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)

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)

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/

serving dinner in south decatur on new year’s eve didn’t happen as i pondered resolutions or radical exertions that we were fighting the system. i didn’t want to be hasseled by the owners of the parking lot and i really didn’t want to answer too many questions about why i was serving chili off of an oldsmobile.

despite not maintaining a very new years-y, forward thinking posture during our service, there was a new resolve after we packed up everything and left. “the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones”, is one definition of resolution and that is what had greater meaning on the first day of a fresh year.

this mission is simple. serve and love those who receive that service. complexity is added by a world that wants poverty to seem normal, deserved. and the christian voices made public, nourish the confusion by creating moral distractions. jesus was a homeless man from a forgettable town who died as the result of a death penalty that the state, obsessed with war and money, just couldn’t get enough of. if ever there were a scenario that seemed relevant, it is this one. christ’s life, documented and preached about by millions, is lived out every day in this very city by people we can no longer face.

we are told that “they are simply not trying hard enough and to allow them what they need to thrive would be too costly and complex.” but with great certitude, i feel it’s the opposite: “how they arrived at this fearful juncture may indeed be complex but serving them is simple.” it is far past time, for each of us to stop making this work into a cumbersome obligation and start looking forward to the simple service we have before us. i’m resolved to simplicity as this year breaks. here’s hoping i’ll be in good company.