O Wind of Spirit who moved across the face of chaos, breathing life into creation and humanity. Heal this man, afflicted in his presidency, from the very illness he has unleashed in mockery. Defend him from the Power of Death by which he is so enthralled and so embraced, as to set it upon countless others whom we pray you protect as well. For the time and sake of mercy, withhold the wrath of your judgement and bring him instead into the fullness of his humanity, painful though it be. When his breath comes easy and he wakes, may truth dawn upon him like a bolt.
This begins a new series focused on hope and resistance leading up to the election.
by Kateri Boucher
Outdoor liturgy set at the Day House, the Detroit Catholic Worker. Photo credit: Kateri Boucher
How are you organizing yourself and others for what faithful resistance might require in the aftermath of the election?
For me, the work of the last few months has not often looked or felt much like “organizing” in the typical sense. It has felt like preparation, though, of a slower and quieter kind.
Perhaps ironically, as I have looked ahead to this fast-approaching future, I’ve found myself turning more inward // downward // back. I have felt the urgency of more contemplative preparation. Of the immense work that is required to simply, as Merton said, “open my eyes and see.”
“It’s okay to go slow,” he says. His four-year-old feet step gently in silence. “That way you can see more things.”
The air is still chilly but the snow has melted. Walking nudges us to take off our sweaters. Below the still-bare branches, wet dirt reveals stories of what has passed in the woods over winter.
Named for this very stretch of land in the thumb of Michigan, my son, Cedar, searches for stories . . . for friends . . . for bones.
By Jim Perkinson, a sermon for Land Sunday, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (Detroit, MI)
Dr. James Perkinson, offering a spoken word at the Heidelberg Project in Detroit, Michigan.
The word for today is “woe.” Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe! The potency of a cry! It is the season of the sob—the wail of grief, the howl of anger, the warning of danger! But we live in a society that is illiterate in the language of lamentation. Neither the tears of mourning nor the rage of wounding is acceptable in the halls of power or the decorum of wealth. Lose a spouse or child to disease? We give three days off from work. Then you better be fully functional and productive again, not talk of the agony, not exhibit the melancholy. Go private with the pain; pretend in public. Lose a spouse or child to violence—it is the same. Lose entire families and communities to violence—like generation after generation of black folk up against the nooses and walls, choke-holds and policies, traffic stops and bullet barrages of white folk? Swallow hard and invisibly, smile politely and submissively, and re-assume “the position.” Dare arch an eyebrow? Your funeral is next. March in the streets? Now we really uncover the history and reality of the country. Out come the labels, the AKs, the white-sheet posses (now dressed Hawaiian or khaki), the full metal jacket riot squads hot-to-trot, itching-to-swat, backed by bellicosities Fox and Hannity, Carlson profanity, Barr absurdity and the sheer inanity of an Orange-headed contempt for fact and truth and reasonable conversation.
Rev. Sekou will be hosting a revolutionary bible study for the next 8 Wednesdays
We are getting flooded with some profound Zoom webinar offerings in the lead-up to the election. Here’s a short list of dates and links that you may be interested in. Please feel free to post others in the comments section!
Since our last webinar just 2 months ago, we’ve witnessed the rapid escalation of white nationalist attacks on our communities, from the grassroots to the highest office in the United States. This movement isn’t new, but it is taking new forms. As anti-racist white people, we believe it’s our responsibility to defeat this movement.
Beyond the borders of church, communities are crafting practices of remembering on their own terms.
What I have learned about mourning in the streets has prompted me to dig deeper into my Christian roots, pulling forward ways of caring for, and remembering, the dead that have been covered over with weeds. These liturgies in public space have reinforced my understanding of liturgy in its original terms – work of the people.
On Fridays, we are posing questions to Dr. Bruce Rogers-Vaughn (right), an ordained Baptist minister, pastoral psychotherapist and Associate Professor of the Practice of Pastoral Theology and Counseling at Vanderbilt Divinity School, and the author of Caring for Souls in a Neoliberal Age (Palgrave, 2019).
*This is our fifth Friday with Bruce. See this for Part I, this for Part II, this for Part III and this for Part IV.
By Rev. Solveig Nilsen-Goodin (August 16, 2020), from the second-half of her homily at Salt + Light Lutheran Church (Portland, OR)
Radio silence. Is that what you’re giving me? Radio silence? I expected better from you, Jesus. I just told you my daughter is horribly demon-possessed, and you ignore me! We’re family, remember? From way, way, way back. Or did you forget that your ancestors Rahab, Tamar and Ruth were all Canaanite just like me. We’ve got the same blood, Jesus. Breathe the same air, too. Our bodies made of the same earth. Our spirits part of the same God.
Well, if that’s how you’re going to roll, then I guess I’ll have to get a little louder.
By Rev. Solveig Nilsen-Goodin (August 16, 2020), from the second-half of her homily at Salt + Light Lutheran Church (Portland, OR)
Radical Discipleship