By Thomas Merton (+December 10+)
We live in the time of no room, which is the time of the end. The time when everyone is obsessed with lack of time, lack of space, with saving time, conquering space, projecting into time and space the anguish produced within them by the technological furies of size, volume, quantity, speed, number, price, power and acceleration. Continue reading “The Time is the Time of No Room Raids on the Unspeakable”
By Grace Aheron
This winter, five young women and myself are embarking upon an online adventure of alternative theological education. We’ve been dubbed “the feminary” and will be participating in a study cohort following the Bartimaeus Institute’s five-month online series. The seeds of the feminary were planted by a few voices crying out in the wilderness— crying for a radical feminist space where we could study scripture, history, and bible at a low price point and in community with like-minded people— and Ched and Elaine’s faithful response.
Continue reading “Introducing: The Feminary”
The following is the third post in a series by Kate Foran about exploring an alternative kindergarten education for her daughter Sylvie.
This picture was taken last November at a harvest gathering (note the bowls of squash soup) that I participated in with other children and parents. At the time, I was still wrestling with whether to enroll Sylvie in school or not, and the moment captured in the picture stands out for the way it tipped the balance toward “DIYing” her education instead. It was in some ways a typical preschool group story time (I think we were reading Curious George), but in other ways it was remarkable, because it was not a moment I organized. Instead, a child handed me the book and asked me to read it. And soon the other children crowded around, piling onto my lap and leaning on my shoulders. I was aware at the time of the great privilege of having the trust of these children, and it occurred to me that the spontaneous connection and even the physical closeness was not something that could easily occur in an institutional setting. Sylvie was a bit ruffled at having to share her mom, but she was satisfied when I explained to her that I got to be a teacher to these other kids the way that their parents got to be a teacher to her. Continue reading “Abundant Community”
By Justin Ashworth, first published in The Other Journal
Border encounters occur every day in our global and globalizing cities.[1] We consume food touched by people born outside the United States; we purchase things from non-citizens, brush shoulders with them as we go to work. Some of us kiss immigrants goodbye as we head out the door for the day, while others of us are non-citizens ourselves. Our daily lives are filled with border encounters like these, that is, with economic, political, cultural, and personal interactions between citizens and foreigners.[2] But what should be the marks of these encounters? In asking this question, I am not concerned primarily with how cosmopolitan bigwigs interact with each other but rather with how the images of the border that citizens carry around in their heads influence their interactions with border crossers. Are our border images accurate, and what type of ethic do they imply? Continue reading “Healing the Open Wound: Imagining Christian Border Ethics with Gloria Anzaldúa”
An excerpt from Rebecca Solnit’s recent dispatch “Calculated Risk” from the climate summit in Paris, originally posted on the Harper’s Magazine blog:
Obama spoke of his summer trip to Alaska, whose melting permafrost and burning tundra are “a preview of one possible future”—though it’s the present, not the future, for Alaska. Still, Obama did acknowledge one of the central facts of the day: “We know the truth that many nations have contributed little to climate change but will be the first to feel its threats.”
Continue reading “When Some of the Less Famous Leaders Took Their Turns”
by Madeleine L’Engle
He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait Continue reading “First Coming”
By Sheldon Good & Cyrus McGoldrick, originally posted to Huff Post
In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris, Beirut, and Baghdad, the majority of people in the U.S. believe we should take part in a military response, including the use of increased U.S. airstrikes and ground forces against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. This would not only be ineffective, but exactly the trap ISIS has set (yet again). If there’s anything we should have learned since 9/11 and the “War on Terror,” it is that violence against the Muslim world cannot defeat terrorism or anti-Western anger; only respect for human rights and sovereignty will work. But before discussing that topic, one must deflate another majority belief in the U.S.: that ISIS is somehow mainstream among Muslims, or that the West is at war with “radical Islam.” Continue reading “ISIS Has Little To Do With Islam, and Everything To Do With War”
By Rose Marie Berger. Continuing series on badass biblical women.
Have you seen the Dos Equis commercials starring actor Jonathan Goldsmith as “the most interesting man in the world”? “People hang on his every word,” the narrator intones, “even the prepositions.” Though the ad is clever and funny, the “Stay thirsty, my friends” tagline makes clear that what’s being sold is unquenchable thirst.
Contrast this with the Samaritan woman Jesus meets at the well. What’s on offer in John 4 is “living water.” But obtaining it requires a more daring leap than the short-term gains of “Interesting Man’s” carpe diem philosophy.
Who is the Samaritan woman with whom Jesus holds his longest discussion in the gospels? First, let’s clarify what she is not. She is not a whore, nor promiscuous. She’s not spiritually dead or “hopelessly carnal,” as some male interpreters have claimed. Continue reading “The Most Interesting Woman in the World”
By Tommy Airey
Here’s an easy way to figure out if you’re in a cult: If you’re wondering whether you’re in a cult, the answer is yes.
Stephen Colbert
Not too long ago, in the years of early adulthood, I was attending a church in Southern California with weekend attendance in the tens of thousands. This was Respectable Religion. The pastor prayed at Obama’s inauguration. But something dreadful was percolating inside of me as I took inventory of what was happening all around me.
Continue reading “Welcome to the Cult”
By Leah Grady Sayvetz. Leah grew up in the Ithaca Catholic Worker community. After some years away she has moved back to her home town to join efforts in local social justice organizing, starting at the local level to effect change in the world.
On a Tuesday morning in early November, on my way driving to work, I was stopped at the bottom of Elm street by a traffic jam, not atypical for 8am on a week day. Thinking nothing of it, I patiently waited for vehicles to move on so that I could pull out onto Floral Ave. The car ahead of me seemed somewhat thoughtless in how they had stopped across a lane of traffic on Floral and did not appear to be moving. An elderly black man turned up Elm, having just come from the Martin Luther King Blvd bridge, and stopped his car next to mine to let out his passenger, a middle-aged black man. As I saw these two men say good bye, I realized that the driver of the car ahead of me, a white man, had just jumped out of his vehicle and was now pointing a gun at the younger of the two black men. It suddenly became clear that we were surrounded by undercover police. The cars behind us and ahead of us, the car which had just turned onto Floral Ave from MLK Blvd, and other cars waiting in line before the Floral Ave stop sign all carried men in regular dress who jumped out and surrounded this man on the side of the street. All of these under cover officers were white men. Many of them carried guns, some pointed their guns at the black man who had just gotten out of his friend’s car. I recognized the man being surrounded as someone I see a lot in my neighborhood- he is a neighbor who I know by face but not by name. The cops all wore civilian clothing of various styles, one man had long hair in a messy pony tail and a scruffy beard, they all wore calm and business-like expressions on their faces. Their demeanor communicated to everyone around that this was just business as usual: nothing to be alarmed about. Continue reading “#BLACKLIVESMATTER”
Radical Discipleship 