Tag: Kateri Boucher

An Expansive, Infinite Array of Expressions

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

By Kateri Boucher, a homily for a Pride Celebration at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (Detroit, MI) on June 4, 2023. Click here to watch the video version (homily starts around minute twenty-six).

It is a powerful thing to be celebrating this holiday in this space, with this community. I don’t take it for granted that we can gather here today in this way. It was only in 1976, 46 years ago, that the Episcopal church officially became open and affirming. As we know, there are many other streams of the Christian tradition that have done so even more recently, or still haven’t yet. 

There are many people who believe that the phrase “queer Christian” is an outrage or an oxymoron. And I can feel it coming from both sides… I’ve joked with my friends that coming out as queer was not a very big deal for me, which I’m very grateful for, but coming out as Christian to my queer friends has caused a bit of a stir. People are like, “Oh my gosh… Are you okay? Can we support you?” Just yesterday I was at a brunch with a bunch of young queer folks and I told someone I work for a church. It was kind of uncomfortable. They were kind of like, “Why?” 

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Resistance 2020: Tether and Release

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

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.” 

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No churchbells here

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as Theology, Uncategorized3 Comments

94240524_246901160023028_5591200460431163392_oa poem for Day House in these days of missing our Sunday evening living room mass
By Kateri Boucher

No churchbells here
this morning
but a doorbell,
yes,
and it sure is
ringing

No wafers,
but hands outstretched
and the five-buck
refrain:
“yeah we got it”
“oh god bless”

And don’t you
smell that Holy
smoke drifting
down the stairs?
Continue reading “No churchbells here” →

Sermon: Saying Yes

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized2 Comments

Wrau-sea-of-galilee
Fishing in the Sea of Galilee. Image from the Library of Congress.

By Kateri Boucher, Homily at Day House Catholic Worker 1/26

Matthew 4: 18-22

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

When taken at face value, this reading doesn’t seem to have much bearing on my life. I haven’t gone fishing in years. I’ve never been approached by a random man asking me to follow him and “catch other people.” And I’ve certainly never made a split-second decision to leave my daily life and family behind.

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Sermon: Let Go of the Branch

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized2 Comments

indexBy Kateri Boucher at Day House Catholic Worker August 11, 2019

Luke 12: 32-4
Hebrews 11: 1-2, 8-19
Wisdom 18: 6-9

Some of you may have heard the story about the man who was being chased by a tiger and falls off a cliff. Luckily he catches a branch and is hanging there from it, trying to figure out what to do. In desperation he cries out, “If there’s a God up there, I’ll do anything if you’ll save me!” Suddenly a voice booms down from the heavens, “This is God and I want to save you! All you have to do is let go of the branch!” There’s a long pause as the man thinks that over, then he finally turns back up and says “Is there anyone ELSE up there?”

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No words

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
2017-10-22-10-42-55-1100x825By Kateri Boucher

 

What would the trees say, if we asked them now?
What have we done?
What shall we do?
The Climate Report said 12 years.
Now, even closer to 11.
How is a little body like mine supposed to hold news that big?
The wheels keep turning,
hurtling us all forward, or
backward.
Whatever direction —
unceasing.
And where will this little body be in 11 years?
Will I still be one of the ones who can continue pretending?
The trees outside don’t say a thing.
Or maybe they do,
but I never listen long enough
to hear them.

On the Eve of Hurricane Florence

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

index
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.

Telling my own story

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized2 Comments

kateriBy Kateri Boucher

Last year for my Sociology senior thesis, I chose to research the interactions between two environmental justice (EJ) organizations in a majority-Black city with a rich and complicated history of EJ work. I had made connections with folks in the EJ movement when I had lived there for a few weeks the previous summer, and I figured that studying these two organizations would be a perfect way to both learn more and get involved in work that I was drawn to. I did some background research, and then traveled to the city for a week to do interviews with members of both organizations. After documenting my findings, I submitted the paper and got a near-perfect grade on the first draft. I was proud of my work, and I was rewarded and praised for it. Continue reading “Telling my own story” →