Detroit

dads bookNew book by Bill Wylie-Kellermann. Where the Water Goes Around: Beloved Detroit is a biblical and political reading of Detroit over the course of three decades by an activist pastor.

Detroit is a place where one can take the temperature of the world. Think on the rise of Fordism and auto-love, the Arsenal of Democracy, the practice of the sit-down strike, or the invention of the expressway and suburban mall. Consider more recently the rebellion of 1967, the deindustrialization of a union town, the assault on democracy in this Black-majority city, the structural adjustments of municipal bankruptcy, and now a struggle for water as a human right. Continue reading →

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Wild Lectionary: The Eagle Shared Its Strength

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Canon Ginny on the shores of the Yukon River. Credit The Rev. Belle Mickelson.

Aboriginal Day, June 21 (Canada) Aboriginal Day of Prayer, Anglican and Second Sunday after Pentecost

Exodus 19:3-6
Isaiah 40:25-31
Psalm 91

By Ginny Doctor

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence;
he will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,
or the arrow that flies by day Psalm 91:2-4

those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

I met Mark MacDonald (National Indigenous Bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada) in the mid 1980’s at an Urban Indian ministry meeting in the States. He brought out his guitar and started playing this song called “On Eagle’s Wings,” written by Michael Joncas. I had not heard it but really liked it. It is based on Psalm 91 but the chorus from Isaiah goes like this: “and he will raise you up on Eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn; make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hands.” That song became the national anthem of Indian work in the Episcopal Church and was also know as “Mark’s song.” I was at another meeting and requested “On Eagle’s Wings” but was told, “That’s Father Mark’s song, we can’t sing it without him.” Continue reading →

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From a Black Mother to Her Son

KBDBy Kelly Brown-Douglas, originally published in Sojourners Magazine (03.20.17)

My son was about 2 years old. I had taken him to the park to play in a Flintstones-like car that was in the park’s playground. This particular park was next door to an elementary school. After being in the park for about 15 minutes, what appeared to be a class of first graders recessed into the park. Two little boys, one blonde-haired the other redheaded, ran down to the car where my son was playing. Seeing them coming, my son immediately jumped out. Soon the two little boys began fighting over who was going to play in the car. My son looked on with the fascination of a 2-year-old. The little redheaded boy, who seemed to be winning the battle for the car, saw my son looking. He suddenly stopped fighting for the car and turned toward my son. With all the venom that a 7- or 8-year-old boy could muster, he pointed his finger at my son and said, “You better stop looking at us, before I put you in jail where you belong.” This little white boy was angry. A black boy had intruded upon his space. My son was guilty of being black, in the park, and looking.  Click HERE to read more.

 

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Wild Lectionary: Beware the Cataclysm!

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Photo by Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson, Abide in Me

For readers of Wild Lectionary, there is hardly a Scripture passage more fitting than Genesis’ account of the Flood. The powerful, terrifying narrative is often reduced to a kids’ story, replete as it is with “cute” animals in the Ark. But, of course, beneath the surface is a story of divine near-omnicide, revealing a deep rift between the Creator’s vision and humanity’s response to God’s gift of the earth. In combination with the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 7.21-28), this week’s texts offer a sobering reminder of the cost of human violence to the earth and its creatures, including sapiens. Continue reading →

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Tables Turned: A Reflection

Susie Martin

Photo: Sally Martin. Hummocks Trail, Winter 2015.

By Seth Martin, a folksinger, writer and activist from the Pacific Northwest, now living with his partner Lee Nan Young in Korea. He recently released a collaborative album, “This Mountain” (“이산”), celebrating grass-roots, land-based resistance to militarism and the machinery of US colonial politics and religion–in Korea and North America. You can listen to it here.

Teacher, is the earth alive?

“Sweet is the lore which nature brings.
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect.”
-Wordsworth

It was May 18th in Korea. I was teaching English to elementary schoolers. The pre-assigned lesson was about “living” and “non-living” things.

According to the textbook, things that need air, food, water, and shelter are “living”, and they always “change and grow.” Continue reading →

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An Act of Love

PCFrom Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter and the founder of Dignity and Power Now, in a recent interview with Krista Tippett:

It’s both rage and love at the center of our work, I think. From the beginning, Alicia Garza’s “Love Note” to black people that ended with, “Our lives matter, black lives matter,” it was from a place of rage, but also from a place of deep love for black people. And I think that — when we show up on the freeway, when we chain ourselves to each other, that’s an act of love. That act of resistance is an act of love, that we will put our bodies on the line for our community and really for this country. In changing black lives, we change all lives. And I think that’s the conversation that needs to be penetrated into folks, right? This conversation about black lives mattering is a conversation about all lives mattering, and I think that our work shows as such.

When we have actions of people — have they ever been a part of a Black Lives Matter action — it’s deeply spiritual. It’s often led by opening prayer. Folks are usually sage-ing. We use a lot of indigenous practices. People build altars to people who have passed. And so it’s this moment to both stand face-to-face with law enforcement, but it’s also this moment to be deeply reflective on the people who’ve been killed by the state and give them our honor. It’s an honor to protest for them. So many of our people, names have been lost, and so we’ve said, “We will not forget you. This protest will keep you remembered.” And Sandra Bland was a perfect example. When she was arguably killed inside a jail cell, we said, we will not forget your name, because so often the names are forgotten.