The Sparrow Community House

from sparrow to seminarian

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:58:35 -0500

it seems really appropriate that the last thing blogged for sparrow community house would be a call for help from a trans woman in my new home state, north carolina. after all, the original house started after a call much like that.

after sparrow community house left its physical address, i continued carrying the mission of the house very close to my heart. this blog traveled with me and that mission for a little while. i will hold onto the name, the fantastic logo, the web address, and the possibility of a future sparrow community house…perhaps forever. but right now, my energy is focused on my unschooling and seeking out meaningful service in nc. the blog connected to this one http://unschooledseminarian.tumblr.com/ is where you will find all new posts. a lot of the issues i wrote about here will be written about there. this is an evolution, not an end.

thank you for following the progress of the community. keep in touch.

No, I'm Not Your Kind, Dear: North Carolina!! AN ELDER NEEDS OUR SUPPORT

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:30:18 -0500

No, I'm Not Your Kind, Dear: North Carolina!! AN ELDER NEEDS OUR SUPPORT :

blackamazon:

She needs “a bedroom for me and my stuff and my cat, some pain meds, and a line on a job.” She’s getting kicked out of her place by the first of the month, but she’s a real established organizer, a genius trans woman of color former graphic designer and in need of community…

sexworkerproblems: escortlife: 17. December International Day...

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:23:30 -0500

sexworkerproblems:

escortlife:

17. December International Day to End Violence against Sexworkers

Candle lit vigils and Sex Worker Speak out internationally at these events

http://www.swopusa.org/dec17/event-locations/

Apologies to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan for reblogging this so late.

Here I Go...: First Days

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:31:59 -0500

Here I Go...: First Days:

an article written by my partner about our first days in asheville. she’s great.

firstacoustic:

We arrived in Asheville on Saturday afternoon to sun and a local beer from our new roommate. Gulliver explored the grounds and lusted after the ducks in the yard before discovering the giant, low, bay window that he can stare out for hours at a time.

We’ve been reveling in the joy of living in…

the grand unschooling

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:05:44 -0500

the grand unschooling:

i have long wanted to go to seminary but have had some problems with the idea of re-entering the university system and/or furthering america’s fixation on professionalism and certification. so during my first year in asheville i will be embarking on an unschooling project that i will be documenting on a separate tumbr account (link attached). check out the unschooled seminarian blog…ya know, if you want to.

post-colonialism does the math

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:57:31 -0500

cottonwood tree in albuquerque, nm

kiplinger magazine released a survey last week stating that more millionaires, 885 households, live in los alamos, nm than anywhere else in the nation.

according to census data, new mexico has the second highest concentration of indigenous people in the us at nearly 200,000 (9% of the states population).

in late june, the las conchas fire hit the people who live in santa clara pueblo particularly hard, destroying almost half of their watershed and eighty percent of their forest. residents of the pueblo say that the ecological damage cannot be corrected in their lifetime. the wild fire that hit this area was originally headed straight for los alamos and its nuclear labs when fire departments took measures to re-route the blaze away from los alamos and into santa clara.

this is what post-colonialism looks like.

cops are lashing out and telling lies

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:42:19 -0400

cops are lashing out and telling lies:

in solidarity with the folks at (un)occupy protests all over the usa and all of our friends on the street who must face the cops daily, i’ve linked to crimethinc who has printed a new flyer concerning myths about police power and authority. take care of each other and stay informed!

baptists take a stand against attacks on trans women

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:03:36 -0400

baptists take a stand against attacks on trans women :

“Consequently, when we stand in solidarity with the transgender victims of violence, we also stand in solidarity with the Christ who suffers with them.” -joint baptist statement

holy mary, mother of god blessed are you as a woman and blessed...

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:19:00 -0400

holy mary, mother of god

blessed are you as a woman and blessed is the fruit of your womb, jesus (a peasant like us!)

pray for us now and at the hour of our liberation

-a prayer recited at trinity house catholic worker during prayer hours

(photo of a friends’s trailer at the mesa outside of albuquerque, nm)

whose name will be called?

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:20:00 -0400

there are a lot of gospel songs about the name of jesus. type “the name of jesus” on youtube and you can listen to hours of songs about the power of the name, calling on the name, loving the name, blessing the name, etc. but last night, america chose a different name to proclaim. the moniker in question changes with time, sometimes it is “lynching” at other periods it has been “crucifixion” but it will answer to “vengeance” no matter the era. last night when america re-crucified christ through the nasty, sacrilegious practice of capital punishment, our values were revealed.

certainly, there were those who said “no”. perhaps, more people said “no” last night than have in a long long while in this country. but it wasn’t enough for troy davis and it won’t be enough for the rest of christ’s brothers and sisters sitting on death row. why is it not enough? because americans have elected men and women to office who love humans’ law more than humans’ life. americans have allowed the courts to be filled with well-paid judges who love their jobs more than justice (foolishly we believed they were one in the same). and by doing these things, this very young country has traded reconciliation, forgiveness, and community for strife, grudge, and acrimony.

so where do we go from here, now that we look more like the executioner than like christ? many people who weigh in on the death penalty are concerned with letting those who commit serious crimes live. however, there is too little said about our disturbing obsession with making anyone, regardless of guilt, pay for their indiscretion with their very life. i believe that is where we start. it is fine to state that troy is innocent. after all, he is. but that is not the reason he should not have been put to death. he should not have been murdered because it’s not the state’s place to take someone’s life. in fact, the state has no true authority to lock someone in a cage and control all their movements either. but i’ll save the rant about prison abolition for another day and say simply that we can’t continue to act like the death penalty makes sense. no person of conscience should support it. of course, no christian can support it (theologically or morally; see substitutionary atonement, the lords prayer, the gospels). so let’s stop the death dealing now. let’s fill our mouths with the call for life and forgiveness, with the name of the world’s most famous victim of the death penalty. when we do this, surely there will be no room for the name of vengeance on our lips.

troy davis as a child

what is a catholic worker?

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:21:47 -0400

what is a catholic worker?:

i haven’t met too many folks who know about the catholic worker movement. in my attempts to explain my work at trinity house in albuquerque, i leave a lot out and tend to confuse people further. robert ludlow does a better job of being concise without sacrificing the radical message.

above image: labor cross by fritz eichenberg

kirsten is here! we’ve now had a chance to do a little...

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 20:00:10 -0400

kirsten is here! we’ve now had a chance to do a little exploring. we hung out by the rio grande, checked out the coffee scene, and stared at the sandia mountains for hours from the lawn of university of nm. our days at the house have been spent turning a very rank compost pile, serving during hospitality hours, hanging out with the cats (all named after nuclear test explosions) and learning how to not totally butcher the canticles.

love it! epicenter and the folks who make it possible are...

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:51:06 -0400

love it! epicenter and the folks who make it possible are wonderful. you know you need this print.

epicenter:

“Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.” - Horace Greeley, 1865

One of the most commonly quoted sayings from the nineteenth century is still inspiring us today. These hand-set type posters were letterpressed in our own little corner of the West in a traveling letterpress workshop - a truck, a press and an artist working their way across America!

These posters are for sale on our Etsy store for $20 (plus S/H). Each print is beautifully unique; no two look the same! Please specify if you have a color preference - either blue, rust or a surprise mix of the two!

so the journey begins! monday night, a strange car arrived at...

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:43:00 -0400

so the journey begins!

monday night, a strange car arrived at the albuquerque airport to shuttle me to my new home. veggie oil (which really does make the car smell like french fries) powered us back to trinity house.

tuesday morning we all headed to los alamos nuclear lab for a vigil to remember our japanese friends who suffered through the nagasaki nuclear atrocity on august 9th 1945. los alamos is a strange place. the town’s superficial serenity acts as a well-constructed distraction from the horrors the lab still creates and nurtures. at 20,000 employees, the lab is almost a town unto its self.

wednesday is the first day of service for the week. trinity house provides laundry service, showers, and breakfast for about a dozen folks a day, 4 times a week. the numbers were low today but i got a feel for the rhythm of things and met some regulars.

good times. good times.

jesus radicals conference recap

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:43:26 -0400

yesterday, i got back from the jesus radicals conference in minneapolis. the weekend was packed with information and conversations that were urgent and mind-bending. amaryah, who rode up from atlanta with kirsten and i, co-led a session at the event called sexuality, spirituality and christian-radicalism. her take on the intersections of orthodoxy and queerness blew folks out of the water. ched myers (if you haven’t read this guy’s work you’re cheating yourself) spoke on watershed discipleship and our obligation to save spaces we love. other sessions explored the topics of anarchy, the prison industrial complex, education, bio-regionalism, surveillance, and the ever-expanding problem of robotic weaponry. these topics are always interesting but they take on a new dimension when considered through the lens of the gospels. in light of the current national discussion about who deserves government services and who should have to pay taxes, it was refreshing to hear christians say unequivocally that democracy and capitalism aren’t and can’t be christian institutions.

on monday, kirsten flew from minneapolis to boston to spend time with her parents and her grandmother, nancy smith, who just completed a six month sentence for crossing the line at the school of the americas protest last year. nancy is the jam! may we all be stirred to the kind of subversive action this woman dared to engage in at the age of seventy-eight.

(i can’t find any information about the above image so i don’t know who to credit for this absurd and very popular nationalistic revisioning of jesus)

i’m moving to the land of enchantment august 8th. see you...

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:01:37 -0400

i’m moving to the land of enchantment august 8th. see you in the desert, friend.

starsinthesky18:

New Mexico Sunrise

kirsten and i will be heading to jesus radical’s beyond a...

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:01:00 -0400

kirsten and i will be heading to jesus radical’s beyond a brave new world conference in minneapolis on the 27th. expect a full report! to learn more about the conference or to read theological writing that’ll make you say “hell yeah!”, check out their website:http://www.jesusradicals.com/

a queer violence

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 22:00:41 -0400

police sgt. john brock thinks queer people are more violent than their heterosexual counterparts. in fact, he said “they’re very violent” and “when they get mad, they get really mad”. i bring up brock’s comments about the queer community not just because they are unsettling and unfair stereotypes but because they are part of the reason given for why an atlanta gay bar was raided in 2009.

the eagle was raided in september of 2009 by a vice squad that was known as the red dog unit. this unit, founded in the 1980s to deal with drug crime, was notorious for illegal searches and aggressive tactics. partly due to the unlawful nature of the eagle raid and the lawsuit the city faced as a result, red dog was disbanded in february. but just because the unit was no more did not mean that the investigation of the raid and the involved officers ended. the final report, of what has aptly been viewed by the queer community as an antiquated, stonewall-esque bust, was finally released just days ago.

going through every minor detail of the raid is not really of interest to me. the synopsis of the what happened in september goes like this: dressed in black fatigues, cops busted into the bar; kicked down doors; handcuffed patrons and made them lay face-down on the floor; illegally searched and falsely imprisoned people from the bar; and yelled anti-gay slurs.

in the 349 page report, there are certainly highlights. the comments about violence don’t stop with brock, the raid leader, but are complimented by a statement made by a participating officer who said he felt for a “man [to] have sex with another man” was “very violent”. these comments were made to investigators after the raid. but during the affair, cops asked patrons to admit to being in the military so they could “call your sergeant and tell him where you’re at” (this is before the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell). cops also revealed that their cultural insensitivity went beyond the targeted minority of the moment saying within ear-shot of patrons “this is more fun than raiding n***ers with crack”.

the red dog unit was bad news, and for the people they beat, imprisoned, and humiliated for nearly thirty years this statement is most certainly not past tense. however, the problem of policing, particularly that of the queer community, is a pervasive and expanding issue. the percentage of queer identified people behind bars is disproportionately high and the number of transgender people who come forward with reports of police brutality is staggering. as angela davis put it so well, “the prison functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities…”

in this story, queer people are written off as violent. there are important questions to be asked of this situation. how is the media supporting this labeling of queer people as anti-social and aggressive? is the general public buying into this stereotype or is it just an idea that is taking hold with law enforcement? will this label further domesticate the queer community, making folks cower and keep quiet in hopes of not being lumped in with “the angry ones”? or will queer people learn that being mad, really mad is valuable when there is an injustice to be angry about?

[artwork by qteam collective entitled queers don’t make friends with the state]

"[Y]our national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence;..."

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 12:40:09 -0400

““[Y]our national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.””

- Frederick Douglass

on june 28th, undocumented college students will speak out against georgia’s heinous new...

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 23:56:00 -0400

on june 28th, undocumented college students will speak out against georgia’s heinous new immigration law. stand in solidarity with them inside the georgia state capitol building at 1:30pm. defy the law! defy the racist, death-dealing system!

“with the passage of hb87 into law, as undocumented youth, we refuse to remain silent. we are tired of hiding. we have grown up in georgia for most of our lives and we refuse to let racist legislators run our families out.” - dulce guerrero, 18, brought to georgia at the age of 2