Repenting of Homophobia: An Autobiography

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology2 Comments

sam-270x354by tommy airey
—————
The invitation to “turn around” assumes there is something important and precious we have left behind. It is an invitation to deconstruct what is wrong about our way of life and to reconstruct one that is more characterized by justice & mercy.
Ched Myers, Who Will Roll Away The Stone? (1994)

Back in ’08, I began the slow, patient journey of repenting of the homophobia that had been instilled in me by Western civilization in general and, more specifically, the sports & Evangelical Christian cultures that most shaped my moral imagination during the “formative” 80s & 90s. Back then, my world was framed by a triumphalistic masculinity.  My Jesus was athletic. And He was kicking ass.
Continue reading “Repenting of Homophobia: An Autobiography” →

Empire Christmas Poem

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire1 Comment
dragonBy Bill Wylie-Kellermann

empire,
crouched to devour,
breathes, like a dragon, winter darkness upon us:
decrees go out, are believed and obeyed, indictments
are suppressed, privilege covers the blunt ends of supremacy;
widescreen redundancies brutalize, dull, the mind; the most basic human

rights as to water or life are violated as practical policy, a financial necessity.

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A Dedication to the Children of Palestine

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance1 Comment

palestinePoetry by Shahin Shabanian
Artwork by Ibrahim Ozdabak

I know you, child
I have seen your face full of fears
And your eyes full of tears.

Your fears are real as they were then:
When you were abused in ghettos of Europe,
And in the concentration camps, without a hope.
Gassed and burned in the ovens: a damned consternation,
The instigating brutes called it the “Final Solution.”
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A Provisional Understanding of Justice

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

CAN

From the website of Church of All Nations in Minneapolis:

1. We confess the Church’s complicity in much of current and historic injustice. We do not detach ourselves from the past, but in grace and humility take responsibility for it.

2. We confess our sin both individually and collectively, including structural and systemic injustice, for unless we take collective responsibility, the ministry of reconciliation simply cannot be advanced.
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Apostolic Work

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Uncategorized2 Comments

thomas mertonDo not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all,if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it get much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that save everything.

– Thomas Merton

Hope Spills Into 2015

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

RichmondThose who have never despaired have neither lived nor loved. Hope is inseparable from despair. Those of us who truly hope make despair a constant companion whom we out-wrestle every day owing to our commitment to justice, love, and hope.
Cornel West

From Laurel Dykstra in Vancouver:

In March the Interfaith Institute for Justice Peace and Social Movements, a small collective of anti-racist people of faith, in Vancouver BC, launched Anishinaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson’s short film Hidden Legacies. The film tells about the resistance and resilience of young adults who are the children and grandchildren of Indian Residential School survivors. The event included a territorial welcome, prayers, tears, hip-hop, cello, and hard questions from children. In collaboration with First Nations teachers, the film is being prepared for use in high schools. In the fall the film was premiered in Surrey, BC with a mostly South Asian audience and panel who drew connections between very different colonial legacies.

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Doing Justice 52 Weeks of the Year

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

julia 2I wrote this list of practices for the calendar Wretch. You can see more details or purchase the calendar here.

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

My own calendar fills so quickly with fast paced, endless commitments and lists, while I long for a different kind of schedule- one with reminders to slow down, pay attention, listen, learn, remember, bake, plant, resist, and build the Beloved Community. Continue reading “Doing Justice 52 Weeks of the Year” →

Yield

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

kate foranWritten by Kate Foran. Kate Foran appreciates her three season CSA share and thinks it’s worth noting how the liturgical calendar builds in a lean time during the last weeks of winter and first weeks of spring.

“That Wilderness should turn a mart”
quoted in  Changes in the Land by William Cronon

In this troubled area of the world known as
my shoulders, my roving fingers dig for what
must be buried there—gold doubloons
or taut and humming harpsichord strings
and I wonder about all that stored energy,
the tension I’m saving, always vigilant
for some fight or flight that never comes, Continue reading “Yield” →