Blog – Page 3 – Watershed Discipleship

Counter Mapping: a decolonization tool

June 8, 2018June 24, 2018WD Editors

by Dave Pritchett
Watershed Discipleship Editorial Team Member

In my essay, “Watershed Discipleship in Babylon,” in the Watershed Discipleship anthology, I argued that the grid system is fundamentally opposed to the watershed. Where the watershed unites creatures within it by the hydrological cycle, the grid divides by parceling land into commoditized areas. Water in the watershed follows the contours of the earth, whereas the grid superimposes its lines across the landscape. Moreover, since Ancient Greece, the grid has been used as an imperial tool of colonization; it affords empire with a mechanism to quickly and strategically map an area for population and resource control. Read more →

Aloha ‘Aina: Reflections from the Eco-Stewards Program in Kailua, Hawai’i

June 2, 2018June 1, 2018WD Editors

Editor’s Note: The Eco-Stewards Program is entirely grassroots and is sustained by the grace of God in addition to the energy and passion of a handful of volunteer leaders.

by Vickie Machado
Watershed Discipleship Editorial Team Member

This year’s Eco-Stewards trip was a new experience for us as we invited nine young adults at various stages in their lives to join us for our program entitled Aloha ‘Aina. Past participants, speakers, hosts, and inspirational voices converged on the island of O’ahu for a special edition of Eco-Stewards that looked to further expand our networks, partnerships, and relationships with those engaged in meaningful work that mixes faith and environmental action. Represented among us were a variety of perspectives, backgrounds and spiritual practices including followers of the Roman Catholic faith, a practitioner of Traditional Longhouse spirituality, a leader from the African Methodist Episcopal tradition, mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, a follower of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village Tradition and some self-identified Christian-anarchists.

We were warmly welcomed by one of our core Eco-Stewards Leadership Team members, Rev. Liz Levitt, and her Kailua congregation, Christ Church Uniting Disciples & Presbyterians. Through this congregation and its community ties, our group of mostly mainlanders were introduced to Hawaiian culture Read more →

Incarnate in Nazareth

May 26, 2018May 30, 2018Cherice Bock

Editor’s note: Sam Greenlee preached this sermon on January 14, 2018 at City Life Church in Midtown Sacramento, CA.

by Sam Greenlee
Guest Contributor

The image in the meme above comes from The Lion King and shows Simba talking with his father, Mufasa. Mufasa is instructing Simba and says, “Look, everything the light touches is Sacramento.” Simba notes that the light doesn’t touch everything he can see and asks, “But what about that shadowy place?” Mufasa answers, “That’s Oak Park. You must never go there, Simba.”

This meme made the rounds a couple of years ago, and people edited it over and over again to update the “joke” for their context. There was one in which San Francisco was the light and Oakland was the dark. There is one in which Stockton is the shadowy place. There was one for Modesto and one for Fresno and one for Bakersfield. And of course, there is this one that makes a mockery of Oak Park, the neighborhood I call home. Read more →

Christian Food Movement: an interview with Nurya Love Parish

May 18, 2018June 24, 2018Cherice Bock

by Cherice Bock and Nurya Love Parish

In 2014, Rev. Nurya Love Parish began organizing a network she called the Christian Food Movement, and started a farm-based ministry called Plainsong Farm in Michigan. A former Unitarian Universalist and now Episcopal priest, Parish preached on ecology, food, and faith as far back as 2002, but her vision for putting the themes of faith and ecology together in her life and ministry began to coalesce in 2014 when she encountered Fred Bahnson’s Soil & Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith, which led her to Wake Forest School of Divinity’s Food, Faith, & Religious Leadership Initiative. There, she heard about watershed discipleship, and hatched the idea for catalyzing a Christian Food Movement that connects Christians who are integrating food and faith, in the style of the Jewish Food Movement. Read more →

Choosing #DayOne

May 11, 2018May 5, 2018WD Editors

by Craig Stewart
Originally appeared in The Warehouse newsletter

I didn’t come to public activism easily or naturally. In August of 1989 Archbishop Tutu and Rev Boesak led a series of beach protests in Cape Town to highlight the racial segregation of South African beaches. The first one was violently broken up by the police and that week I decided I could no longer vacillate on the sidelines and joined the next one on Strand Beach. I had made the choice to turn from apathy to anger and action. A few weeks later, on September 2, 1989, a police water cannon loaded with purple dye aimed and fired on thousands of protesters in the city centre. This ‘purple rain’ covered protesters, cars and buildings and the police arrested all those drenched in purple, some friends were smuggled out of town to escape. Chaos and violence and fear seemed in control. Read more →

Sacred Earth Youth Camp, Vancouver, BC, July 29-August 10

May 5, 2018May 5, 2018Cherice Bock

Youth ages “13-25ish” are invited to attend the third annual Sacred Earth Camp, organized by Salal + Cedar, a watershed discipleship community in Vancouver, British Columbia (Coast Salish Territory). Salal + Cedar hopes other watershed discipleship communities will send young people to learn together and build community. Read more →

Poetry from a Time of Drought

April 28, 2018May 5, 2018WD Editors

Today we feature three poems by Julia Baker, which were written during the long-lasting California drought from 2012–2017.

Eden’s Drought

I had forgotten the music of water touching earth.
My tears have been the only rain.

Drought is slow death, shroud of smoky sin
keening between the mountains.

“In the red,” they say:
“Air unfit to breathe”

Bodies are made for the taking in,
Valley lungs are dust. Read more →

Elaine Enns & Ched Myers teaching at Ghost Ranch retreat on watershed discipleship June 24-30

April 17, 2018May 5, 2018WD Editors

Join Elaine Enns and Ched Myers at Ghost Ranch June 24-30 for a retreat called “Signs of the Times — Watershed Discipleship and Restorative Justice: Mapping Bloodlines, Landlines, and Songlines.”

Ghost Ranch is a beautiful education and retreat center in New Mexico, an excellent location in which to rest, explore, and learn together with others. Read more →

Grounding: Ecology, Faith, Hope conference in Ontario, May 25-26

April 13, 2018May 5, 2018WD Editors

Watershed discipleship artist and theologian Bob Haverluck will be the artist-in-residence and keynote speaker at the upcoming conference Grounding: Ecology, Faith, Hope in Bracebridge, Ontario May 25-26, 2018, at Bracebridge United Church. All are invited to attend. This conference follows the Muskoka Summit on the Environment (May 24-25). You can attend both (total $200), or one or the other. (See below for examples of Bob’s art.) Read more →

Reflection on the Bartimaeus Kinsler Institute 2018

April 11, 2018April 11, 2018WD Editors

Editor’s Note: Luke Winslow attended the Bartimaeus Kinsler Institute in January, entitled “Digging In: Heels, Histories, Hearts.” You can read other reflections from the Institute here.

by Luke Winslow
Guest Contributor

It felt like the Puget Sound hadn’t seen the sun since November. It might’ve come out for a few minutes here and there this winter, but my curiosity in visiting a completely different bioregion for the Bartimeus Kinsler Institute was matched by a readiness for immediate sunburns the moment I arrived in Southern California. I’m grateful for the flexibility of an academic schedule—a few months away from finishing my master’s work at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology—to have this weeklong Institute nicely timed with spring break. Driving through occupied Duwamish, Puyallup, Nisqually, and others’ territory to leave my adopted watershed after an Ash Wednesday service, I felt a twinge of vulnerability. Read more →