here's Beth!

Here's a link to an article I recently wrote for the MCC Great Lakes Regional Newsletter:

¡Seño, ya tenemos hambre!

-Beth

“see acts 16: a couple of stanzas for the 2010 seminary graduates that I know and love aka give me a hundred preachers who fear nothing...

“see acts 16: a couple of stanzas for the 2010 seminary graduates that I know and love aka give me a hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God and I will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of god on earth- at least a dozen more this year”

Look:

the demons knew first.

The demons knew first like they always do, and so they became dedicated to stopping you.

The demons knew first and they spread rumors about who you were and what you can do. But maybe not even you knew it first, so Racism conspired with Patriarchy, and they both got together with Despair to keep you firmly out of the proclaiming life.

And as the three of them made the blood sacrifices to Empire, you began to hear some whisperings from other folks. From your family, or from people whose vote outweighed your family's vote, sometime outweighed your own vote and eventually and finally outweighed the demon's vote.

And here you are. And we cheer for you as you graduate, and the drum line plays riotous applause and deep thumping dancing base drums that shake the gates of hell, and make the demons prepare to face you in trembling armor: because now we all know.

And pretty soon, my friends and siblings, pretty soon: everybody will know.

And look: the demons knew first, and they were scared, but now they are terrified.

And it's no wonder we feel like singing.

what if

What if there was a movement,
in every town and city,
(some successful and some not)
a movement whose founder aimed
for the destruction of empire
whose chapters struggled
(some successfully and some not)
for radical justice-loving,
and love-justice radicalism?

What if this movement has hovered
around the periphery of Western culture
for a thousand years, or two,
and its greatest successes
were usually kept silent?

What if it was made up ordinary souls
with penchants for sin or poetry or manual labor,
who bring themselves to the struggle,
or drift along obliviously
(sometimes successfully and sometimes not)?

What if there was a movement,
of myth and macaroni, of bread and jokes and power?
And what if they were recruiting?

[insert your church name here,
and photocopy or scrawl on torn-up advertisements.]