By Tommy Airey
Born
on the edge of reservation
genocide, son of an old working,
smoking, drinking, distancing
immigrant. You were robbed of
intimacy, emotion, left with
nothing but the counterfeit world of
patriarchy–hiding, achieving,
planning, controlling. You were trained to
not take up too much space, to
stay out of conflict, to
play your role, dad hiding,
mom never confiding, neither
ever fighting. Continue reading “Alone”
By Will O’Brien, Alternative Seminary, Philadelphia, PA
This Lent, I have using as a meditation guide Howard Thurman’s classic Jesus and the Disinherited. This book and other writings of Thurman, an African American scholar, theologian, and activist whom Vincent Harding called our “Black prophet-mystic,” were a spiritual taproot of the civil rights movement and continue to animate many people of faith who hunger and thirst for justice. Just in the first pages, his writing has revealed itself to be an unsettlingly relevant text for this season of repentance and metanoia.
Early in the book, Thurman recounts a visit to India in 1935 – a delegation of American students on a “pilgrimage of friendship.” One day, the principle of a Law College in Ceylon personally asked Thurman to have coffee. He posed a pointed question, addressing Thurman as an African American Christian: “What are you doing here?” Continue reading “Lent with Howard Thurman”
By Ric Hudgens
[My remarks at the opening of the art exhibit “Justice for Peace” curated by Fran Joy at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, Evanston, Sunday, January 31]
From William Stringfellow:
In the face of death, live humanly. In the middle of chaos, celebrate the Word. Amidst Babel, speak the truth. Confront the noise and verbiage and falsehood of death with the truth and potency and efficacy of the Word of God.
This interview was taken by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann as part of a writing project for Geez Magazine entitled “She is Breathing: Listening for Another World and an End to Empire.” It was published in the Winter Issue.
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann: Where are the moments for you where you are beginning to see a crack in the empire? Where is resurrection alive and being practiced? What is the story that lingers on your heart and keeps you moving forward? Is this the moment we’ve been waiting for? Is another world being birthed before our eyes?
Sarah Thompson: Two words: Compost toilets!
I love food justice, and I think I’m called to work on the “backside” of it. What I mean is, think it is the epitome of western hubris to crap in our most precious resource, potable water. Finding ways to help people deal with their own shit (both literally and metaphorically) is a liberating process. A lot can come up when we are faced with the “mess” we create daily. What we have learned to call “waste” can actually be returned to the ecosystem where the nutrients came from. Through a process it can become humanure and nourish the area where the local food came from.
By Ched Myers, for the 2nd Sunday of Lent (Luke 13: 31-35
Note: This is part of a series of Ched’s occasional comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year C, 2016.
More than any other gospel writer, Luke portrays Jesus as using Israel’s prophets for his own interpretive lens. This theme stretches across the whole arc of Luke’s story, from its beginning where the coming promise of redemption comes “through the mouth of God’s holy prophets from of old” (1:70) to the Emmaus road epilogue, which stresses this traditions as a hermeneutic key to the problem of suffering: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them the scriptures” (24:25-7; 44f). Continue reading “The Prophetic Script”
By Berry Friesen, originally posted to his blog on February 1, 2016Does the word “empire” enter your conversations with friends, colleagues and family members? Is it used in your place of worship? Do you see it in the articles and books you read, the videos you watch?
When “empire” is part of your lexicon, here’s what also becomes part of your analytical framework. Continue reading “What “Empire” Adds”
By Joyce Hollyday
Amid our usual array of alternative-Christian-chic denim and earth-tone fleece, 4-year-old Angelita sparkles like a gem. Her hair is braided with colorful ribbons, and she’s wearing what I presume is her Christmas outfit: a bright sweater patterned with bold red flowers, a black velvet skirt, and shiny patent leather shoes.
A couple that is part of Circle of Mercy, my faith community, has agreed to care for Angelita and her older brothers if her parents are forcibly sent back to Guatemala. As we hear the details of the legal arrangement, Angelita sits in her father’s lap, snuggling against his chest. It’s a bittersweet gift, I think, as Angelita’s mother tearfully expresses her gratitude. Continue reading “Harboring Hope”
By Kyle Mitchell
Having worked on an urban vegetable farm for the past 3 years, I’ve had the chance to encounter lots of things we affectionately call weeds. They mostly get a bad rap for stealing water, nutrients, and sunlight from the cultivated plants. They can certainly do this.
However, being a metaphor person, I’m constantly thinking about what things mean in my life. I first encountered weeds with an almost militant mindset. Continue reading “Weeds as a Model of Healing Broken Places”
