Nonaligned faith and practice in the present
Never mind the endless cycling
of what we call news
ensorcelling tales of political theater,
social distress, and un-
natural disasters
things happening
elsewhere.
We are in the salutary midst
of the fall.
What is close
is real.
Think of children
now schooled
Continuing my series on Stringfellow’s An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (1973).
When William Stringfellow uses the biblical language of the Book of Revelation, he is not referring to beings or events of some future supernatural “end time.” He is using it—as did Revelation’s author and first audience—to refer poetically to things of this present world, this mortal human world.
Chapter 4 is “Stratagems of the demonic powers.” The demonic denies
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From my Facebook post this morning .
It is quite normal for human beings to claim “religions” as cultural identities. Normal we say “I am a Jew” or “I am a Sikh,” meaning that we belong to people of the Jewish or Sikh culture, those who subscribe not just to the systems of “right belief” and “right behavior” of those “religions.”
All of this is because THE most important social reality for human animals is that they are hardwired
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In this post, I interrupt my chapter-by-chapter study of Stringfellow’s 1973 An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land in order to put this series into the context of 2021’s political, cultural, environmental, and pandemic crises.
care (v.)
Old English carian, cearian “be anxious or solicitous; grieve; feel concern or interest,” from Proto-Germanic *karo- “lament,” hence “grief, care” (source also of Old Saxon karon “to lament, to care, to sorrow, complain,” Old High German charon “complain, lament,” Gothic karon “be anxious”), said to be from PIE root *gar- “cry out, call, scream.” —Online Etymology Dictionary
Our hyper-connected media world forces us all to wrestle with an extra layer of emotional suffering: that
…When my mother went into skilled nursing care with Alzheimer’s dementia, my grouchy alter-ego Walhydra crawled under the bed, saying, “How can I writing sarcastic humor when real life is shutting me down with grief and depression? It isn’t funny!” Mom died in January 2011.
This post is the next to last one from my blog Walhydra’s Porch. It was written after a certain national catastrophe that may still have consequences a generation from now.
I think modern Quakers and people of other religions have a lot of confusion about what “membership” means.
I am a “convinced Friend” because in my faith and practice I choose to follow the Quaker way of worship, decision-making, and witness in the world.
I am a “member” of a particular Meeting if I have chosen to take responsibility for the support and well-being of that particular Meeting.
By analogy, one can be a Muslim or a Jew or a
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My morning practice often includes reading from American Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chödrön. Here is this morning’s reading from The Pocket Pema Chödrön.
…Loneliness
Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. Its restless and pregnant
and hot with the desire to escape
Just Us: An American Conversation, by Claudia Rankine (2020)
Excerpts from Ismail Muhammad’s review in The Atlantic
In 2016, African-American poet and scholar Claudia Rankine was not sure that her Yale students “would be able to trace the historical resonances of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant demagoguery.” She wanted them to connect the current treatment of Mexicans and other Hispanic people with America’s 19th century treatment of Irish, Italian, and Asian immigrants.
…It
Continuing my series on Stringfellow’s An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (1973).
Epigraph
The Gospel of Mark frequently demonstrates the typically human ways in which Jesus’ followers misunderstand his words and deeds. One pivotal story that speaks to William Stringfellow’s concern about modern American Christians and other people of faith is usually titled “the transfiguration” (Mark 9:2-8, New New Testament).
…2 Six days later, Jesus took with him
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