Blog – Street Psalms

Made Flesh Here we are, almost two weeks past Easter Sunday, and yet I’ve still been thinking about Palm Sunday. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the passage in Luke where Jesus wept while entering the city saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But they are hidden…

Made Flesh The Miracle of Easter is upon us. And like the disciples locked in the upper room in this week’s text, my community is filled with trepidation. At the start of Holy Week Manila and nearby provinces entered into another lockdown, causing difficulty for many, especially the most vulnerable. This pandemic has exacerbated existing…

Made Flesh He has risen! May the presence of the Crucified-Risen One slip behind walls of our well-defended lives today and surprise us with love’s confounding joy. “I know nothing, except what everyone knows – if there when Grace dances, I should dance.” ― W.H. Auden Easter Blessings, The Street Psalms Community Made Flesh…

Made Flesh Today’s reflection comes from Lana Rocke, one of 11 women currently in dicernment for ordination in the Street Psalms Community. It’s Holy Saturday and Mary is on my mind. Actually, she’s at work in my heart. Maybe that’s because I too am a mom. I love being the mother of two sons. They…

Made Flesh Of all the moments in the Passion story that usually arrest my attention, Peter’s denials in the dark of night are but background noise. I immerse myself in the brutal agony and devastating beauty of the Via Dolorosa where my soul quickens and finds its home inside the unfolding drama of the ultimate…

Today’s reflection comes from Sue Hudacek, Volunteer Coordinator for L’Arche Tahoma Hope, an intentional community where people, with and without intellectual disabilities, share life together. In addition, Sue has spent the last year discerning ordination in the Street Psalms Community. A number of years ago, about 35 members of L’Arche from around the world made…

At the time of writing this reflection, we only had one mass shooting to lament. We grieve those who were killed in yet more acts of gun violence in the United States in Boulder, Colorado and Atlanta, Georgia. As we approach Palm Sunday, let us ask how we — especially the church — are being invited…

Dr. Welstad (DMin, George Fox University) is passionate about investing in leaders to see them become all God has created them to be. As an ordained Free Methodist elder, she has served with churches in Los Angeles and Oregon, leading as a pastor of youth, leadership development, a church planter, and as a co-pastor of…

On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin. Chauvin’s knee was pressed into Mr. Floyd’s neck as he lay face down in the street for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Bystanders pleaded with the officer to stop while Mr. Floyd pleaded for his own life, “I can’t breathe!”…

When I was a kid, one of the things that I looked forward to was the vacation bible school program at the end of the school year. It was an awesome experience. I got to play with other children, do crafts, sing, and eat lots of snacks. We also learned a new Bible verse every…

In the spring of 2012, a group of students from one of Montreal’s finest universities, Concordia, broke into the Dean’s office and ransacked it. They tore documents, broke the computer, and flipped the desk. This was part of a province-wide student strike against the tuition and fee hikes being imposed on our publicly funded higher…

Ever move from applause to rebuke in the blink of an eye? We continue in our Lenten journey to the cross and this week find ourselves with Jesus and the disciples in Caesarea Philippi. Peter has just answered a question from Jesus correctly and is likely feeling pretty good about himself until he hears Jesus…

Alimentando El Pueblo (Feeding El Pueblo) is a food distribution initiative that specifically caters to the Latinx community in my area. This idea came from within the heart of the community itself as an answer to food insecurity. Local food banks, as good and as needed as they are, did not have the kinds of foods…

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Christians worldwide will enter into a heightened time (40 days) of prayer, reflection, and spiritual companionship with Jesus to the Resurrection by way of the cross. Here at Street Psalms, we are grateful for this annual pilgrimage that awakens our heart to its deepest desire. Given the…

Recent events in Myanmar and the Philippines loom large in my mind as I write this reflection from Manila. Myanmar is in the midst of a military coup, while the Philippine Supreme Court deliberates on the constitutionality of an anti-terror law. The law gives state agents unbridled power to declare who is a terrorist without…

Jesus took time for prayer. This isn’t the only place we see that. There are more than thirty references to Jesus praying. Jesus prayed. He prayed like he needed to pray, like it was essential for him. Which is fascinating. Why would Jesus need to pray? If prayer is connection with God, and he is…

In the text today, Jesus encounters a man with an unclean spirit and speaks truth with authority and authenticity to him. And it triggers his whole being, shaking him to his core. I know this shaking in my own soul. Perhaps you do, too. As I read through the text, I find myself wondering what Jesus was teaching that triggered this man’s…

‘It just doesn’t fit their story of the neighborhood, the story they’re all living in,” She says with exasperation into the phone. A local Pastor was telling me about her neighbors’ reaction to a proposed winter shelter. It was set to be located in a large and currently empty community center in their affluent neighborhood. …

I watched a movie the other night called “The Orator.” Set on the island of Samoa, in the present day, the film showcases Samoan traditions and values and lifts up universal themes of love, courage and resilience. The protagonist, Saili, is a simple villager, small in stature. He spends much of his time looking for the…

I was baptized into an Evangelical church when I was seven years old and it was a terrible experience. My dad was the pastor of our church, so I was expected to be baptized. I went through the church’s discipleship program. I knew my creeds, prayers, and songs. And I had all the right answers…

Tell me your birth story. If you are someone who has birthed a baby, you have heard this question countless times from friends, family, and even strangers. It’s a question full of curiosity and wonder at how a life almost impossibly enters into the world. We cannot help but want to know how life begins:…

In the Spanish language the verb esperar means both “to hope” and “to wait.” It is a beautiful Advent verb, capturing the “hopeful waiting” of the season that we have journeyed together these past four weeks. This kind of waiting, essential to the spiritual life, is not an empty waiting. It is bathed in the…

The Story Our missional question came as a response to a significant watershed moment at the 2017 Street Psalms Institute in Grand Rapids. It became painfully obvious that while Street Psalms is committed to a theology that embraces those who are at the margins, the voice of women was obviously and painfully under-represented in our…

Our Context The communities of Nairobi, Kenya are periodically devastated by socioeconomic and political divisions. Every five years, the general election cycle escalates violence, further amplifying the conflict in our communities. The Kenyan people feel gullible, used, and abused by political powers and corruption. Our project takes inspiration from the Truth and Reconciliation initiatives in which government…

The Story In 2013, a young pastor in Tacoma who was newly appointed to her aging church met with the director of Street Psalms and the Tacoma training hub. Towards the end of the conversation she humbly admitted that after six months of preaching, she felt she had run out of things to say from…

Father Bill Bischel (Bix) enjoyed a kind of radical freedom seldom experienced by most faith leaders. Bix is a bit of a legend in Tacoma and the Pacific Northwest as a Jesuit activist. He was winsome, passionate, determined, and untamable. He embodied the Jesuit formation process designed to free us from inordinate attachments and enjoy…

Nairobi, Kenya This month, we are featuring Gideon Ochieng – Street Psalms Senior Fellow and Founding Director of the Center for Transforming Mission in Nairobi, Kenya. Gideon’s focus as a Street Psalms Senior Fellow is the development of incarnational leadership in the informal settlements of Nairobi. In a world full of big egos and loud personalities, Gideon is…

A Brief Introduction This month we are featuring Kristy Humphreys, the Operations Manager for Street Psalms. Kristy has a unique vantage on our work of developing incarnational leaders. She handles the books. A wise mentor taught me that our checkbook and our calendar book reveal more about who we are than any other books in…

Nairobi, Kenya Moses has an incarnational message – a way of seeing that transforms. Moses is part of a network in Nairobi nurtured by the Center for Transforming Mission – a training hub with Street Psalms. Moses was one of 23 scholars who live and serve in the informal settlements of Nairobi, and earned a…

Pretoria, South Africa Wilna has an incarnational manner—a way of being that transforms. She leads a grassroots organization in Pretoria, South Africa called the Tshwane Leadership Foundation – a training hub with Street Psalms. For years they have been leading a wildly successful public witness event to demonstrate God’s heart for justice and peace in…

Guatemala City, Guatemala William has an incarnational method – a way of doing that transforms. William is part of a citywide network in Guatemala City nurtured by the Center for Transforming Mission – a training hub with Street Psalms. For years, hundreds of grassroots leaders have been learning how to “do” theology from below. From…

Shrouded by a cloud of fear and disgust, Taty made her way toward the group of youth with an act of penance in hand. As she gingerly handed a cup of coffee to the first young man she came across, he looked at her with a warm and disarming smile of gratitude and acceptance. Taty…

One of the turning points in the Civil Rights movement was the brutal murder of Emmett Till and his mother’s insistence on an open casket funeral. She demanded that the world see the ugly and haunting truth. Her bold act is reminiscent of Jesus’ mother and the women at the cross who “stood” and “beheld”…

Anchorage, Alaska This month, we are taking you to Anchorage, Alaska, to feature the work of Street Psalm Senior Fellow, Joel Kiekintveld. Joel’s particular focus as Street Psalms Senior Fellow is how to gather diverse leaders to effect change in the city of Anchorage, which is an urban context with a rural mentality. Joel has what…

It was awkward at first. As the room filled, each participant looked for and sat with their own group. The imams sat together while the pastors gathered in their own area. Our Street Psalms group of leaders from various cities throughout the network entered the room as visitors, and we too sat together. Also in…

Church at the Park The sign reads “Church at the Park”, but a nondescript driveway along a road full of other nondescript driveways is all we see. Where is the church? Where is the park? As we pull up to the former Oregon Jaycees building a few cars doubling as homes come into view, and then a…

Manila, Philippines Written By: Nic Hughes, Director of Strategy & Operations It is hard to miss Jesus in Manila. There are pictures of him (and his mother Mary) on nearly every gate and home. In some ways this is comforting, as if this place and these people are being watched over by a loving god-man…

She was a high-school senior. She told me she wasn’t feeling well and asked if I could give her a ride to the hospital. As we pulled up to the front entrance, I started to get out of the car, but she asked me to wait. Sometime later, she emerged from the hospital and climbed…

A prison cell may be the last place we look for light; they are dim by design. But in my country, the Philippines, there is a flicker of light emanating from behind the bars we so often associate with darkness. The story of Reina Mae Nasino, a 23-year old detained social activist, has awakened a…

Wilderness. Uncultivated. Uninhabited. Inhospitable. Neglected. Abandoned. Disfavored. Dangerous. These words are commonly used to describe places of “wilderness.” And yet, as I write, my eye keeps catching the edge of a vast wilderness, carved out by the sprawl of our city. Snow-capped purple mountains with jagged peaks pierce the skyline. Shimmering, frigid, silty ocean water…

We don’t listen to Christmas music in my house until after Thanksgiving. On Black Friday morning the prohibition is lifted and Over the Rhine’s “Darling (Christmas is Coming)” is among the first songs that pierce the silence each year. However, it’s not a Christmas record that is providing the soundtrack to the opening days of…

Identify with those who have nothing. Not in charity alone so as to be a helper of those without food, clothes, or who are imprisoned. Rather, identify with their humanity. I was hungry, thirsty, naked, a stranger, imprisoned, and sick. That is me! We often read Matthew 25:31 – 36 as a judgement of those…

For those of us who were raised in the United States, we have a tendency to read the Parable of the Talents through the lens of meritocracy—your reward is the result of your ability and efforts. If you recall, the story is about a master who goes away for a long time and entrusts large…

I am Jenna Smith and I was born and raised in Montreal. For the past 15 years, I have directed the Innovation Youth centre under Christian Direction. I am passionate about the intersections between faith, community, and urban work amongst those who live on the margins of our society. I work mainly out of the…

This week’s text, The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, has often been used as a precautionary tale about who gets into heaven and who is left behind. It’s clear that Jesus tells the story in order to stir something up within his audience, his disciples. A couple thousand years later, I have to admit that…

They do not practice what they teach.They are unwilling to lift a finger.They love the seat of honour. Jesus’ criticism of his community’s religious leaders is, as usual, raw, unrestrained and unfiltered. What stands out in this particular passage is his opening criticism: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on…

Last week I walked along Tacoma Avenue, and found myself passing Simone’s yellow tent on the grass right next to the street. Now that the October rain is here, and leaves are being stripped from the maples, the grass is quickly turning into mud. I don’t see her around, but her shoes are drying on…

My sister does this funny thing before she asks you for a favor. She says, “I’m going to ask you something, but I want you to know that it’s a trap.” I appreciate that. It’s a good heads-up. The people in this week’s scripture didn’t give Jesus that courtesy. Instead, they buttered him up with…

I’m told there is no utility in my delusions yet I choose to imagine, envisioning a world of fellowship and joy. In this, my alternate global reality, wooden ships are ushered through placid seaways as steady breezes push against their ample sails, all adorned with the sacred symbol of the cross. Upon spotting lush islands and…

Recently, our church community gathered in the parking lot of the campus. Together, like many other congregations, we are reflecting deeply about what it means to enter the building again. There are some Christians in the U.S who argue that entering the church building is a countercultural message to the world’s persecution of their faith. …

Whenever I read the parable of the landowner and the day laborers, my mind often drifts to the day labor center that used to be in my community at the corner of Delridge and Roxbury. I would drive by and see people, mostly men, waiting outside in the parking lot, rain or shine, for an…

Cancer is something that scares us out of our minds, especially if our families have a history with it. In the last year I experienced a great deal of loss. My dad, brother and grandmother died from cancer. I walked with the three of them in different ways as their bodies corroded from the inside out.…

We start Advent not with shepherds and angels and babies meek and mild. Instead we start with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t like it. I prefer the kids in animal and shepherd costumes—the cute Christmas. But we don’t always get what we want. Instead we start Advent with a passage that is full of images of floods, and people disappearing, and thieves.

It is an odd image in this week’s text:, uprooting a tree (already challenging) and planting it into a body of water that is salty (impossible). But it is not surprising to talk of agriculture in terms of challenges, impossibilities, and indeed, as an act of faith. In downtown Montréal, Innovation Youth has been growing our expertise in urban agriculture for several years.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.

Filipino Muslims are our closest siblings, yet we are divided by our differences and a lack of trust. We were not prepared to address this lurking and lingering issue. We walked, as it were, down the road Jesus describes in his parable, asking whether we would continue to affirm the ossified lines of our identities, or transcend that which divides us?

We start Advent not with shepherds and angels and babies meek and mild. Instead we start with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t like it. I prefer the kids in animal and shepherd costumes—the cute Christmas. But we don’t always get what we want. Instead we start Advent with a passage that is full of images of floods, and people disappearing, and thieves.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

We start Advent not with shepherds and angels and babies meek and mild. Instead we start with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t like it. I prefer the kids in animal and shepherd costumes—the cute Christmas. But we don’t always get what we want. Instead we start Advent with a passage that is full of images of floods, and people disappearing, and thieves.

To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

Like Peter, like Edwaan, and like so many of us, there is a longing for belief out on life’s “danger waters” — those places removed from the placid nature of peace and plenty. Persecution, pain, and tragedy inspire deep longings, often taking the shape of foolhardy propositions such as Peter’s, “Save me in these dangerous waters or watch me die.”

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.

As fearful and terrorizing as it may be, the transfiguration causes me to long for a glimpse of the illuminated face of Christ and especially the body we have esteemed as most unlovable and unlikable. I pray that in meeting with such a vision, I will not be derailed, busying myself with building tabernacles, places where I can limit and control God’s uncontrollable light.

After an encounter with the shadowlands of Ash Wednesday, we now sit silently in front of an opened curtain, revealing the five-week theater that is the Valley of Lent. The Gospel narrative for the first Sunday of Lent is that of the desert temptation.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

I imagine the rich man at the beginning of his day. He is a man about town, with pressing matters on his mind and very important people to meet. I am easily persuaded that someone like him has no time to volunteer with a local charity or dedicate himself to the protection of the less fortunate. But then we find Lazarus right outside his gate.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

Faith, hope and love are the antidotes to social chaos. But let’s be honest, they take a bit longer to spread than fear and anxiety. That is why in times like these, as the body of Christ, we are invited to get clear about what we want and whose desires we are borrowing.

As fearful and terrorizing as it may be, the transfiguration causes me to long for a glimpse of the illuminated face of Christ and especially the body we have esteemed as most unlovable and unlikable. I pray that in meeting with such a vision, I will not be derailed, busying myself with building tabernacles, places where I can limit and control God’s uncontrollable light.

After an encounter with the shadowlands of Ash Wednesday, we now sit silently in front of an opened curtain, revealing the five-week theater that is the Valley of Lent. The Gospel narrative for the first Sunday of Lent is that of the desert temptation.

In the inner room we can finally stop acting. In the inner room we are free of the crowds who so easily rule and run us like puppets. In the inner room, we stop feeding on the unstable and fickle desires of others and learn to borrow our desires from the One who desires us.

God’s glory is the divinity of seeing and proclaiming the Passion and the resurrection, even in the darkest of places. The way of Jesus journeys into the desert and sees bread where others see rocks. The divine glory sees the imago dei in a demon possessed boy that others have marginalized.

To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.

This world’s devotion to middle class affluence is predicated on the sacraments of global gentrification’s hard sweeping brooms, capitalism’s consumerist temples, and a careless society’s superhighways that bypass the poor, the blind, and those crowded out by “progress.”

As I stood at the pulpit and looked toward the pews, my breath was taken away. On the back wall of the chapel were several huge drawings of naked murder victims. An artist had taken a pencil and used it to bring to life the pain and agony of massacre and execution.

It’s when we’ve done just about all we can do to screw things up and yet still discover ourselves loved, forgiven and trusted at our most untrustworthy worst, that the Spirit is fully unleashed.

The authentic work of Christ and the work of the church is hard to do, if not impossible, from a distance. An incarnational ministry prioritizes proximity in order to “see” God.

When did they recognize this deity in their midst? When did it dawn upon them? Exactly when did the epiphany occur? When did the light of ‘aha’ shine upon these unknown number of magi revealing the human one before them was the flesh and blood presence of the creator of their star in the heavens?

At the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, the night sky in Guatemala City explodes in bursts of color under the canopy of fireworks. Everyone heads outside into the streets to wish one another Feliz Navidad with hugs for neighbors, family, friends and strangers amidst columns of smoke and the barrage of bottle rockets.

The Advent and Christmas seasons are a time to remember God’s call on our lives is constant, and it comes in many forms, whether we are sleeping or awake. It’s a call to a heavenly perspective that allows us to release our fears and see good news in the least likely places.

Our jails, back alleys and slums are the “low” places that Jesus would have been born in today, away from the lights and festivities that mark the opulence our society strives for.

Not too many years ago, in a community marked by a history of scandalous events, I encountered one of the wittiest and smartest kids I have ever met. His name was Kevin. Kevin understood what it meant to come from a scandalous background.

John the Baptist, sitting In Herod’s prison with nothing but time on his hands, is beginning to question his expectations about Jesus. And I would imagine he’s wondering about his own life in light of his present circumstances.

For Karen, the stairwell was her wilderness sanctuary, right in the heart of the merciless city. There, she found the space and solace to let loose and cry out with a loud voice. The oppressive thumb of drug addiction, abuse, pain and poverty could not find her in that place.

We start Advent not with shepherds and angels and babies meek and mild. Instead we start with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t like it. I prefer the kids in animal and shepherd costumes—the cute Christmas. But we don’t always get what we want. Instead we start Advent with a passage that is full of images of floods, and people disappearing, and thieves.

By the light of being forgiven, we come to see what we are doing. The more we undergo forgiveness, the more we can tell ourselves the truth about the endless stream of scapegoats we produce.

Perhaps this is what we are to testify to … the third way Jesus himself incarnated. At the cross, God absorbed into God’s self, in the body of Christ, all violence. God absorbed it, and did not return it. God suffered violence for all time and for all situations.

Just as the Sadducees in today’s Gospel refused to accept the realities of the resurrection, systems of privilege can be averse to the realities of those experiencing poverty, even while offering lofty banter on their behalf.

There is a parade of attention around the celebrity Jesus as he passes through Jericho. The eyes of the crowd are riveted in the desire to get a glimpse of the great miracle worker and social (not yet media) influencer.

To not judge ourselves in comparison to others is extremely difficult. Sometimes, the only way we know we are “right” is when we judge and compare ourselves against others; our opinions, our strongly held views, our values. The binaries of “right-wrong”, “good-evil”, “us-them”, etc. define who we are.

We don’t know the specifics of her case, though I like to imagine her as the Rosa Parks of her community. What we know for sure is that she ultimately wears out the unjust judge with her demands. He grants her request, if only to get some rest. Unfortunately, this describes the experience of prayer for most of us. We feel like we have to work as hard the widow to get through to God.

A children’s version of the story captures the triviality of the narrative – the last frame exclaims, “Don’t Forget to Thank Jesus.”In such simplified, moralistic versions of the story, the other nine lepers who don’t return to Jesus are vilified as ungrateful. However, we shouldn’t rush to cast judgment on them.