The Ultimate Rite of Reversal

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Jay Beck

From Jay Beck of the Carnival de Resistance:

Historically, Carnival had its origins in the traditional topsy-turvydom of the medieval Christmas season, which in turn was grounded in the doctrine of the Incarnation and expressed in Mary’s words in the Magnificat: “He has put down the mighty from their seat and raised up the humble and meek. He has fed the poor with good things and sent the rich empty away” (Luke 1:52-53). Mary rejoices in a God who overturns privilege and favors the poor and the hungry. The church, whether Catholic, Presbyterian, or Baptist, has too often been supported by and sided with the the rich and the well-fed. If we aren’t rich ourselves, we long to be. There have been wonderful exceptions: the early desert fathers, St. Francis of Assissi, Gustavo Gutierrez and Dorothy Day to name just four. There are many others.
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First and Final Acts: Water as Sacrament

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology1 Comment

100_2372By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

(A reflection written about water and homecomings- the birth of Isaac three years ago and my mom’s passing ten years ago)

Ringing out the warm wash cloth, I laid it upon her face in my final act of love upon this body that had held my own. Drops upon her lips reminded me of a million kisses upon my forehead and pausing on her eyelids I was struck by the power in a glance pierced with love for me. I washed her this hair feeling beneath it to the scars and bone shifts drawing me back to a dozen surgical waiting rooms. In all its simplicity, water empowered within us a sacrament of love and grief. The water which nourished her life with endless joy and beauty now called her home.

In a handcrafted simple wooden box her ashes dwell as deep as we could dig. To earth she has returned. I sit in the rain watching and envying the pine needles that rest upon her body. Even now, long after death, the water nourishes her. My son waddles over picking up pine cones and rests them on his Grandma Jeanie’s little patch of ground unaware yet blessed just the same.

My love for him came with a big gush of water that had held him close for many months. Rushing over his body and down my legs, water baptized us both in a commitment of love altering life forever. Warm washcloth in hand, I washed the blood from his face giving equal care to learn by heart his soft lips and tiny eyelids. As I bathed this beautiful child with water, I welcomed him home.

Enfleshing the Word

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John the WordBy Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson, commentary on readings for Jan 3, the 2nd Sunday after Christmas

Note: This is part of a series of Wes & Sue’s occasional comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year C, 2015-16.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it…The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
John 1.1, 5, 9

To those who received him, who trusted into his name, he gave power to become children of God.
John 1.12

In the ongoing Christmas season, we celebrate John’s Gospel’s powerful beauty of the Incarnation: the Word of God, made flesh in the person of Jesus, the crucified and risen One. In a time of darkness—on the earth, in the world and often in our own lives—God’s unquenchable Light continually shines Life into being. That Light, in and through Jesus, is the enlightening gift offered to everyone.
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5 Years Later: Blessed Are The Organized

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire1 Comment

BlessedA Summary of Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed are the Organized by Tommy Airey

Democracy, in the sense I am commending, opens up space for minority voices because it is committed both to freedom as non-domination and the avoidance of arbitrary exclusion. Neither of these things can be achieved, according to the tradition of grassroots democracy, unless a lot of ordinary people get organized and actually hold officials accountable. These are things that require action.
Jeffrey Stout

In Blessed Are The Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America (2010), Princeton political science professor Jeffrey Stout recounts a back-and-forth he had with his 20-something son about deeply dysfunctional economic conditions in the U.S. You know the basics: the American worker has been tremendously productive for their company, but isn’t even coming close to sharing the wealth. In fact, since the 1960s, more income went to the top 1% of Americans than the bottom 50% combined. At the end of this casual, fact-filled conversation, Stout’s son proclaimed, “We’re fucked!”
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Why the Empire Needs Terrorism

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Berry FriesenBy Berry Friesen, Originally Posted to Bible-And-Empire.Net

Imagine a political entity that can constantly watch everyone and everything on Earth, listen to/read every digitally-transmitted message, reach into the safety of private homes anywhere and murder the people who live there, incinerate any military/industrial target with the flick of a switch, and fabricate slanders that are repeated publicly a billion times a day.

You’ve just imagined the US-led empire.
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Getting to the Street

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JuliaFrom Julia de la Cruz, a farmworker, an organizer, and a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers–this is her response, in an interview with Sojourners Magazine, to the question: Does it help farm workers if consumers stop purchasing products that are grown in bad working conditions?

More and more we hear this idea of voting with your fork: this idea that consumers affect conditions based on how they use their dollar. But the truth is that if somebody chooses to refrain from buying a good, the impact really won’t be felt by corporations such that they’ll be forced to change their policies. But corporations will be impacted and forced to change their policies when a worker-led campaign forces them.

So we’d ask consumers to build consciousness by listening to farm workers and their experience and their analysis of the food system that nourishes each of us. The second thing we’d ask for is commitment—and that can mean a lot of things, but it definitely means getting to the street and protesting the corporations that have turned a blind eye to the abuses they have perpetuated.

Thomas Merton

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merton 2The heart of man can be full of so much pain, even when things are
exteriorly “all right”. It becomes all the more difficult because
today we are used to thinking that there are explanations for
everything. But there is no explanation of most of what goes on in our own hearts, and we cannot account for it all. No use resorting to the kind of mental tranquilizers that even religious explanations
sometimes offer. Faith must be deeper than that, rooted in the unknown and in the abyss of darkness that is the ground of our being. No use teasing the darkness to try to make answers grow out of it. But if we learn how to have a deep inner patience, things solve themselves, or God solves them if you prefer: but do not expect to see how. Just learn to wait, and do what you can and help other people. Often it is in helping someone else we find the best way to bear our own trouble.
— Thomas Merton from his Christmas letter, 1966

An Upside Down World

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

upside down worldBy Joyce Hollyday

A frigid wind sent snow dancing and swirling through the streets of Washington, DC, that Christmas Eve. Shopping carts and paper bags loaded with years’ worth of collected string, cans, broken umbrellas, and other street items had been dragged in out of the cold and were parked in the foyer of the church that served as an overnight shelter. The women who owned them were finishing a dinner of soup and bread, made special by dozens of sugar cookies that had been baked and decorated by the church’s children. Continue reading “An Upside Down World” →