Tag: grief

The Zeitgeist of Grief

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Lane Patriquin, originally printed in Geez 54: Climate Justice

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Grief Rituals Credit: Molly Costello (link below)

Tolstoy believed that every generation has a zeitgeist – an emotion that acts as the unspoken guiding force of a time in history.

^Lane Patriquin reads their piece as part of Geez Out Loud. The audio is an exact reading of the written article.

For those of us coming of age in the climate-changed world of late-capitalism, it could be said that the predominant guiding force of our generation is grief.

With the news media surrounding us every day, we are steeped in images of grief. Whales washing up on shores with stomachs full of plastic. Pollinators dying off. Climate change records surpassed decades before predicted, and neo-fascist governments suppressing environmental conservation efforts around the world. Continue reading “The Zeitgeist of Grief” →

With a heavy heart

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

51018208_1652852181527529_5162391080217346048_nBy T. Tackett

Dear beloved family,

I write this with a heavy heart. In the last couple months we have lost a lot. The towns are flooded. The cities are on fire. The air is thick, toxic, and unbreathable. Most of the water, if there is water, is not potable.  Which leaves us thirsty and breathless.

We have lost a lot of people. All by murder in my opinion. If not by direct assassination, then by the insidious hand of the systems that be.

In these times of resistance and working towards radical transformation; grief and trauma collect in creases of our being. There is no way around it. Battle wounds become battle scars, which become evidence of our fight.

In our work, we are often reminded that grief is a call to action, yet it is difficult to move forward without fully understanding what is happening to us, to our children and to the outcome of all life on earth. It feels all to much. The pain. The burden weight on our soul, trying to sink us. We try to listen, but the sound of our hearts breaking is just to loud.

Don’t get me wrong, most of us understand death, we have had intimate relationship with it. But from this death, life often begins anew. So here in this deep grief we are met with life again. And in this new life, we bare the grief of our old life; a death which we have not yet accepted, and a death which hurts our hearts to bare.

I have always held the belief that we can change this world and we can heal ourselves in the process. But this is hard. This is painful. This is unthinkable. It has never been done before and at the same time it has been done for generations. These two truths are not opposite or contradictions. They are of the same and live within each other.

It was Charity Hicks, one of the great martyrs of the Detroit Water struggle, who called us to “Wage Love”. This idea is not a passive act, but a call to be courageous. A call to heal, but  not forget. To remember our grief. To hold it in our pursuing of justice. And to also remember one can not do this alone. That the possibility and opportunity to heal lays in the foundation of the beloved community. And that every member of the beloved community never truly leaves us. Even in death, They live in the home of our hearts and that in each step towards justice, they continue to walk with us forever.

I finish this letter to say that It is together we will continue to fight, it is to together we will grieve and it is together, we will live again.

In struggle and love

Your brother,
-T. Tackett

T.Tackett is a Community organizer, Activist ,Water Protector, and Land Defender. Born and raised in the Great Lakes region.

 

 

On the Eve of Hurricane Florence

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
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Hurricane Florence from BBC

By Kateri Boucher

It’s so easy for me to still think of climate change as some kind of amorphous, future-tense crisis. Something I’ll have to deal with, for sure, just not right now. But what’s happening to our planet is not a future crisis; it is a living, breathing, current reality. Millions of people around the world have already come face to face with their personal nightmares of “climate dystopia,” and many of them haven’t made it out alive. Monsoons in South Asia; drought in East Africa; heat waves in India and Pakistan; hurricanes on the US Atlantic coasts. And here is the thing that we must keep reminding ourselves: those who are ALREADY most marginalized, oppressed, and exploited by global systems of power are those who will continue to suffer the most.

Right now, as I type, South Carolina’s MacDougall Correctional Institution (a privately owned corporation) is holding hundreds of inmates in their cells, despite a mandatory evacuation order from the Governor. For those prisoners, this current moment is a living “dystopia” in ways that many of us can’t even begin to imagine. The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons has organized an informal phone zap (link in comments) to pressure SC officials to evacuate all prisons in the flood zone. I’m not sure of its status right now, but if anyone else knows of other ways to support the prisoners please share more info in the comments.

In the coming days and weeks (and months and years and decades), many many others will need support as well. And looking ahead, here are the questions I’m holding in my heart: How will we find ways to support those most affected by this storm? Can we see this storm as a symptom of a much larger sickness — and what will we do to address the root causes of illness? How would it feel to actually sit with the heaviness of this collective global moment? Who are my neighbors? Who are your neighbors? What would it actually mean to love our neighbors as ourselves? Like, actually actually? What would we have to give up if we do? What would we have to give up if we don’t?

***

It’s okay to let yourself mourn.

Ecological Grief

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
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PC: Michael Raymond Smith (www.michaelraymondsmith.com)

From the conclusion of “Hope and mourning in the Anthropocene: Understanding ecological grief” by Neville Ellis and Ashlee Cunsulo in The Conversation.  Ellis and Cunsulo define ecological grief as “The grief felt in relation to experienced or anticipated ecological losses, including the loss of species, ecosystems, and meaningful landscapes due to acute or chronic environmental change.”

Ecological grief reminds us that climate change is not just some abstract scientific concept or a distant environmental problem. Rather, it draws our attention to the personally experienced emotional and psychological losses suffered when there are changes or deaths in the natural world. In doing so, ecological grief also illuminates the ways in which more-than-humans are integral to our mental wellness, our communities, our cultures, and for our ability to thrive in a human-dominated world. Continue reading “Ecological Grief” →

Learning from Laughter and the Trees: The Gift in Their Voices

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Uncategorized1 Comment

IMG_2589.JPGBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

My mom died New Year’s Eve when I was 19. We knew it was coming so that Advent as we sang “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” each night before dinner, I paid attention to the voices. I knew them so intimately- the tones and harmonies that our four voices made together. It was the sound of home and I ached to imagine how our singing would change with just three voices. So each night I zeroed in on the sound of my mom’s voice- desperate to not let it be forgotten. Memorizing deep within, in hopes that whenever I sang “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” that I would always hear her voice within it.

Continue reading “Learning from Laughter and the Trees: The Gift in Their Voices” →

Learning from Laughter and the Trees: Under the Apple Tree Again

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized2 Comments
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Grandpa, Cedar, and Isaac digging the hole for Scatters under the apple tree.

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

The rain is pouring down with periodic rumbles of thunder. It is cold and the sun has set, but we can tell that there is a need in Isaac’s heart to make this trek. We put on hats and shoes and give into the rain as we walk down the street and into the backyard of my dad’s house.

It’s too dark to see the loosened soil, but we bend down low and Isaac says, “This is where we buried Scatters.” Cedar, who is almost two, bends down too and after a minute looks up at Erinn and says “Meow” and points to the dirt. Erinn says, “Is this where Scatters is? Did he die?” Cedar responds, “Meow die.” Continue reading “Learning from Laughter and the Trees: Under the Apple Tree Again” →

Don’t Forget to Feed the Loas

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Race1 Comment

The Light of the WorldFrom Elizabeth Alexander’s grief memoir The Light of the World (2015). This is the conclusion of the final lecture she gave to her “African American Art Today” class, just one week after the sudden death of her husband:

“Don’t forget to feed the loas” serves as an entreaty or opening salvo and refrain in Ishmael Reed’s great novel Mumbo Jumbo. The phrase articulates the imperative to remember to honor the deity-like ancestral forces that guide us through our contemporary lives. The offerings on their altars may be fruit or flowers, chicken or wine; when taken metaphorically, offerings may also be found in the form of art and the calling of names that honors our dead and keeps them near… Continue reading “Don’t Forget to Feed the Loas” →

Dad and Dan

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, UncategorizedLeave a comment

bill r.jpgBy Bill Ramsey. May 1, 2016.

Dad and Dan, an unlikely pair
to walk across heaven’s threshold
a week apart, a world apart.

Way back when Dan’s burning action
kindled my conflicted conscience,
radically realigning my course,
Dad foresaw impending danger,
a tableau of “G-men” ascending
his steep suburban driveway
in pursuit of his willful son. Continue reading “Dad and Dan” →

Learning from Laughter: The Pumpkin that Cried Tears

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses1 Comment

isaac pumpkinBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann as part of her series on parenting- Learning from Laughter.

With the table covered in newspaper, the three of us began carving pumpkins. Isaac embraced the gunk helping to pull it out while the Halloween music played and the moon shown out the window. When it came time to cut the faces, I sat beside him and asked what he wanted. We drew it out together in marker. He told me he wanted square eyes and a triangle nose. Out of the blue he insisted that the pumpkin have a mustache. Then I asked about the mouth. Do you want a smile? “No. It’s a sad pumpkin.” I tried to draw a sad mouth. Then he said “Pumpkin crying.” He was asking for tears. I carved out some tears falling from the square eyes. He smiled in total delight and pride at his sad pumpkin. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: The Pumpkin that Cried Tears” →