Poetry

A Reimagination of Amos 5:11-15

You who cast aside the poor

for your own political and financial gain

may have created comfortable homes and lives

but your comfort shall be short lived.

___

Christ says that he is present amidst ‘the least of these.’

By putting your feet on the necks of the poor,

you have transgressed against God

and will be judged accordingly in eternity.

___

But there is still hope for you. Repent!

GIve up all that you have

and become a listener and an advocate

of the justice that the poor demand.

___

For in these actions, you stand with the poor, with God, in love.

Anything less is to reject God and to embrace evil.

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Preparation Prayer

Lord,

prepare my ears to hear the suffering

shield my heart to not take on that pain

warm my soul toward genuine empathy

enliven my mind to interpret and translate

and sharpen my tongue to speak the wisdom

of Your Holy Spirit

Amen.

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‘Nature Poem’ by Tommy Pico Review

www.goodreads.com/book/show/32311036

“NDN teens have the highest rate of suicide of any population group in America. A white man can massacre 9 black ppl in a church and be fed Burger King by the cops afterward. A presidential candidate gains a platform by saying Mexican immigrants are murdered and rapists

It’s hard for me to imagine curiosity [in America] as anything more than a pretext for colonialism” (Tommy Pico, ‘Nature Poem,’ 40).

“Look, I’m sure you really do just want to wear those dream catcher earrings. They’re beautiful. I’m sure you don’t mean any harm, I’m sure you don’t really think abt us at all. I’m sure you don’t understand the concept of off-limits. But what if by not wearing a headdress in yr music video or changing yr damn mascot and perhaps adding .05% of personal annoyance to yr life for the twenty minutes it lasts, the 103 young ppl who tried to kill themselves on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation over the past four months wanted to live 50% more” (Tommy Pico, ‘Nature Poem,’ 56).

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Tommy Pico’s ‘IRL’

www.goodreads.com/book/show/30968235

“I recoil

at we. Now we

know; We feel love

when; We believed

the Earth was flat

until; We stir with

heavy feeling bc…

I wipe my muddy feet

on the loveseat of We

unless I’m talking

about you and me.

Kumeyaays knew

a rounded Earth based

on the curve of stars

or didn’t, I’ll never know.

It’s a dark part inside me.

Books are fallible, towers

of letters with the power

you give them. It’s heartbreaking

to watch your pillars fall

Watch the crops dry up

and die House set on fire Forced

to dig up yr dead To. Literally.

Dig. Up. The. Old. Graveyard.

n move w/them onto a stone hill

where nothing that grows

can live. Penned in like cattle.

Approaching scientism,

universalism, a supremacy

of any given thought

process—strikes me A

hammer of dark spots. America

never intended for me to live

So that we never intended

to include me”

(Tommy Pico, ‘IRL,’ 70).

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Review of ‘The NIV Beautiful Word Bible: Updated Version’

www.goodreads.com/book/show/45734929

First and foremost, I need to clear the air: this is NOT a gendered book. The only place where the editors hint at a particular presentation is when the editor’s note only mentions biblical figures Hannah and Esther. And to that, I say “come on editors, do better. Resist the idolatry of capitalism and gendered marketing, please. It harms all of us who cannot fit your false expectations of hyper masculinity and feminism.” We need to resist the consumer world that says a Bible designed to highlight the beauty of scripture does NOT mean that it should be primarily marketed to girls. Boys MUST learn to see the beauty of scripture, too. If you get this version for a girl, get it for a boy, too. The Bible is for all people, so let’s stop boxing ourselves in with gendered stereotypes. Thank you and I will now step off my soap box.

This Zondervan NIV 2011 updated translation, written in Zondervan NIV typeface, is a WONDERFUL version of the Bible that is highly engaging. First of all, it does what many versions cannot: it meets the needs of visual learners. The editors of this version worked with BibleGateway to find the most searched scriptures and balanced them with scriptures that are lesser known to present 600 scriptures in colorful artistic presentations through the entirety of the Bible! 9 different artists took charge of illuminating the 600 different scriptures. They also did a fantastic job of making the chosen scriptures memorizable so that folks can engage with their Scripture reading for memorization as well.

Each page of the Bible has a couple of inches on the edge with lines for note-taking. Every few pages has this space taken up with the artistic presentation of scripture. These illustrations are gorgeous and reflect the essence of each individual scripture.

The Bible also comes with sticker tabs for each book of the Bible, if you want to have the books of the Bible marked in this way. All this to say, this version of the Bible is meant to be engaged: written on, highlighted, and covered in stickers. Have at it! Mark it up and make it your own!

The Bible also comes with a sturdy box carrying case which is helpful for being mobile. It is also small enough to carry around with you! The cover itself is a gorgeous felt floral pattern with a woody brown felt binding. Visually appealing without being obnoxious.

The back of the Bible has a table for understanding biblical weights and measures in comparison with our modern weights and measures, an index of the 9 scripture artists and which scriptures illustrations they created, and 5 pages of lines for note-taking.

It has been a joy engaging with this visually stimulating and artistic version of the NIV translation Bible and I look forward to utilizing it and learning from it in the months/years to come!

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‘Prophet:’

to claim one’s self in

Christ: to imagine God’s King-

-dom into being.

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What is ‘Basebuilding?’

Basebuilding:

Foundations built on faith, conviction, and justice.

Collaboration with community, church,

ancestors, prophets,

and future generations.

Unique in poetic and prophetic imagination

speaking and doing

an alternative narrative and

story into being.

Renouncing and denouncing

the narrative and

story of domination and supremacy

through a communal vision,

achievable and concrete,

grassroots grown,

in our ecclesial spaces

and beyond

for the queering and decolonizing

and expanding

and including

of Beloved Community.

Basebuilding:

Intentional connections and relationships,

with imagination,

as power

and wholistic transformation

for the well-being

of all people and creation.

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Prologue

“Poetic Imagination is the last way left in which to challenge and conflict the dominant reality” (Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 40).

Brueggemann’s words ring true across history, but particularly in our current reality. Our dominant reality is one of division, strife, truthiness, and extremism. And in the public sphere, Christianity has often been co-opted by that dominant reality as a mechanism for power, order, and sanitization. As a result, Christian poetic imagination must speak truth to the oppressive dominant reality by re-imagining something different, through the power of the creative and creating Holy Spirit. As Christians, we must create alternative narratives to the single story of public Christianity that conservative politics has monopolized.

This blog is a personal and public space for poetic imagination and resistance, creative creation as spiritual practice, and mutual conversation. Please join me in imagining an alternative future, through poetry and other creative practices, toward a world evermore reflective of Christ’s gospel mission proclaimed in Luke 4:18-19:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (NRSV).

Amen.

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