By Tommy Airey
For Dianne, my soft-spoken spiritual director who calmly and confidently predicted, “I imagine that your trip to Oregon will be even more enlightening that you expect.” And for Peter, an artist, pilgrim and guide whose seven-space opened up for us one vista after another.
He calmly announced that
gratitude unlocks
the fullness of life.
Continue reading “Cape Blanco”
From Barbara Brown Taylor in An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (2009):
What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them.
by Mary Oliver, Red Bird
From Coalition of Immokalee Workers, on PCUSA’s eloquent and inspiring statement of solidarity:
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaders are celebrating a major milestone in the ongoing campaign to improve the lives of farmworkers. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) announced that Ahold USA became the first major grocer in the U.S. to join the CIW Fair Food Program. Ahold is the parent company of Stop & Shop, Giant Foods and online grocer Peapod and operates nearly 780 supermarkets in 14 states and the District of Columbia.
Continue reading “PCUSA: Long Time Allies of Coalition of Immokalee Workers”
By Gloria House, SNCC Field Secretary in Lowndes, 1965-67
August 10, 2013 Lowndes County, Alabama
Good afternoon, Everyone. I would like to express my gratitude to the planners of this year’s pilgrimage for inviting me – especially to Claire Milligan, who first approached me about coming for this event a couple of years ago. Thank you to everyone. And I would like to acknowledge Ruby Sales, who is an integral part of this pilgrimage, as well as the presence of my SNCC sisters, Joann Mants and Gwen Patton, and other friends from the Lowndes County and Selma communities. And, of course, I acknowledge Jonathan. I remember him as a man of extraordinary warmth, clarity of mission, and commitment to justice. His spirit is certainly here with us today.
Continue reading “Homily for the Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage”
By Lindsay Airey (right, with nephew Riley), on the occasion of working her First Step, prodded by the context and struggle of Beloved Detroit…
Admitting our powerlessness may be very difficult for us. After all, we are the competent ones who held the family, the job, or the world together while the alcoholics in our lives created chaos. How can it be that we, the responsible ones, are powerless?
Pathways to Recovery, AlAnon Family Groups
It is so true. I thought my being “good,” “perfect,” “responsible,” “aware,” “sensitive,” and “insightful” would all be what saved my family and stopped the chaos I felt. If I just figured out what was wrong, what was hurtful, and told them, they would surely change. They just didn’t see it (I told myself), and when they do, they’ll change! But all my tears, insight, responsibility, “goodness,” and withdrawing never saved a single one.
Continue reading “Taking The First Step: Reflections on Powerlessness from an Adult Child of a Non-Alcoholic Family (and Citizen of a World Gone Mad)”
By Kim Redigan. First published in the Summer edition of On the Edge.
The assault on beauty in these times is brutal, unrelenting, traumatic as we fall ever more deeply into the nightmarish throes of what Naomi Klein calls “shock doctrine.” It doesn’t take a prophet to see that we are living through the end times of a ruthless economic system that is willing to soil its own nest and destroy its own children in order to feed an insatiable appetite for all that is good and God-given. A system, demonic by design, predicated on every kind of violence imaginable. Continue reading “Beauty and the Beast”
By Langston Hughes
This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.
Continue reading “Kids Who Die”
From Jon Kabat-Zinn’s classic Wherever You Go, There You Are (2004):
[Mindfulness] is the direct opposite of taking life for granted…an attempt to appreciate the deep mystery of being alive and to acknowledge being vitally connected to all that exists.
“We urgently need to bring to our communities the limitless capacity to love, serve, and create for and with each other. We urgently need to bring the neighbor back into our hoods, not only in our inner cities but also in our suburbs, our gated communities, on Main Street and Wall Street, and on Ivy League campuses.”
― Grace Lee Boggs
Radical Discipleship 