Tag: clay

The Woman with an Issue of Blood

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

clayBy Denise Griebler. Part of a continuing series on badass women in the bible.

“If I could but touch the hem of his garment.
If I could but touch a part of his robe
I know I’d be healed, my sins all forgiven.
If I could but touch him I know I’d be whole.”
– the chorus of a gospel song by Rev. George A Rice

Matthew 9:18-25; Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:41-56

The story goes that while Jesus was walking through a crowd, she touched him and was restored to herself.  Imagine that gutsy move.

She’d been hemorrhaging for twelve years.  Her search for a cure had bled her of everything she had and after all that, her condition was worse not better.  Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza says through this woman we glimpse of  the impoverishment of the permanently ill.  And she didn’t just suffer an incurable illness, but she was also permanently unclean and impure.  Whomever she touched would also be made unclean.  Imagine 12 years of untouched isolation. Continue reading “The Woman with an Issue of Blood” →

Witnesses to the Resurrection: I know Hope in Clay

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment
IMG_1438
Photo Credit: Denise Griebler

By Denise Griebler, Detroit, MI

I know hope in clay.
Soft and cold in my hands, I turn and pat wedge to ball.  A tender rhythmic caress.
Alongside radiator clangs and spews,
window pours in sunlight, together they warm my shoulder.
Sit and slap a mound of mud to wheel.
Breathe.  Lean in.  Center.
Who Knows what will rise up? Continue reading “Witnesses to the Resurrection: I know Hope in Clay” →

Good Earth to Good Earth

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

deniseBy Denise Griebler

I’ll shake these bones and shout and sing my life away,
It won’t be long before these bones turn to clay.
— from Shake These Bones, by Malcom Dalglish

“Good earth to good earth.”

It’s one of the things we’ll say graveside when we offer back the earthly remains of beloved Bea Wylie. Her ashes will be buried in the UP, alongside her husband, the good bishop, Sam Wylie.

A week ago I rolled out the slabs of clay. And few days later I fashioned the urn. A sprig of lavender harvested from Manna Community Garden along with grasses sporting well-defined seedheads, pressed into the clay. There’s a cross on one wall. And a bird in flight on another.   I’m told for 60 years Bea wore a bird like that on a silver chain that rested upon her heart. Unbeknownst, I made the mark of the bird in upward flight, imaging her home-going and the welcome she received as she crossed over to God. Continue reading “Good Earth to Good Earth” →