Learning from Laughter: Gratitude as the only Resistance to Greed

gratitudeBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Last March, Isaac joined us in a circle with eight college students having just completed a week long immersion trip in Detroit. We sat in the dark passing a candle around naming gratitudes for the week. The candle traveled around the circle again and again as the room filled with the realization of abundance in the relationships and the learning. Isaac sat quietly, on the eve of his second birthday, watching in awe and listening and waiting patiently for his turn to hold the candle and name a gratitude. Each time he held the candle he smiled, looked around, and proudly named something….almost always it was for “playing trains.” But I was amazed that he got the concept and indeed named what he was grateful for.

This kid has continued to be filled with gratitude. He says thank you all the time! Isaac and I have been working in the backyard stacking wood for the winter and each time I hand him a log he says “Thank you mommy.” And I can’t help but say it right back repeating it with each piece of wood. A couple months ago, we sat down to dinner, and before we held hands to sing a prayer, out of the blue he said “Thank you for cooking dinner mama.” That may just have been his first complete sentence! Damn, I am a lucky mother. This kid is an amazing reminder of the constant goodness and gratitude in our lives. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Gratitude as the only Resistance to Greed”

Drumming and Jack-o-Lanterns

pumpkinBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Late at night, I would sneak into our living room, lie on the floor, and put my ear to the ground. I could hear the drumming and catch the tune to the chants that had for years drifted me into dreams. If I really pushed my ear close, I could make out my mom’s voice as she joined with the circle of women monthly sharing song, dreams, and summer vision quests deep in the woods.

My family was deeply Christian. My mom loved incense and the sacraments. But she was also starved for a spirituality that rooted itself on the ground- in the trees and the hawks and the snow. She longed for rituals that connected her body to the waves and the changing moon. She clung to the tension of multiple traditions knowing that she needed them both. Continue reading “Drumming and Jack-o-Lanterns”

Learning from Laughter: Wedding Veils and Wrestling

familyBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann.

Isaac pulls a green sheet off the floor puts it over his head and says “You getting married.” (He still refers to himself as “you”). He brings Patrick, the life-size stuffed dog out of his room and stands him up to pretend they are getting married. I don’t know where he got the idea, but all I can do is smile and say “You look beautiful.”
Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Wedding Veils and Wrestling”

Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence

lydia die inBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. First published on Geez’s blog.

The sun hits my face hard as I listen to the water from the fountain. As I look up and around, I am aware how little this downtown resembles the city I know anymore. The faces are all young and white (not unlike my own) playing beach ball, listening to live bands, sipping mid-day cocktails, and eating from food trucks. I look down at the 25 black bodies lying on the cement draped with signs and names of those killed at the hands of the police. On my lap sits the one-and-a-half year old who is my constant companion and teacher these days. He watches intently holding an air of seriousness in his body. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence”

The Good News on Masculinity: There is Another Way

jim harbaughIn patriarchal culture males are not allowed simply to be who they are and to glory in their unique identity. Their value is always determined by what they do. In an anti-patriarchal culture males do not have to prove their value and worth. They know from birth that simply being gives them value, the right to be cherished and loved.
bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004)
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Lydia Wylie-Kellermann and Tommy Airey, co-editors of RadicalDiscipleship.Net & “backdoor neighbors” in Detroit, are both white and both come up solid INFJs on the Myers-Briggs personality test. When it comes to the Enneagram, Lydia is a 2 with a 3 wing. Tommy is a 3 with a 2 wing. But the similarities may end there. Lydia grew up in Detroit, is in a traditional same-sex marriage, the mother of a 2-year-old, a disciple of the Harry Potter series, an avid gardener and knitter. Tommy grew up in suburban Southern California, is scandalously married to a former student, an avid distance runner and starts every morning sipping on home-roasted coffee, journaling and reading the sports page and academic theology. Below is the transcript of an eDialogue we recently had on the current state of North American masculinity.
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TA: I’m not sure if you are familiar with Jim Harbaugh (photo above: in a recent game of shirts and skins). He might be the most popular white guy in Michigan right now. The University of Michigan recently signed him to a $7 million per year contract to be their football coach. He’s coaching football clinics all over North America to try to recruit the best players to play in your native Michigan. I came across this quote last week: Continue reading “The Good News on Masculinity: There is Another Way”

Learning from Laughter: Sabbath Economics Support Group for Parents

cherriesBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

“But one of the greatest gifts we feel she can receive is a life in this community: we want her to know and feel the love of people who are alive, who don’t give a damn about money and who are willing to do with their lives what they think God is asking”                                             – Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Sabbath Economics Support Group for Parents”

Learning from Laughter: Beside the Beaver’s Dam

DSC00655“I love nature. Nature is cool. The forest is my classroom. The earth is my school. Trees are my teachers. Animals are my friends. And on this school all life depends.” Joe Reilly, I Love Nature

Isaac tiptoes through the forest, climbing over fallen branches and stopping to smell each flower. We follow behind delighting in the comfort he finds in the place. Down the hill and around the bend of the stream, we walk the deer’s path honoring their daily wisdom and knowledge of this wood. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Beside the Beaver’s Dam”

When they turn off our water..

water stationWritten by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann for the Detroit Peace Community’s Stations of the Cross. This week the City of Detroit has resumed shut offs to 30,000 homes.

When they turn off our water, prohibiting us from cleaning our clothes or our bodies, they strip us of our dignity.

When they turn off our water, leaving us unable to care for medical needs and sewage backs up, they strip us of our health.
Continue reading “When they turn off our water..”

What Keeps Us Alive

geezBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. Published in Geez Magazine’s Spring issue.

If each hour brings death
If time is a den of thieves
The breezes carry a scent of evil
And life is just a moving target
you will ask why we sing…

We sing because the river is humming
And when the river hums
The river hums
We sing because cruelty has no name
But we can name its destiny
We sing because the child because everything
Because the future because the people
We sing because the survivors
And our dead want us to sing

(Excerpt from Mario Benedetti’s Por Que Cantamos) Continue reading “What Keeps Us Alive”