By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, Program Coordinator, Word & World
The 2nd of a two-day report from Detroit.
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Candles shine from one room to another while I write in the waning minutes of battery life on my laptop. This is our second power outage this summer. Some neighborhoods have had even more. Each a result of strengthening and unusual storms. Continue reading “On the Ark with Parched Lips”
By Tom Airey, Editor, RadicalDiscipleship.Net
The 1st of a two-day report from Detroit.
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Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
Wendell Berry
A couple of weeks ago, less than 48 hours from the time we moved in to Southwest Detroit, my wife and I visited the water payment station on the west side. When we arrived, about a hundred people (every single one of them African-American!) were lined up to make payments or inquire about a payment plan. Continue reading “Let It Roll Down”
Eduard Nuessner Loring is a Partner at the Open Door Community in Atlanta (right), seeking to dismantle racism, sexism and heterosexism, abolish the death penalty, and proclaim the Beloved Community through loving relationships with some of the most neglected and outcast of God’s children: the homeless and our sisters and brothers who are in prison. Below are some highlights from a talk he gave at a worship service at Central State Prison in Macon, Georgia on October 28, 2013. Approximately 200 prisoners attended, and one has since come to live at the Open Door Community. Access the entire text in the July-August 2014 Hospitality newsletter. Continue reading “A Hunger For Home”
We join all other activists & artists of faith & conscience in praying for the ailing Grace Lee Boggs, 99 years into a Life of visionary organizing: May she experience clarity, compassion & comfort in the days ahead:
The next American Revolution, at this stage in our history, is not principally about jobs or health insurance or making it possible for more people to realize the American Dream of upward mobility. It is about acknowledging that we Americans have enjoyed middle-class comforts at the expense of other peoples all over the world. It is about living the kind of lives that will not only slow own global warming but also end the galloping inequality both inside this country and between the Global North and the Global South. It is about creating a new American Dream whose goal is a higher Humanity instead of the higher standard of living dependent on Empire. It is about practicing a new, more active, global, and participatory concept of citizenship. It is about becoming the change we wish to see in the world. (The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism For The 21st Century, 2012)
Grounding and cultivating wild Christian disciples and fearless spiritual leaders: that’s the mission of the Wilderness Way Community of Portland, OR, a radical ministry under the umbrella of the Oregon Synod-ELCA. In early August, members of the Wilderness Way spent some intentional stewardship time together, discerning the fate of a 6-acre property that is owned, but currently not being used, by ELCA. The community then collaboratively penned a letter to the Oregon Synod, detailing their process & conclusions:
We each walked around the property, praying and listening. We tasted the luscious blackberries, strolled through the rows of grapes, followed the path to the cross and the fire pit, and then gathered under the apple trees with limbs already heavy with green apples. We noticed the hospitality of the property and its many spaces for “outdoor classrooms.” But perhaps the clearest message we heard the land saying that afternoon was, “I want to bear fruit.”
Continue reading “Reading The Bible With The Land In Portland”
From the late Walter Wink in <em>Engaging The Powers (1992):
This is the bright secret of social activists: they do not simply oppose evil because it is wrong, but also because the struggle is exciting and sometimes even fun. For even when they lose, the outcome is assured.
From Edwina Gateley in Christ In The Margins (2009, with illustrations by Robert Lentz):
It is time for the people of God to stop marching along with the status quo in search of security, power & control, but to stumble instead towards the margins where we will encounter a magic & a mystery that will plunge us trembling but rejoicing into the Realm of God.
We sat down for a little email interview with Mark Van Steenwyk of the Mennonite Worker (right) in Minneapolis a few days ago. He is spearheading a new “School For Revolution” debuting October 23rd to 25th this year:
**This post was edited on September 13, 2014 at 8amEST.
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RD: What led to the start of this new “school?”
MVS: Dorothy Day referred to Catholic Worker communities as “schools for revolution.” I resonate with that idea. Our goal at the Mennonite Worker is to ruin people for productive life in the empire; we want all of our residents to be captivated by Jesus’ kingdom vision. Continue reading “School For Revolution: Exploring Ways To Ruin More People”
From Lydia Wylie-Kellermann of Word & World and Jeanie Wylie Community in Detroit:
Cynicism seems an easy road these days. From my own porch, I watch the house across the street burn just days after US bank told us they had no intention to ever sell. On the corner a fifteen year old girl was shot and killed. At the Catholic Worker, I spend more time answering phone calls and turning down desperate pleas for a place to stay that night. In Detroit, democracy slips away as the city is taken over by corporate interests. Wars continue endlessly with no end in sight and growing rumors of more to come. Not to mention the political climate, the environmental climate, the continuing racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia around us. We all have an ever growing list. It is all too Continue reading “Community Counteracts the Seduction of Cynicism”
I used to attend a Methodist church, in which my master was a class-leader…he could pray at morning, pray at noon, and pray at night; yet he could lash up my poor cousin by his two thumbs, and inflict stripes and blows upon his bare back, till the blood streamed to the ground! All the time quoting scripture, for his authority…
Frederick Douglass, National Anti-Slavery Standard (1841)
When Frederick Douglass ran away from slavery, dressed up as a sailor and boarded a train for freedom with fake papers (undocumented!!!) 176 years ago, it took him 24 hours to get from Baltimore to home base in Rochester. Today, as we officially launch RadicalDiscipleship.Net, we honor Douglass’ underground road trip and, how he utilized the Bible as a radical script to narrate the life of activism he was devoted to. Continue reading “The Liberation of Frederick Douglass…and the Bible”
