Contagious

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

An excerpt from adrienne maree brown’s article in Yes! Magazine called “Murmurations: Love Looks Like Accountability.”

It’s intentional that we think about internal accountability as a solo practice. So much of being in relationship with another is about being able to have deep awareness of what it is we want and need in a given moment, and what we’re feeling—be it safety or vigilance. 

This can be immensely uncomfortable. We might be feeling some combination of vulnerable, insecure, scared, disrespected, angry, or other emotions that we aren’t always raised to hold with dignity. If we can’t be aware of—and responsible for—our own feelings, then anyone else we are relating to can easily become a site of our projections or unharnessed energy. We can have negative and harmful impacts we did not intend. 

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A remembrance of Will D. Campbell on the anniversary of his birth, 18 July 1924

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

By Ken Sehested

I was a stranger in a strange land, having left behind a Baylor University football
scholarship for the alluring but intimidating environs of New York University’s
Greenwich Village campus in Manhattan. I was so over being who I was, so eager for,
if frightened by, what was to come. Odd that it was there, so far from home, that I
should encounter the iconoclastic voice of a fellow Baptist-flavored Southerner
whose testimony would come to profoundly impact the tenor of my own.
 
“Here’s somebody you should know about,” said Dr. Carse, my religion department
mentor, as he tossed an open copy of Newsweek magazine across his desk. The
upturned page contained a one-column profile of self-styled bootleg preacher, Rev.
Will Campbell.

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Back It Up

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

By Tommy Airey

The year George Floyd and I were born, Paul Simon came out with a song called “American Tune.” Simon sung it to the melody of a Medieval Christian hymn. It hummed on the heavy, confusing mood of the country, caught up in the Watergate scandal and the bloody Vietnam conflict. It concludes with these verses.

We come on the ship they call The Mayflower.
We come on the ship that sailed the moon.
We come in the age’s most uncertain hours
And sing an American tune.

Last week, fifty years later, “American Tune” made an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. But this time, it was sung by Rhiannon Giddens, a banjo-playing woman in her forties boasting Black, Native and white ancestry. Simon backed her up on acoustic and she tweaked the lyrics at the end.

We didn’t come here on the Mayflower.
We came on a ship on a blood red moon.
We come in the age’s most uncertain hour
And sing an American tune.

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Time for Another Wilderness Vigil

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting Empire1 Comment

An announcement and invitation from Tevyn East, director of Dreaming Stone Arts and Ecology Center

In early 2020, a group of comrades (Jay Beck, Jimmy Betts, Tevyn East, Tim Nafziger, Jonathan McRay, and Todd Wynward) first gathered together in response to a call from friend and colleague, Dave Pritchett. Sparked by his attendance of a “Vision Fast” held by the School of Lost Borders, where participants experienced a 4 day solo fast, bookended by group process, Dave had a desire to deepen into this practice amongst peers. His call, “to gather a cohort of folks to re-imagine how we can use the wilderness vigil to empower people in our movements, and how we can do so in ways that better pay attention to place, to history, and to the political moment we inhabit.” And thus, the first Wilderness Vigil was born. It was a significant, supportive and meaningful event for all.

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A Break

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Báyò Akómoláfé, re-posted from social media (July 12, 2022)

With regards to climate chaos, I find that what is most needed in these moments is more than just political will, new solutions, techno-bureaucratic agency, amplified activism, green legislation, international compliance, indigenous participation, civic education, and intensified philanthropy. We need a break.

Some sort of ontological apostasy is required to compost the human agent, dragging him away from his centralized throne. Something that flashes up, trips up, and offends – like the shaman’s knife poised on the client’s arm. Something that enacts a pause – in the spirit of Wendell Berry’s invitation to consider that “the impeded stream is the one that sings”.

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It’s Time to Drop the Charges

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment
PC: Alex Slitz

By Chris Keeve and Jeremy Porter, originally published in the Lexington Herald-Leader, July 14, 2022

The charges against Emma Anderson, Erin Doherty, Bradley Milford Lopez, Erin Price, Aiiden Robinson, Sarah Williams, James Woodhead and Liane Woodhead being prosecuted by outgoing Fayette County Attorney Larry Roberts—with trials and hearings this week—are yet another watershed moment in which Lexington must face its past and choose its future. The Constitution of Kentucky, Section 1 Sixth Part, codifies what we also find in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “The right of assembling together…” While rights are not given by the state, only acknowledged by them, this right was demonstrated in full force in Lexington, just like many United States cities, in the summer of 2020. When it came time to protest in the streets of Lexington following the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery (among too many others), thousands of folks showed up–and their protests crystalized around the campaign for Lexington Police Accountability.

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Lost in Awe and Wonder

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

By Chava Redonnet, the bulletin for Oscar Romero Inclusive Catholic Church, July 17, 2022

This morning I waited by an elevator with a man from one of my dementia floors. He is someone who used to have things to say, but is increasingly silent and usually asleep. When I do a service on his floor, he sometimes wakes up to join in the Our Father, or clap along to a song, but that’s about it.

The elevator was taking a long time. I took out my phone, and pulled up a picture to show him while we waited. You might have seen it – that wonderful deep space photo from the Webb telescope, that seemed to be all over the internet this morning. I wasn’t sure if he could see it, or understand what it was, but I told him, and showed him the tiny photo. “It brings tears to my eyes,” I told him.

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