Somewhere Between Sturgeon, Graffiti, and Jubilee

On July 14, 2015December 19, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

By James W. Perkinson. Written in preparation for the Detroit Spirit and Roots Gathering this upcoming weekend in Detroit hosted in part by Word and World. Published on On the Edge, a Detroit Catholic Worker Paper.

This summer in Detroit, some of us will attempt a new thing. Tentatively, slowly deliberately—we will convene a dialogue among three communities of inspiration. One is rooted in postindustrial soils, breaking street savvy into spit finesse, spun bodies, and tagged walls. Another is deeply historical, born of peasant resistance against ancient Roman might, itself gone genocidal and colonizing. The third, most rooted, is embedded in soils and waters, seasons and weather, enculturated by the place itself. Hip-hop, Christian, and indigenous by other names—three constituencies roughly demarked, will make common cause in concern for the future of de troit, the strait. We have named it the “Detroit Spirit Roots Gathering” and seek to serve a re-spiriting of the city in part by learning from each other’s stories. Continue reading “Somewhere Between Sturgeon, Graffiti, and Jubilee” →

The Well of Grief

On July 13, 2015July 13, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

A poem from David Whyte, passed along to the RadicalDiscipleship community by Peter Nilsen-Goodin of the Wilderness Way Community of Portland, OR.

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief

turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for something else.

Journalism

On July 12, 2015July 8, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

From Janet Malcolm in The Journalist and the Murderer (1990):

What gives journalism its authenticity and vitality is the tension between the subject’s blind self absorption and the journalist’s skepticism. Journalists who swallow the subject’s account whole and publish it are not journalists but publicists.

I am with you

On July 11, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

“I am with you. Let us together say from the heart: no family without lodging, no rural worker without land, no laborer without rights, no people without sovereignty, no individual without dignity, no child without childhood, no young person without a future, no elderly person without a venerable old age. Keep up your struggle and, please, take great care of Mother Earth. I pray for you and with you, and I ask God our Father to accompany you and to bless you, to fill you with his love and defend you on your way by granting you in abundance that strength which keeps us on our feet: that strength is hope, the hope which does not disappoint. Thank you and I ask you, please, to pray for me.” – Pope Francis

80 Years Later: War Is A Racket

On July 10, 2015July 1, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

An excerpt from a speech given in the 30s by retired U.S. Marine Corps General Smedley D. Butler, published later in 1935. A classic:

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

PROPHETIC GENEALOGIES AND THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP

On July 9, 2015July 8, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation2 Comments

By Ched Myers, for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (Mark 6:14-29)

Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.

This Sunday’s gospel is Mark’s account of John’s execution by Herod (that is, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilea and Perea from 4 B.C.E.-39 C.E.) This “flashback” belatedly explains the circumstances surrounding John’s arrest, which was reported in passing at the outset of the story (1:14). Mark tells us that Herod believes that Jesus is John coming back to haunt him (6:14-16). Insofar as Jesus took up the Baptist’s mantle (preaching repentance and the Kingdom of God), Herod is not wrong. But the disturbing implication for the king is that this proclamation persists despite his having gotten rid of one of its messengers, suggesting that there was a more serious popular movement to be reckoned with. It is to the sordid tale of John’s demise that Mark now abruptly turns.
Continue reading “PROPHETIC GENEALOGIES AND THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP” →

White Supremacy: The Air We Breathe

On July 8, 2015July 6, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

An alley just off 23rd & Butternut in Detroit.

By Tommy Airey
—————–
The Confederacy is a southern thing, but white supremacy is not.
Bree Newsome

Economist Paul Krugman came out with a piece last week in The New York Times lambasting the South for its ongoing racist drama, while proclaiming “we really have become much less racist, and in general a much more tolerant society on many fronts.”

He scaffolded his arguments with two key economic studies: one that studied the massive white working class exodus away from the Democratic Party in the 70s and 80s (the Southern Strategy) and another that pegged the downsizing of the U.S. welfare state to racial discrimination. Krugman argues that, unfortunately, these forces are still very powerful in the U.S., beckoning readers to take a quick glance at the states that have denied Medicaid expansion to its residents. Surprise, surprise: almost of them are in the South.
Continue reading “White Supremacy: The Air We Breathe” →

Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence

On July 7, 2015July 7, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, RaceLeave a comment

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. First published on Geez’s blog.

The sun hits my face hard as I listen to the water from the fountain. As I look up and around, I am aware how little this downtown resembles the city I know anymore. The faces are all young and white (not unlike my own) playing beach ball, listening to live bands, sipping mid-day cocktails, and eating from food trucks. I look down at the 25 black bodies lying on the cement draped with signs and names of those killed at the hands of the police. On my lap sits the one-and-a-half year old who is my constant companion and teacher these days. He watches intently holding an air of seriousness in his body. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence” →

A Sign of Love

On July 6, 2015July 3, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

Thanks to CreativeResistance.Org for posting this photo of the Pride Parade in Turkey. The rainbow was “inadvertently” created from police water cannons trying to stop it.

To Take Up The Ancient Lesson

On July 5, 2015June 24, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

From Pope Francis’ recent earth-loving encyclical:

Christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption. We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in different religious traditions and also in the Bible. It is the conviction that ‘less is more’…Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.