Tag: Dee Dee Risher

Lent Bootcamp: Love in the Time of COVID-19

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized5 Comments

By Dee Dee Risher

Like each of you, I am spinning and dancing in the flux that is COVID-19.

My city, Philadelphia, is on lockdown, people asked to go out only for necessities or to the doctor. Every day I have gotten news of loved older ones exposed or friends who have COVID-19, schools and colleges closed, information overload. I’ve cancelled retreats and trips I have looked forward to for months, reeled home one college student from across the globe. I’ve been anxious about what the virus will do in Project HOME’s 900-resident community of formally homeless and vulnerable people, concerned and sad about life experiences cancelled, uncertain about how long it may go and how bad everything may get. You probably have a similar list of things falling, failing, the world shifting a bit under fear and responsibility.

Continue reading “Lent Bootcamp: Love in the Time of COVID-19” →

Offer vulnerable words to one another: A Book Review

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

dee deeA review of The Soulmaking Room by Dee Dee Risher
By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

When Dee Dee Risher’s book first came out in April 2016, I quickly posted an interview with her on RadicalDiscipleship.net to promote the book. I was already thirty pages in and in my short introduction, I swore that while reading books had fallen out of my life due to sleepless toddler nights, I would finish this book! Continue reading “Offer vulnerable words to one another: A Book Review” →

One of the Flawed and Ragtag Band

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Theological Animation4 Comments

dee deeBy Dee Dee Risher (Philly, PA)

*This is the fifth installation of a year-long series of posts from contributors all over North America each answering the question, “How would you define radical discipleship?” We will be posting responses regularly on Mondays during 2019.

Discipleship is hard enough without the “radical” word in front of it. Often when I hear the phrase unpacked, there is a focus on radical (“root”), and what it entails. In our current context, community, and point of history, how should the taproot of our faith look?

That is a beautiful and rich question, but I find myself grappling with the word “discipleship” instead, pondering that ragtag band of twelve that followed the bold, enigmatic teacher around the backwaters of Galilee in Palestine. Continue reading “One of the Flawed and Ragtag Band” →

Prayer for a Blue Day

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized2 Comments

candleBy Dee Dee Risher

Oh God, I wake up to weather
in this world you created whole and intricate
and I think how it matters;
How sun, season, gray or blue
can turn my heart. Such a little
and a cosmic thing.

And I ponder that in a world of agony,
small things—heat, cold, fleas, dust,
broken appliances—
cause me more emotion than
true tragedies and losses;
earthquakes and floods
elsewhere.
Sometimes I live so small. Continue reading “Prayer for a Blue Day” →

What Remains

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

psalmBy Dee Dee Risher

For her 40th birthday, my friend, artist Michaelanne Harriman Helms asked a group of artist friends to spend a year reflecting on Psalm 90. We all did work—some of it visual art, some of it written. She asked me to write on the themes that came up for me, sparked by the psalm. For me, that became a three-part poem. But for our broad community at Radical Discipleship, I have adapted that poem into this psalm-prayer. I suggest reading Psalm 90, then this redaction of my poem.

To gain a heart of wisdom, I must
no longer
number my days:
release the clock that haunts
my small self,
lusting after illusions of influence
which will decay, scatter, leave no mark Continue reading “What Remains” →

Crossing the Desert

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

reedBy Dee Dee Risher

The aboriginal people of the Kalahari desert break and bury ostrich shells in the sand. The extreme temperatures cause condensation inside the eggshells. As the nomads move over the desert, they survive by drawing drops of moisture from these shells with reeds.

You must prepare well,
Rise in the knowing dark,
Go down to the river,
And listen to the reeds.
A single one will call you.
Listen. Continue reading “Crossing the Desert” →