A Tradition of Resistance

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire1 Comment

set them free

 

“Alongside the history of empire we can study and reclaim the history of resistance to empire. Global capitalism did not appear fully formed at the dawn of time; its rise was engineered and was by no means unopposed. There is a rich tradition of resistance to tyranny throughout history; the things that we seek to do now and the ways we seek to live are neither new nor impossible. Christians who want to live outside empire have a legacy from our predecessors whose successes and failures can instruct and inspire us.”

Laurel Dykstra in Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus

the strait is not straight

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

In a paper he delivered at the AMBS Rooted & Grounded Conference last month, the Ecumenical Theological Seminary professor Jim Perkinson reflected on the deep meaning found in the renaming of his beloved Detroit River Watershed in 1701:

“Wawiatonong” the Ojibwa say, the place “where the river goes around,” a name conveying at once respect and locale and abundance. I, however, write from a Detroit become the epitome of thirst and lack. Three centuries ago, the Jesuits came around the bend and re-named the Ojibwa curve a “strait,” “de-troit,” the link between Lakes Erie and Huron, shifting its orientation toward the priority of trade and commodities, a mere conduit in the circuits of global capital, and now the country’s most heavily trafficked “commercial” border.

Continue reading “the strait is not straight” →

Multiplication [of] Tables

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Tom Airey, RadicalDiscipleship.Net, Co-Editor

Inspired by Mark 6:30-44 & dedicated to my new friends at Manna Community Meal, in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit:
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It’s a Miracle!
But only by messianic mandate:
We future the world’s Fate when
We reduce our own plate.

Manna never trickles down
From those who hoard.
Multiply baskets for bored
And hungry sheep.

Innoculate affluenza: descale the heap.

Within a Communion of Children

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Theological Animation2 Comments

mom with lydia waterWritten by Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann, she reflects on the decision of whether to baptize her daughter, Lydia. Jeanie was a writer, activist, and mother. She died after a long fight with brain cancer in 2005. This piece was published in 1986 for Detroit’s Catholic Worker paper On the Edge.

I didn’t want to baptize Lydia.

My love for her took me off guard. I’d only been able to see her and touch her for a few hours and already I wanted the world for her. I studied her while she lay in my arms to eat and she stared back. I cried often. I was overwhelmed. Continue reading “Within a Communion of Children” →

Arson

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking1 Comment

From Ed Crouch, a member of the United Church of Christ, Voices of Palestine, Palestine Task Force and INOC (Interfaith Network of Concern for the people of the Middle East). Published in the Sept-Oct 2014 issue of Hospitality, the newsletter of the Open Door Community of Atlanta.

An evening breeze whispers through
the ripe olive grove, “Ashes to ashes.”

Magnificent, thick, twisted trunks, rooted in
poor soil, withstanding drought for centuries, Continue reading “Arson” →

Region As Rabbi by Todd Wynward

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

Todd Wynward writes, farms, teaches and leads wilderness trips in northern NM. He is an animating force behind TiLT, an intentional discipleship co-housing community in the Rio Grande Watershed. His new book, Rewilding the Way, is to be published by Herald Press in 2015.

This is the first post in an 8-part series covering unique experiments in Watershed Discipleship: every Friday until Advent on RadicalDiscipleship.Net.
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We will not save a place we do not love.
We cannot love a place we do not know.
Ched Myers, citing Senegalese environmentalist Baba Dioum

This is the vital adult education of our time: to become re-placed in our watersheds. To love a place, we must first know it. This means paying attention to it: paying attention to its seasons, its species, its attributes and its attitudes.

I began to seek the wisdom of my watershed about five years ago. What could it teach me about how to live as a place-based person? As I learn to re-inhabit the place I live, I see my region as my rabbi in three specific ways.

Continue reading “Region As Rabbi by Todd Wynward” →

Hot off the Press: It Runs in the Family by Frida Berrigan

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Just PeacemakingLeave a comment

It Runs in the Family: OR Book Going RougeOn Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood

By Frida Berrigan

“A moving chronicle of the things that make for love and peace, elegantly written by a woman who knows more than most about both. How to balance family, children, intimate partnership with urgent rescue of the gravely endangered planet? With wit, stark honesty, and deep compassion, Frida Berrigan suggests a simple answer, drawing on the bliss and grit of her own life as a mother — and as an activist. …This book matters enormously.”                                                        —James Carroll Continue reading “Hot off the Press: It Runs in the Family by Frida Berrigan” →