Guest Ethics

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology1 Comment

CPTFrom John of Christian Peacemaker Teams

For the last year, I have lived as a guest. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Since I graduated college last May, taking that so-called next step into “adulthood” (whatever that is), I have lived as a guest in other people’s spaces. Talking with other people who have also just finished college, there is something inevitable about this – whether you move to a new city, move back to your parent’s place, or stay in the place you went to school, you’re not really “at home.” To attend a residential college, as I did, is to already be living in someone else’s space – a college campus or a dorm can be “ours,” the student body’s, but because each of us spend so little time in it, it is never really “mine.”
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Reflections from a Jesuit Volunteer

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harryHarry Huggins is a Jesuit Volunteer in Detroit serving formerly homeless residents of a supportive housing building. When he’s not serving the residents at work or his roommates at home, he writes.

Bud dealt heroin and cocaine before and while he lived on Detroit’s streets. He’s wheelchair bound now, and he’s one of the social hubs of the supportive housing building where I serve. Last Thursday, Bud stopped me in the hall outside his apartment to pitch a project idea.

“I’m gonna tell you something,” he said. “I used to deal drugs. I was damn good at it. Heroin. And you know why I was good at it? I noticed things.”
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The Pedagogy of Place: Psalms & Seinfeld

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

DSC00005By Tommy Airey, the 2nd post of a 3-part series about how we learn from our location about what is truly Divine

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
Jerry Seinfeld

When I met Reggie on a Tuesday morning a few weeks ago, he was beaming a world-class smile. He was copping a holy swagger. After his second cup of coffee, he hollered at me from his seat 20 feet away: “is it the 7th?” His curiosity was cut off by another guest asking me for a cup of hot tea with sugar. Reggie flew into a spontaneous fit of rage. Shortly thereafter, he approached me to apologize for the outburst: he just needed a confirmation of the date, he explained, so he could resume his daily reading of the Psalms.
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Your tears know where they come from.

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology1 Comment

lix nBy Sarah Matsui

For: Liz Nicolas, one of my dearest people and one of the most distinctly human individuals I know.

Dear friend, your way of seeing can be
as much burden as gift; I know
you know.

—

When tears threaten to swallow you whole:
Know you will not be overcome. Learn and relearn to
find the counterweight you need. Continue reading “Your tears know where they come from.” →

From The Prison Library

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Kathy KellyFrom Kathy Kelly, just before she finished serving a three-month prison sentence for protesting the U.S. drone war at a military base in Missouri. Originally posted on the Voices For Creative Nonviolence website here.
—————-
Thanks to generosity of people “outside,” I’ve been able to read about two dozen books here in Atwood Hall. Many other books have been sent. Books I had already read were given to other prisoners or donated, as gifts, to the prison library. Still others remain in my locker and under my bed, waiting to be read. Many thanks! The books have generated interesting conversations and helped build a lovely “book club” atmosphere which I’ll genuinely miss.
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Civil Resistance

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just PeacemakingLeave a comment

lizNor is this a private experience because the addictions from which we must turn are systemic economic/political/cultural pathologies. The insights from the 12 Step programs tells us that the dysfunctional system cannot be reformed, it must be disengaged. We must develop collective and long-term disciplines of “turning around” that empower a political practice that is nonagressive and nonexploitative.

It may seem indulgent to talk this way in view of the suffering of the innocent. Yet how, except through suffering, are we to allow God whoever or whatever that might be for us to train us to fling ourselves upon the impossible? For when we learn that behind the impossible is God’s grace and presence; the future is an enigma; our road is covered by mist. But, we need to go on giving ourselves, because God continues hoping amid the night and God continues calling us to put ourselves out there with those who suffer. I don’t believe there is a better way to live than this a life of nonviolent civil resistance.

– Elizabeth McAlister

The Race for Presidency Has Begun

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RubyA recent post from Movement giant Ruby Sales, co-founder of The SpiritHouse Project:

Calling friends and shakers and movers for justice. The race for the presidency has begun. Spirithouse Project wants to make it plain that no presidential candidate will make it to the White House on the back of Black people by using anti Black rhetoric to organize and mobilize White people. Nor will anyone get to the White House without addressing racism as a national problem that feeds state sanctioned murders, economic disenfranchisement and the state of Black youth. The road to the White House will not be built on false issues. Rather we demand solutions to the real systemic issues of the day. Race. Economics. Medical industrial complex. Prison industrial complex. Growing homelessness. Corporate monopolies. State sanctioned violence. War on Black people, etc. ADD YOUR ITEM TO THE LIST.

Ruby vigilantly updates her page Breaking The Silence Against Modern Day Lynching on Facebook, a site that documents and records the issues, comments, articles, photographs of the rising rate of modern day lynchings, beatings, drownings (torture) by White police and vigilantes.

An Easter Vigil Word

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mary magdalene Preached by Denise Griebler at the Detroit Peace Community/Catholic Worker/ St. Peter’s Episcopal Church Easter Vigil on Mark 16:1-8.

16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

The other day I cyber-stumbled on a new childrens’ book called Rad American Women from A to Z – it’s a picture book that teaches kid’s a little women’s history along with the ABCs. A is for Angela (as in Davis) – Z is for Zora (as in Neale Hurston). There’s even X for the women whose names we do not know.   It’s a collection form AtoZ of courageous, badass women we want our kids and our grandkids to know. Continue reading “An Easter Vigil Word” →

The Pedagogy of Place: The Art of Coping

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Tommy Airey, the first post of a 3-part series about how we learn from our location about what is truly Divine
——————
Every town has the same two malls: the one white people go to and the one white people used to go to.
Chris Rock

About a month ago, I drove just across 8 mile (the border between Detroit and Southfield) to visit the mall that white people used to go to. I went for one reason: it was closing that week and everything was 60-80% off. I was the only white dude in there. It felt good because it was like I was breaking Chris Rock’s rules.
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