Jerry Berrigan dies at 95

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses1 Comment

jerryJerry Berrigan passed away in his home at 95 on July 27, 2015. This article was published the week before on syracuse.com.

“Heart! Heart! Heart!” Jerry Berrigan, at 95, on great moment in life of conscience

Jerry Berrigan can offer plenty of first-hand stories about giants.

Dorothy Day, one of the founders of the legendary Catholic Worker movement, was a friend. Day believed in “a revolution of the heart,” in the idea of hospitality and community for those who have the least.

When Day visited Jerry and his wife Carol in Syracuse, she spent a night at their home in the Valley. Continue reading “Jerry Berrigan dies at 95” →

The Labor of Lament

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TearsBy Ken Sehested, of Prayer & Politiks, written for an ecumenical “Service of Lament and Healing” following the August 2014 killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, MO. Inspired by Ps 6:6; 42:3; 80:5; 102:9; Luke 7:38

Who among you believe that
grieving and lamentation
are symptoms of despair.
Not so!
Only the hopeless are silent
in the face of calamity—
silenced because they no
longer aspire even to be heard,
much less heeded. The labor
of lament, on the other hand,
is premised on the expectation
that grief’s rule will be bound
by the Advent of Another. Continue reading “The Labor of Lament” →

People Power in Portland

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Portland GreenpeaceFrom Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace, in a DemocracyNow.Org interview covering the creative and courageous action blocking Shell Oil ships heading to the Arctic to drill:

Well, yesterday was an absolutely incredible day, a display of people power. Throughout the day, the crowds just kept growing, as you said. There were hundreds of kayakers going in shifts, filling the river so that if the boat tried to leave, there would be both lines of defense—the aerial barricade and then the people.
Continue reading “People Power in Portland” →

Between The World & Me: A Review

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Coates BetweenBy Tommy Airey

The mettle that it takes to look away from the horror of our prison system, from police forces transformed into armies, from the long war against the black body, is not forged overnight. This is the practiced habit of jabbing out one’s eyes and forgetting the work of one’s hands. To acknowledge these horrors means turning away from the brightly rendered version of your country as it has always declared itself and turning toward something murkier and unknown.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between The World & Me (2015)

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for the The Atlantic, received numerous awards last year for his ground-breaking cover story, “The Case for Reparations.” His much-anticipated Between The World & Me is a 152-page letter to his 15-year old son in the grievous aftermath of the Michael Brown non-indictment.
Continue reading “Between The World & Me: A Review” →

A Covenant of Land & Waters

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Social ForumBy Bill Wylie-Kellermann

Come spring and then through summer and fall, we used to take our daughters for regular walks in Elmwood Cemetery on the near east side of Detroit. A favorite photo has them looking up in sun, caught in delight. This European burial ground is the last surviving bit of pre-Columbian terrain in the city. All the remaining earth has been cleared and graded and leveled first as farmland, then paved as urban built environment. This is not to say it’s old growth forest (that wood is long hauled off and the transplants tended into a canopy of stately beauties) but the land has rocky outcrops, ridges, rills, and a stream that emerges from underground to pool before slipping back beneath the street toward the river.
Continue reading “A Covenant of Land & Waters” →

A Psalm for Probating an Estate

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roseRose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and poet, is a senior associate editor at Sojourners magazine.

Note: Our outgoing interns led worship this week at Sojourners. They invited us to write a psalm to share. I had just returned from D.C. Probate Court where I filed the final papers for my friend and co-worker Elizabeth Palmberg’s estate. Zab died on June 23, 2014. This is the psalm that came out.

for Zab Palmberg

O God, Thou art Creator and Destroyer.
You exhale and we are made to live;

You inhale and we are returned to You.
You plant us like a seed
Continue reading “A Psalm for Probating an Estate” →

Regret

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ricBy Ric Hudgens, organic pastor, soul activist, fire poet

On one of those last days together
rushing through one station to another
trying to catch a departed train
you saw the small perplexed pigeon
squatting in the passageway,
commuters veering round it
left and right. Tugging at my sleeve
to stop, I hurried you on with
forceful pace, rolling eyes, my
damn condescending smile,
and you just let it go, said
I was right, you were frivolous,
immature, nothing could be done.
It is some time ago now still
I dash through this familiar tunnel
every day too late for something
but alert for that bird and one
more chance to redeem myself.

Expect The Desert

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dom helderFrom Dom Helder Camara (February 7, 1909 – August 27, 1999), Catholic archbishop of Recife, Brazil:

We must have no illusions.  We shall not walk on roses, people will not throng to hear us and applaud, and we shall not always be aware of divine protection. If we are to be pilgrims for justice and peace, we must expect the desert.

Dom Helder Camara: ¡Presente!