2011 – 2012 MENTORING PROGRAM

"The opportunity to build authentic relationships between sisters and brothers  in the next generation of Christians who are risking themselves for the sake of the gospel is a blessing beyond words. When I think about the mentoring relationships—reading the “classics” that have influenced our faith journeys, writing our truths, carrying our tears, raging with our wounds, and creating beauty and truth out of our study and relationships. The community formed through Word and World mentors and mentees is like a young redwood forest. When I walk among this community I know I’m treading on a sacred inter-connected root system, amid Spirit-blown communication, and I revel in the wisdom of these “witness trees,” whose presence will be felt on the earth for hundreds of years."
--Rose Berger, Sojourners

MENTORING PROGRAM REPORT

The Mentoring Report includes a description of the program, reflections on the retreats, pictures, reflection, list of final projects, and participants. Please share this report with folks who might be interested.

THE MENTORS

ROSE BERGER, Associate Editor and Poetry Editor for Sojourners magazine, is the author of Who Killed Donte Manning? The Story of an American Neighborhood and co-author of Drawn By God: The History of the Society of Medical Mission Sisters. Additionally, she writes a regular column on spirituality and justice for Sojourners magazine. Rose was a member and pastor of the Sojourners intentional Christian community in Washington, D.C., for 12 years. She has a veteran history in social justice activism, including educating and training groups in nonviolence, leading retreats in spirituality and justice, and preaching. Recently, she’s been a leader in the faith communities response to global warming. A Roman Catholic, Rose was raised among the Franciscans and Catholic Workers on the West Coast and continues in that tradition today. She’s a published poet with an MFA in poetry. She lives in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C., with her flat-coat retriever Solea.
LAUREL DYKSTRA is a writer, preacher, activist, popular educator and a street performer with long-term commitment to working on issues of urban poverty. She is a Queer parent and member of an alternative family. Laurel is part of an interfaith collective that organizes anti-racist and anti-colonial education events for activists and scholars. Raised in the Anglican Church, Laurel studied at Episcopal Divinity School, spent more than ten years in the Catholic Worker and Radical Discipleship movements and was recently ordained a priest in the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster. Much of Laurel’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of women, scripture and justice: Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus (Orbis, 2002), Liberating Biblical Study (with Ched Myers, Cascade, 2011). Laurel is editor of Bury the Dead: Stories of Death and Dying, Resistance and Discipleship (forthcoming Cascade, 2013) an anthology that includes contributions from several Word and World mentors and mentees.
ELAINE ENNS has been working in the field of restorative justice and conflict transformation since 1989 as mediator, consultant, educator and trainer.  She provides mediation and consultation services for individuals, churches, schools, community organizations, criminal justice agencies and businesses, and travels throughout North America teaching and training. Born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Elaine currently lives in Oak View, CA, where she serves as the Program Director for the Restorative Justice Program with Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries.  Her most recent publication is Ambassadors of Reconciliation: A New Testament Theology and Diverse Christian Practices of Restorative Justice and Peacemaking with Ched Myers.(Orbis, 2009)  She was a founding board member of Word and World.
JOYCE HOLLYDAY is a co-founder and co-pastor of Circle of Mercy, an ecumenical congregation in the mountains of western North Carolina celebrating the transformative power of the gospel. She has served as an Associate Conference Minister for the United Church of Christ and as an editor of Sojourners magazine, covering faith-based struggles for justice and peace in this country and around the globe. She was a founding member of Witness for Peace, a nonviolent prayerful and protective presence in Nicaragua’s war zones, and an observer to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation process. A prolific author, Joyce’s most recent book is On the Heels of Freedom, an oral history of African-American UCC congregations in the South. She was a founding board member of Word and World.
CHED MYERS has worked for more than 30 years with various peace and justice organizations and movements, including the Pacific Concerns Resource Center and the American Friends Service Committee.  He currently codirects Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, an ecumenical organization promoting biblical literacy, church renewal and faith-based witness for justice.  His publications include Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Orbis, 1988), Who Will Roll Away the Stone: Discipleship Queries for First World Christians (Orbis, 1994), The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics (Tell the Word Press, 2001), and Ambassadors of Reconciliation (with Elaine Enns, Orbis, 2009).  He was a founding board member of Word and World.
THERESA TENSUAN-ELI teaches contemporary American literature and culture in the English Department and the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Haverford College, where she has fostered a number of conferences and collaborations on the interrelations between the arts and social change.  She is the author of Breaking the Frame: Comics and the art of social transformation (forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi) and is working with filmmaker Mary DiLullo on a documentary on Lynda Barry.  She is currently at work on a new project on conversion narratives.
BILL WYLIE-KELLERMANN is a United Methodist pastor serving St Peter’s Episcopal Church and community activist in Detroit. His writing generally frames social and political issues through the theological lens of the “principalities and powers.” For near four decades he has been a frequent participant in non-violent resistance actions and his book, Seasons of Faith and Conscience (Orbis, 1991/ Wipf & Stock, 2008) is a biblical and sociological articulation of “liturgical direct action.” Having edited Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow (Eerdmans,1994), he is just now resuming work, after a long hiatus, on a biography of Stringfellow. A graduate of Union Seminary in NYC, Bill currently teaches at Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Marygrove College MA in Social Justice, and for SCUPE (Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago). He’s a founding board member of W&W.

THE MENTEES

TIM BASTEDO
Started a blog to share writings on Christianity, divinity, and human value including themes explored during the Mentoring Program. www.derechristianity.com
KARA BENDER, Reba Place, Chicago, IL
Created and facilitated a process with individuals reflecting on their experience around race and racial identity; taking those stories, memories, feelings, and thoughts and translating them into dance.
MATT CARSON, Occupy Wall Street, New York, NY
Influenced by reading Stringfellow, Gottwald, and Dykstra while living with Occupy Wallstreet, he created a Spiritual Resistance Narrative Group for Occupiers to share stories of resistance from their particular faith traditions
CARA CURTIS, Philadelphia, PA
Co-organized a ten week course at the Alternative Seminary focused on Liberating Biblical Study: Scholarship, Art, and Action. Put together a course study packet for others to use for study.
TEVYN EAST, The Affording Hope Project
Crafted a performance and liturgical piece called Blood on the Cedars which addresses the imperial conquest of nature and connects the feral theatricality of the Hebrew prophets to contemporary resistance movements.
CHARLETTA ERB, Bartimeaous Cooperative, Oakland, CA
Presented on ethics and the interplay of power with varied practices of conflict transformation and restorative justice, from mediation, to circle processes to advocacy. Led several conflict skills and restorative justice workshops with community members, Occupy Chicago and young adults in a criminal justice context.
CHRIS GRATASKI, Ezekial’s Guild, Lynchburg, VA
Began work on a book which is an invitation to rethink the work of solidarity, resistance, liberation and spirituality from a thoroughgoing bioregional perspective.
JULIE JACK-SCOTT, Possibility Alliance
Created five woodcut prints around the theme of Sabbath Economics with personal and theological reflections. You can view her work throughout in the report.
BETHANY LOBERG, SHARE, El Salvador
Put together the Romero Celebration Guide which was sent out to all of SHARE´s sister organizations and contacts in the U.S. to help support them in planning commemorative events for the 32nd anniversary of Archbishop Romero´s martyrdom.
DANIELLE MILLER, Oceanside Lutheran Church in Oceanside, NY
Deep to Deep is a three day experiential retreat using the stages of Restorative Justice to unpack our God image, focusing on those relational pieces that do violence to God, ourselves or others, and rebuilding a more holistic image of God.
TIM NAFZIGER, Christian Peacemakers Team, Oakland, CA
Taught a series of four classes on becoming an ally. Drawing from Bell Hook’s book Becoming an Ally as well as the books studied in the Mentoring Program, he focused being an ally within a Christian context.
ELIZABETH NICOLAS, Philadelphia, PA
Co-organized a ten week course at the Alternative Seminary focused on Liberating Biblical Study: Scholarship, Art, and Action. Put together a course study packet for others to use for study.
MELISSA SHANK GRATASKI, Ezikial’s Guild,  Lynchburg, VA
Put together a booklet on women’s herbal health focusing on self-care, seasonal ritual, and planting one’s own bioregional women’s herb garden. The booklet weaves together prayer, ritual, and stories of women’s healers throughout history.
LYDIA WYLIE-KELLERMANN, Jeanie Wylie Community, Detroit, MI
Wrote a piece entitled Learning it in my Bones: Holding Her Body, Touching Nonviolence about the experience of her mom dying at home in conversation with the culture’s attitudes towards death and dying. To be published in Bury the Dead: Stories of Death and Dying, Resistance and Discipleship.