My Journey Towards Wholeness is Learning to Embrace the Discomfort

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

CileBy Lucile (Cile) Beatty- involved with both the Bay Area Solidarity Action Team working in solidarity with Black Lives Matters in Oakland, CA

How many people have had to endure discomfort when healing from a physical injury or illness? How many people have experience discomfort in their spiritual practice – perhaps watching the clock when mediating, or struggling with an unanswered prayer? I want to share with you how embracing discomfort around racism and white supremacy has been a necessary healing force in my life.

First, a little about me. I am an introvert who grew up in an alcoholic home. My father was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde drunk. I learned from my mom how not to rock the boat in order to “keep the peace.” Continue reading “My Journey Towards Wholeness is Learning to Embrace the Discomfort” →

Peakin’ Through The Shade

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

A watercolor from Brett Bell, a Bay Area artist:

brett bell piece

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire (1985)

A Different Kind of Movement

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Tim DeChristopherCompelling quotes from Tim DeChristopher in Wen Stephenson’s recent piece on climate justice in The Nation:

Our job as a movement is no longer just about reducing emissions—we still have to do that, but we also have this new challenge of maintaining our humanity as we navigate this period of rapid and intense change. And with that challenge, with that job, we can’t avoid the spiritual aspect of what we’re doing. We can’t avoid talking about our most fundamental principles, and our most fundamental values, and the things that we want to hold on to the most. We can’t avoid talking about our larger worldview and our vision for the world.
———— Continue reading “A Different Kind of Movement” →

Workshopping Historical “Response-Ability” among Settlers

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

Elaine 2010By Elaine Enns, Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries. This piece was originally printed in Geez Magazine’s Decolonization Issue.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
cannot be unlived,
but if faced with courage,
need not be lived again.”
— Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of the Morning,” 1993

Facing painful history is indeed wrenching. In North America, we Settler descendants often avoid hard conversations about past and present relationships with Indigenous people. In my ethnic community, Mennonites in Saskatchewan, I have been exploring our resistances to “response-ability” in doctoral research, through interviews, focus groups and workshops. This piece summarizes two —selective memory and distortions in our communal narrative—which obscure the whole story and the truth that alone can lead to reconciliation. Continue reading “Workshopping Historical “Response-Ability” among Settlers” →

Learning from Laughter: The Pumpkin that Cried Tears

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses1 Comment

isaac pumpkinBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann as part of her series on parenting- Learning from Laughter.

With the table covered in newspaper, the three of us began carving pumpkins. Isaac embraced the gunk helping to pull it out while the Halloween music played and the moon shown out the window. When it came time to cut the faces, I sat beside him and asked what he wanted. We drew it out together in marker. He told me he wanted square eyes and a triangle nose. Out of the blue he insisted that the pumpkin have a mustache. Then I asked about the mouth. Do you want a smile? “No. It’s a sad pumpkin.” I tried to draw a sad mouth. Then he said “Pumpkin crying.” He was asking for tears. I carved out some tears falling from the square eyes. He smiled in total delight and pride at his sad pumpkin. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: The Pumpkin that Cried Tears” →

Sonnet, Without Salmon

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

SalmonBy Sherman Alexie, reposted from Orion Magazine
———–
1. The river is empty. 2. Empty of salmon, I mean. 3. But if you were talking to my grandmother, she would say the water doesn’t matter if the salmon are gone. 4. She never said that. I just did. But I’m giving her those words as a gesture of love. 5. She’s been gone for thirty-one years. 6. The water doesn’t matter if my grandmother is gone. 7. She swam wearing all of her clothes, even her shoes. 8. I don’t know if that was a tribal thing to do, or if she was just eccentric. 9. Has anybody ever said that dam building is an act of war against Indians? 10. And, yet, we need the electricity, too. 11. My mother said the reservation needs a new electrical grid because of all the brown- and blackouts. 12. “Why so many power outages?” I ask her. 13. “All the computers,” she says. 14. Today, in Seattle, I watched a cute couple at the next table whispering to their cell phones instead of to each other. But, chivalrous, he walked to the self-service coffee bar to get her a cup. Lovely, I thought. She was busy on her phone while he was ten feet away. When he sat back down, she said, “Oh, I was texting you to get me sugar and cream.”

Not Another Nickel

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Black Youth Project 100 leader Charlene Carruthers (center, seated) reminds her comrades that they are there because the Chicago mayor wants to allocate an additional $200 million to Chicago police department.
Black Youth Project 100 leader Charlene Carruthers (center, seated) reminds her comrades that they are there because the Chicago mayor wants to allocate an additional $200 million to Chicago police department.
By Sarah Thompson, Executive Director of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT)

Local chapters of Black Lives Matter and Jewish Voice for Peace coordinated actions in Chicago, Illinois on the weekend of October 24-25, 2015. CPTers attended the events, employing our public witness, human rights documentation, and nonviolent direct action support skills. We’re in the middle of a month-long training of 10 new recruits; people from across the organization—administrative team, field team, and a trainee—participated.
Continue reading “Not Another Nickel” →

Stories

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

ceremonyI will tell you something about stories,
(he said)
They aren’t just entertainment.
Don’t be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off illness and death
You don’t have anything
if you don’t have stories.
Their evil is mighty
but it can’t stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories
let the stories be confused or forgotten.
They would like that
They would be happy
Because we would be defenseless then…”

  • Leslie Silko, Ceremony