I still suck at this...

I always forget to update this thing!

Gathering around the unhewn stone
Oh to be back in Philly again. Rolling into town was a good feeling, full of butterflies in my belly and the whole nine yards. This was a really great gathering. Good topics. Good speakers. Good friends. I feel like I learned a lot and made a lot of important connections and perhaps more importantly some old re-connections. Its amazing to me how much buzz there is right now about anti-civilization within the young Christian radical community. I find it exciting and hopeful, though its hard to say where it will go. I overheard a lot of "I kinda agree, but..." types of conversations, which I think is good. This is a hard topic, and one that needs a lot of exploration with our lives, in our sacred texts, and the world around us. It must be a prayerful journey together, because advocating for the collapse of everything is advocating for the death of much (and consequently life for many other things). What part we can/should participate in this as followers of Jesus is one that requires a great deal of reflection. Nekeisha has a good summary of the conference here.

It was also really great to visit my friends and old community mates over in Camden, and go to Mass at Sacred Heart. It's really wonderful to return to places where so much growth and wrestling with life and understanding has happened. Being in Philly and Camden also made me realize how many people I love and miss because I never get to see them anymore. I just don't have the same sorts of connections here in Detroit that I do in the other places that I've lived.

The U.P.
Oh fall in Michigan! Upon returning from Philly, I fulfilled a hard promise that I made to my sister: several days of exploring the woods and waterfalls of the upper peninsula. By hard promise I mean joyous adventure! We went to Pictured Rocks, the Porkies, the Keweenaw, and a few other places. It was beautiful. Most of it was still peak colors for fall, though some were a little past peak. We got to go to the tiny town of Calumet where my dad was born...and the topic of the Woody Guthrie song "The 1913 Massacre". This song is a favorite for sure, so it was kinda neat to go there. I found it online with lyrics if you're interested.

Its funny to me how much people rave about tahquamenon falls, because a lot of the falls that we went to blew them away. I havent spent a ton of time up there, and it was my first time going to the north west portion of the UP. I loved it, and I'll definitely go back some time. I'll be posting some pictures soon.



more updates soon...

Out of town visitors and upcoming events...

This past week we met some new friends. Nate from Atlanta and Dwight from just outside of Philly came to spend a few days with us exploring Detroit a bit. They came as a time to listen and see what is happening in Detroit. I found it fairly amazing how many people and connections that they made in the short time that they were here. We shared with them some of our feeble attempts of community and our vision of our place amongst what's happening here in Detroit. It was a great time and we enjoyed hosting them.

Next week we have some new friends from Chicago coming up to spend a couple days with us and to get a sense of what Detroit is like. I'm hoping we can get a little work in the garden done while they're here, as well. We're going to be leaving together from here to head out to the "Gathering around the un-hewn stone" out in Philly Oct 16-18th. I'll report more on that after the gathering. If the you're interested in the question of faith and [industrial] civilization, you are definitely going to want to check this gathering out.

This past weekend I made it out to D-Town Farm's 3rd annual Harvest Festival. What a great space they have over there! I was told that they have nearly 2 acres under cultivation and plan on expanding next season. They had an ocean of collards like I've never seen before. They are right in the middle of a long neglected tree nursery in River Rouge Park. The discussions were all very stimulating and inspiring, with my favorite being the keynote about community resilience. Perhaps the most exciting part was that the event was put on by the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, and all the speakers were people of color. I get excited to see people of color or any other struggling group coming together to address some of the issues that their communities are facing and seeking solutions that come from the ground up. It was a very inspiring event. Props to the DBCFN!

Last night our Cluster group had our fall work day over at my buddy Will's community garden. We had a much better than average turnout and a good time on a cool fall night. We helped put his garden to bed, learned how to build compost bins out of pallets, make lasagna beds, and plant garlic. We also received our garlic from the GRP, which we will be planting next week.

Fungus Fest

After G20, I got to go to the Michigan Mushroom Hunters Club's annual Fungus Fest at Proud Lake. Though tired and feeling a bit under the weather, we still found some good mushroooms. Pictured above is the huge bounty of Maitake (or hen of the woods...or Grifola Frondoa if you really prefer). Its hard to get a sense of size in this photo, but this was enough to completely fill my back pack. We found a few other things, but nothing incredibly exciting. on the bike ride home we found some chicken (sulfur shelf) mushrooms on an oak tree too. That ended up being quite the feast. I don't have any pics of those. Its prime time for wild mushrooms, so get out there to find your fest!

G20 in Pittsburgh

It's been about a week since we've been back from pittsburgh, and I'm still processing the whole experience. I will say that it was a good experience and that I'm glad that I went. We had a fun crew and we had a good time for sure. Road trips, no matter the destination, always seem to make for good stories, and this trip was no exception. I wanted to share a few of my pics and a few thoughts.

As for the protest itself, I guess I have mixed feelings. We stayed fairly close to the anarchist groups the whole time, because I guess those are the folks there I feel I can relate to the most. My personal hope was to connect with some Christian kids and do the litany of resistance from CPT, but the two days we were there went by like a blur.

We stopped by a coffee house and then the Thomas Merton Center, before heading to the march on Thursday. The march was organized by a more radical group and they had no permits. They said (and I agree with them) that it seemed dumb and undemocratic to ask the people you're protesting for permission to protest them. We arrived at the park and there was people everywhere (2,000 maybe?). Rev. Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping was attracting a lot of media attention (pictured above) and was pretty entertaining. The black bloc kids were getting interviewed by TV folks, which seemed strange. I guess its good that they could explain where they were coming from a bit, because I'm sure few people in the mainstream have any sense of what their action is about. The march began to leave the park with drums and chants and started to head toward downtown. After maybe a quarter or half mile, the police declared it an illegal assembly and ordered us to cease immediately. They then used a "non-lethal" sonic blast, that was super obnoxious, though we were far enough that it didnt hurt us. Our crew decided to stop and just walk down another street, and many others went the same way. Others kept marching, but strangely enough after about ten minutes all the streets flowed into one and the march was back together and everyone cheered. At that point some kids brought a dumpster int other street and flipped it and were standing on it chanting "whose streets? our streets!" One of goals was not to get arrested, unless it was for something meaningful, and this didn't fit the bill. We decided to walk a block parallel. At that point the cops cut them off and blocked their path. I don't know the order, but at that point there was a standoff and the cops were shooting teargas and the black bloc kids rolled a dumpster down the hill at the cops. As soon as we felt the tear gas on our face we felt it was due time to get out of there, so we took off running. Other people were running too, some of them pulling dumpsters from the ally and flipping them to create a blockade for vehicles. Police were blockading the streets and things got real chaotic for a bit. Helicopters were swooping, vans full of robot cop like soldiers were storming onto the scene. They weren't giving us any trouble, because we made it fairly clear that we were trying to leave. The streets really did become a police state and a war zone for a bit and we were glad to get out.

Later that night we ate some food and hung at a Cabaret-type thing. We also got some great food. There was a little talk on the street of some late night smash and run, but that's not what we were there for either, so we declined. The riot cops were coming in by the busload to surround the conservatory in a park on campus where the delegates were said to be having dinner. The park was mostly drunk and curious college kids, and very few protesters. We were exhausted, so we just went back to the house that we were staying. Sure enough a lot stuff went down that night. Windows were smashed, and there was a standoff with the cops. It was said that someone threw a brick at the cops and so they unloaded their tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on the crowd. There's youtube videos showing the college students getting the worst of it in their own residence halls. Pretty wild.

The next day was a little more laid back more marching and rallies. more signs. more chants. more bandannas. more riot cops. little to no violence this day. That was nice. A few good speakers at the rally, a few I really didn't like at all. typical socialist rhetoric from the latter. The march ended in a park with a few more speakers and some music and some delicious food. Theres tons of funny side stories, but this is already longer than I wanted to write.

My thoughts: I thought there was a good turn out and a lot of neat folks there. I was disapointed in the lack of creative non-violent direct actions. I thought there was a lack in creativity in general. Also, the only point was disruption and media attention, as where protests of major summits in the past had shutting the whole thing down as a goal. AS a neo-luddite of sorts (at this point I'm a hypocrite for writing a blog...) I feel when property and technology becomes worshiped and seen as more important than people, community and the planet, those things may need to get smashed as the idols of the old testament were. However, breaking windows of some chain stores and a bank isn't really that. At that point all the creative power of radicalism is gone, and the media associates anarchism with destruction rather than building. I still hope that we (Christians and/or radicals) could be known for the creative and constructive of rebuilding society from the group up rather than breaking some windows. I don't really know what else I want to say. I didn't plan anything or do anything creative or good, so I can't just complain, but I was fairly disappointed with the overall "actions" and demonstrations. Still, like I said at the beginning, it was a really great trip with some friends, and it really caused me to sit back and think a lot about the meaning, means, and ends of resistance. It's going to be a long journey to understanding what I think.

Using this piece...

Well, I won't lie...I sorta hate blogging. I mean, maybe I like it but feel like I'm compromising my values a bit. Overall, I've tried to pull the plug from online "networking" sites like myspace and facebook. I've done this in favor of email, letters, phone calls, or best of all: face to face conversations. Perhaps more on that in my next post.

Anyway, I recently got this great new internship working with my buddy Carl Gladstone. I'll be doing some work around organizing our mini community of communities here in Detroit known as Detroit Villages. I'll also be doing some volunteer work here in the city. Part of my responsibility for this new position is to document and share my experience with others, and blogging seems to be the most practical way to do this.

A couple years ago when I was living in Camden, NJ, I made a curriculum for myself and created a homeschool type thing. While I wasn't always the best at staying disciplined, I read many books and learned a great deal. I skipped a formal education in favor of exeriential learning and reading books. I'm going to be doing a similar thing this fall, and I'm hoping to share things I' learning on here with others that may or may not be interested. We'll see. I desperatey need routine and discipline in my life, and I think writing on a regular basis will help out with that. Thanks for tuning in.

I posted some stuff...

From Sitten in the Mitten #3. This certainly isn't all of it, but I thought to post the entire thing would be overwhelming. I may post some more another time. Write me if you'd like a hard copy of the zine which is more aestically pleasing than this text and with a lot more articles.

Self Preservation is not a fruit of the Spirit

This was originally written and posted on MLK Jr. Day of this year

One of the conclusions made in Darwin's Origin of the Species is the idea of "the survival of the fittest". Essentially, the idea is that the strongest species will prevail against the weaker species and will continue to remain in its natural community, while the other species will cease to exist. As we live out our life in the "real world", we see much evidence of this being true. We see this in nature and we see it within our society. The kid who wins the fight at school receives a certain amount of respect and rises on the social ladder. The corporation that takes out the small business will take over the customers and money of the "weaker" company. From here on out, this is where all will shop. The world superpower nations take the culture, capital, and natural resources of the "weaker" nations. "From here on out, they will make our products, speak our language, and 'share' their natural resources with us," says the empire.


I just listened to MLK Jr's "I've been to the mountain top" speech. It ended up being the last speech that Dr. King ever gave, as he was assassinated soon after. About half way through, he exhorts his listeners of the importance and urgency of their actions. He tells them to skip their jobs to go to the marches. He then launches into a sermon about the Good Samaritan. Why did the Levite and the Priest walk past the man who had been beaten and robbed? King says he imagines that perhaps the Priest and Levite were not being apathetic or cruel; rather, they were afraid. That particular road was known as a place for bandits and robbers. Maybe the robbers were hiding out nearby, ready to prey upon whomever might stop. Or maybe the man lying on the ground was himself a bandit, pretending to be hurt so that he could take advantage of the benevolence of a stranger. Surely this is a valid concern, to look out for our own self-interest. Fleeing danger seems to just be common sense. If we don't look out for ourselves, who will?


I'd like to propose that self-preservation and the laws of natural selection are incongruent with the teachings of Jesus, insofar as it relates to how the individual and the corporate people of God conduct life in the world. Perhaps the clearest teaching on this, is one that can be found in all 3 of the synoptic gospels: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?"


The greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is to love God with all one's heart, soul, mind, and strength- and to love ones neighbor as their self. It was when Jesus was asked, "who is my neighbor?" that he tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. Dr. King continued in saying that the Priest and Levite's concern may have been, "what will happen if I stop?" The Samaritan on the other hand, who modeled the true love of one's neighbor (and true obedience, for that matter) asked himself "what will happen to this man if I don't stop?" King goes on to tell of the joy and pleasures that the small victories of the civil rights movement along the way had given him. Though beaten, jailed, and faced with constant death threats, in his final speech he said, "I'm not concerned with [the threats on my life] now, I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land…I'm not fearing any man, because my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." These words sent chills up my spine and brought tears to my eyes as I recalled the way history played out a short time later.


Perhaps, as Christians, we've forgotten what a cross really is. Somehow, we've interpreted "taking up your cross" to mean burdens or hardships in life. Are we unaware that the cross was a tool of the empire used to humiliate any that second-guess their ways and offer an alternative way of life? Was Jesus' death upon the cross just a metaphor for carrying burdens, or did he live a life contrary to the ways of the world, for which he was publicly shamed and brutally killed? Why, then, do we reduce the most powerful example of discipleship, self-sacrificial love and non-violent resistance to a mere metaphor? May I suggest that there is something extremely backward about the way Christians and churches in America live out their faith?


Christian pacifist Stanely Hauwerwas does well in pointing out the beauty of war. For some reason, Christians seem to be among the most militaristic people in our culture. One of the reasons (though there are many to be sure) for this is that war gives our lives meaning and purpose. Self-sacrificial love is in our soul, and often war is the only place in our culture where we can fully exercise this deepest of longings of our spirit. As much as we may want to believe that wars are good and necessary to protect our freedom and to spread democracy, we (Christians) are ignoring the message of the gospel and following the ways of the world. A good indicator of your priorities may be to know whom you associate yourself with when you talk about "we". If your "we" is white people, black people, republicans, democrats or most probable of all, Americans, then your "we" is not the global body of Christ. And "we" are called not to kill, but to lay down our lives for others.


Aside from war, there is a great myriad of other problems in the world today. Global economics have taken over the world through corporate Darwinism. Cultures are gone, Children are making our products in sweatshops for pennies, we've wrecked ecosystems and raped the planet with our greed, and we've marred the image of God inside of each person by the blasphemous practice of reducing them to mere "consumers". If the people of God are to have any integrity in their meager claims to "follow Jesus", then they must embrace the teachings and life of Jesus. It's time to stop aligning ourselves with the powers of the world that protect our way of life, and instead seek peace, justice, love and truth for all of God's creatures. No doubt, if this is taken seriously, our economy may collapse, for its is dependent upon war and exploitative economics. Life might get hard. America may even be replaced by an even more brutal and oppressive empire. Perhaps we (the church) might not even seem "relevant" to our culture anymore. Perhaps people will really start hating us. Perhaps we'll lose our tax write-offs or our freedoms. Who knows, maybe we'll be beaten or killed. We should not fear these things. We must take up our cross and follow Jesus. That may mean being a social rights martyr, it might mean living in a radical simplicity, it might mean going home empty-handed because there is nothing in the whole store not made in China. It might mean going to the Middle East to be a human shield to die for those whom the nation that you live in has labeled "enemy". Heck, it might even be as simple as working less so you can volunteer at an after-school program, or a soup kitchen or an old folks home. For me today, it meant riding to school on my bike in the frigid cold instead of driving. This is not a call for heroic piety, but a call for the church in America to come out of America and be the church. May we follow the example of Jesus, MLK jr, and all the saints and martyrs through the ages. If the people of God don't take up the cause of the oppressed, the hurting, the poor and destitute, the widows and orphans, or the prisoners and the least of these, then who will? Let us not worry of the consequence to ourselves as we seek to love with all that we have. Thanks be to God.