Pope Francis: What is your Capacity to Cry?

On February 17, 2015February 17, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

by Rose Berger. First published on her blog.

Pope Francis’ press conference on the plane returning from the Philippines was lively as usual. Regarding the Charlie Hebdo murders, he elaborated on the nuances of “freedom of expression” tempered by the virtue of prudence. He also expanded his comments on “responsible parenthood” and what it means for Catholics today. As always, he set the “birth control” issue in the wider context of certain prevailing spirits of the age, in this case Neo-Malthusianism (whaaaa?): population control that is enforced or overly encouraged by governments or corporations.

However, what jumped out to me was his response to a question by La Nacion’s Elisabetta Pique:

Elisabetta Pique (La Nacion): … This was a moving voyage for everyone. We saw people crying the entire time in Tacloban [Philippines site of the Supertyphoon Haiyan], even we journalists cried. Yesterday you said, the world needs to cry. … What was for you the most moving moment, because the mass in Tacloban was such a moment and also yesterday when the little girl started to cry?
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Monday In B-Flat by Amiri Baraka

On February 16, 2015February 16, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

I can pray
all day
& God
wont come.
But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here

in a minute!

The Solidarity of the Crucified

On February 15, 2015February 6, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

From Miroslav Volf in Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996):

All sufferers can find comfort in the solidarity of the Crucified; but only those who struggle against evil by following the example of the Crucified will discover him at their side. To claim the comfort of the Crucified while rejecting his way is to advocate not only cheap grace but a deceitful ideology.

Love from Dorothy Day on St. Valentine’s Day

On February 14, 2015February 2, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

What we would like to do is change the world- make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying our unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute- the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words- we can, to a certain extent change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in a pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, ad dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to loveour neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

Dorothy Day

Back from the Crocodile’s Belly: Philippine Babaylan Studies and the Struggle for Indigenous Memory

On February 13, 2015February 13, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire5 Comments

S. Lily Mendoza is a native of San Fernando, Pampanga in Central Luzon, Philippines. Lily is especially known in the Philippines and beyond for her pathbreaking work on indigenization and indigenous studies. She is a scholar and associate professor of Culture and Communication at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

RD: What is the crocodile’s belly? Where does the title come from?

LM: I don’t know if I should even dare tell you what our original title was. But it was Towards a Postcolonial Indigeneity: Babaylanism as Critical Pedagogy for Diasporic Struggles (laughter). Continue reading “Back from the Crocodile’s Belly: Philippine Babaylan Studies and the Struggle for Indigenous Memory” →

“God is Like a Mountain” (Mk 9:2-9)

On February 12, 2015July 28, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation1 Comment

By Ched Myers, for Transfiguration Sunday (6. Epiphany)

Note: This is an ongoing occasional series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B.
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Without wildness, civilization could not survive. The converse does not hold.
Evan Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden

The Feast of the Transfiguration probably dates back to the late Roman period. A major feast in the Eastern Church, it was not widely practiced until the 9^th century by the Western Church. August 6^th was designated as Feast of the Transfiguration for the whole church in 1456. The Roman Catholic Church today also commemorates the Transfiguration on the second Sunday in Lent, but the Revised Common Lectionary puts the story at the last Sunday of Epiphany, just before Lent. This is done in order to recognize the Transfiguration’s close relationship in the synoptic gospel narratives to Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem and the Cross.
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The Real St. Valentine

On February 11, 2015February 6, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses2 Comments

From Ken Sehested on his wonderfully illuminating Prayer & Politiks site. Subscribe to his weekly e-newsletter here.
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Every year, prior to Valentine’s Day (celebrated in a surprising number of countries), children in our church create homemade Valentine’s cards to send to inmates, observing St. Valentine’s Day as the occasion to remember those in prison. Here is a little background.

While the existence of St. Valentine is not in doubt—archeologists have unearthed a chapel built in his honor—reliable accounts of his life are scarce. Which is why, in 1969, the Vatican removed St. Valentine from its official list of feasts.
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Creatively Resisting A Fracked Up California

On February 9, 2015February 9, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

Excerpts from a piece by Sarah Lazare of Commondreams.org, reporting from the big climate justice action in San Francisco this weekend:

More than 150 protesters on Friday blockaded the California State Office Building in downtown San Francisco and erected a 16-foot fracking well in the middle of an intersection to demand Governor Jerry Brown cease all drilling and fossil fuel extraction and respect climate justice (photo right from Steve Rhodes).

Campaigners—who hail from labor, indigenous, student, and community organizations—were awaiting arrest at the time of publication…
Continue reading “Creatively Resisting A Fracked Up California” →

A Betrayal of the Disappointed

On February 8, 2015February 6, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

From Dorothee Soelle in “Christofascism,” in The Window of Vulnerability: A Political Spirituality (1990):

At a mass meeting a thousand voices shouted: ‘I love Jesus’ and ‘I love America’ — it was impossible to distinguish the two. This kind of religion knows the cross only as a magical symbol of what he has done for us, not as the sign of the poor man who was tortured to death as a political criminal, like thousands today who stand up for his truth in El Salvador. This is a God without justice, a Jesus without a cross, an Easter without a cross — what remains is a metaphysical Easter Bunny in front of the beautiful blue light of the television screen, a betrayal of the disappointed, a miracle weapon in service of the mighty.

Putting your shoulder to the wheel of history

On February 7, 2015March 7, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Identity, Race1 Comment

“White people are taught that racism is a personal attribute, an attitude, maybe a set of habits. Anti-racist whites invest too much energy worrying about getting it right; about not slipping up and revealing their racial socialization; about saying the right things and knowing when to say nothing. It’s not about that. It’s about putting your shoulder to the wheel of history; about undermining the structural supports of a system of control that grinds us under, that keeps us divided even against ourselves and that extracts wealth, power and life from our communities like an oil company sucks it from the earth.”

– Ricardo Levins Morales