From Ken Sehested over at Prayer & Politiks:
Just War, Just Peace, Just Catholic: A Gathering in Rome
By Rose Berger
We will be following Rose and posting updates on the blog, but you can also keep up to date on her blog at http://rosemarieberger.com.
Here’s the news. I’m headed to Rome (Italy, not Georgia) on Saturday, for a week to participate in the first-ever Vatican conference on Nonviolence and Just Peace: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence, co-sponsored by Pax Christi International and the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace.
I was asked to contribute a backgrounder paper titled “No Longer Legitimating War: Christians and Just Peace,” which (by the skin of my teeth and lots of help) I did. Continue reading “Just War, Just Peace, Just Catholic: A Gathering in Rome”
Witnesses to the Resurrection: I know Hope in Clay
By Denise Griebler, Detroit, MI
I know hope in clay.
Soft and cold in my hands, I turn and pat wedge to ball. A tender rhythmic caress.
Alongside radiator clangs and spews,
window pours in sunlight, together they warm my shoulder.
Sit and slap a mound of mud to wheel.
Breathe. Lean in. Center.
Who Knows what will rise up? Continue reading “Witnesses to the Resurrection: I know Hope in Clay”
Do You Love Me?
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson, Commentary on the lectionary for April 10, 2016
It apparently wasn’t long after the first Easter that the first discipleship communities had to grapple with the question of leadership and authority within their own circles. All of the gospels show Jesus strongly rejecting the kind of domination-over-others approach that was the norm in the Roman Empire. But the fact that the evangelists consistently show the disciples fighting to be #1 among themselves reveals how much of a struggle this must have been. Continue reading “Do You Love Me?”
Conspiracy Theories: Rise Up!
By Tommy Airey, a sermon preached at Shalom Community Church: A Mennonite and Church of the Brethren Congregation (Ann Arbor, MI), 04.03.16
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
John 20:24-29 Continue reading “Conspiracy Theories: Rise Up!”
Triumphant
By Will O’Brien, Alternative Seminary, Philadelphia, PA
At Easter services yesterday, our congregation celebrated the resurrection with the requisite Easter hymns. Though a few lesser known ones were thrown in the mix, we indulged in many of the great soul-stirring choruses: “Up from the grave he arose,…” “Christ Our Lord Is Risen Today,…”
On a personal aesthetic note, I don’t bear a lot of fondness for some of these old classics, and their theology occasionally rubs me the wrong way. But on this particular Easter Sunday, I was struck by how these hymns are almost without exception imbued with a brash and bold tone of triumphalism. We hailed the mighty and exalted king. In illustrious melody, we sang of glorious victory over foes (namely sin, death, and despair) vanquished and conquered. Continue reading “Triumphant”
Beyond Vietnam
From Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church, NYC, April 4, 1967:
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
The Cost Benefits of Healthy Children
From Marian Wright Edelman in a recent article on the Flint water scandal:
Children and families everywhere would benefit immediately from stronger, clearer and consistent national standards for measuring, monitoring, and reducing lead exposure that are enforced. The incalculable child harm from lead poisoning should be reason enough to act now with great urgency and persistence. And the nation’s bottom line would benefit too. Every dollar invested to decrease lead hazards yields an estimated return of $17:1 to $221:1. These cost benefits exceed the return on vaccines long considered one of the most cost-effective public health interventions.
Practice Resurrection
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
By Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know. Continue reading “Practice Resurrection”
Witnesses to the Resurrection
During Fridays in Easter we will be sharing reflections on where folks are seeing resurrection today. Please consider contributing and email it to lydiaiwk@gmail.com
By Kyle Mitchell, Cleveland, OH
I see resurrection happen as the silver maple in the front yard begins it’s spring ritual. Cold nights and warm days produce the mysterious freeze and thaw cycles that allow the sap to flow during the day. Participating in a tradition that began with the indigenous people of North America, I make a small hole in the tree which allows the sap to flow into my bucket during the day. When the buds on the tree “pop” and the sap stops flowing, I take what I have, make a little fire in the backyard, and boil it down to make maple syrup.
Radical Discipleship 