For Leah Kostamo, Jesus’ counsel to “Consider the lilies” is not just a preamble to some advice on living simply. It is an exhortation in its own right. For Leah, a life of paying attention to the natural world has led to a passion for conserving the integrity of that world, our common home. Leah is the co-founder and spiritual care coordinator for A Rocha Canada, a Christian conservation organization involved in environmental education, habitat restoration and organic farming. She also is a co-founder of Kingfisher Farm, an A Rocha offshoot where some of the A Rocha staff and their friends live together in intentional community. Leah’s book, Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling, and Community, records some of their adventures together, and lessons learned along the way. We were delighted with her humility and wisdom, her extensive vocabulary for animal groupings, and her story of how Margaret Atwood became a champion of her book and her cause.

Jodi Spargur is a settler of Nordic/German heritage living and working on the unceeded territory of the Squamish, Musqueaum and Tslei-Watuth Peoples. Jodi is a farmer, furniture-mover, pastor and catalyzer for justice and healing between the church and indigenous peoples in Canada. Jodi continually crosses thresholds into spaces where she has much to learn, whether that be in the implications of residential schools for well-meaning people of faith today, or the struggles of Indigenous families to resist apprehensions by the Child Welfare System, or a resistance camp of the Wet’suwet’en standing in the way of pipeline expansions. The pathway into her current work with Healing at the Wounding Place came largely out of her experiences with planting and pastoring God’s House of Many Faces, a church in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver that squatted in borrowed spaces, met outside whenever weather permitted and was formed around Indigenous people who made up a large portion of the church.  Impacts of Residential Schools and the systemic racism that still marks Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people were evident in the day to day lives of church and community members. Currently Jodi is leading the work of Healing at the Wounding Place based out of Grandview Calvary Baptist Church looking to engage people of faith and indigenous communities in walking into whole, healing and just relationships. Healing has begun in indigenous communities across Canada.  Jodi holds out the question whether the church, one of the primary wounding places, can become a place of healing for indigenous and non-indigenous people alike. Links Jodi Spargur’s website Unistoten Resistance Camp Wet’suwet’en website – check out the video, “Your Voice, Our Future” Globe and Mail Wet’suwet’en Photo Gallery Globe and Mail guide to the story

We like to think of Stan McKay as Manitoba’s Bishop Tutu. He has held the highest office in the land in the United Church of Canada, but his influence and recognition as a spiritual leader of the Cree extends well beyond the bounds of the church. The name given to him in the lodge is Walking Buffalo, a name that associates him with a creature and a way of life threatened by extinction. It is also a name that ties him to the teaching of Respect, the teaching held by the Buffalo in the Seven Sacred Teachings of his people. Stan teaches mostly through story, as a practice of respect. Still, his challenge is clear, pointing to a way of being that is opposite to Western values of competition, domination and aggression. Stan goes beyond liberation theology to “the liberation of theology.” We are honoured by his gift of time and voice. Chi-meegwetch! (Great thanks!)

Alana Levandoski has been called a “right-brain theologian,” but she wasn’t always open about her faith. Today her website introduces her as “a song and chant writer and recording artist, in the Christian tradition, who lives with her family on an aspiring permaculture farm on the Canadian prairies.” She is really on her second music career. Her integration of faith and art, her grounding in a life of family and a life on the land arises from a moment of rebirth at what seemed like the end of the road for an up-and-coming darling of the alt-folk scene, a starlet who was playing big stages in Nashville and feeling utterly alone. One day this restless road warrior hit a wall, and after some time, broke through to a mystery. Sharing out of that mystery, she has today reemerged with new voice and new energy. Both political and mystical, Alana Levandoski is as edgy as ever, singing from the margins to the centre of our being and of our moment. In this honest and wide-ranging conversation, Alana talks to Marcus about her journey as a spiritual being having a human experience.

Steve Bell is a much beloved Winnipeg singer/songwriter. Steve sings songs of Christian faith, but with an authenticity that makes him accessible to fans well beyond the Christian fold. “You are singing your story, you aren’t telling me my story,” says one of Steve’s regular atheist concert attendees. We were delighted to sit down with Steve to hear his thoughts on the vocation of the artist, the story of how he learned to play guitar from inmates in the Drumheller prison chapel, and to learn about Steve’s recent forays into advocacy for Indigenous rights. Most recently Steve has been active in advocating for Bill C-262, which would see the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples passed into law in Canada. Two conservative Senators have been filibustering to effectively kill the passing of this bill. Steve takes them on in this detailed open letter.  You can check out Steve’s music and upcoming shows at stevebell.com. You can google “Shoal Lake 40 Freedom Road” to learn more about the campaign discussed in this episode, or check out Steve’s synopsis of the situation. The title of this episode comes from Steve’s description of the gift/flaw of the artist: the state of being completely porous to the pains and sorrows of the world. This is Steve Bell on The Ferment, Completely Porous.

Chris and Hazel Harper are leaders in the Indigenous food sovereignty movement from St. Theresa Point, Manitoba. Born and raised Catholics, they have reclaimed and reintegrated the ceremonies of their people, including the Wabanu thanksgiving ceremony, which was passed on to Chris after Christian influence pushed it underground and nearly extinguished it. They conduct their work with humble reverence for all living things and have become vital knowledge-keepers to their remote community and well beyond. They made time for an interview on The Ferment in the midst of a conference where they were busy in multiple roles, teaching, emceeing and leading the gathering in prayer. We are so grateful for the conversation. Meegwetch. 

For many years, Danielle Shroyer was a pastor to people recovering from a toxic theology of original sin, a theology that said that God couldn’t even bear to look at them without a very bloody intervention by Jesus. With a fierce empathy for her parishioners and an intellectual hunger for good theology, Shroyer went digging through the early writings of the church and discovered there an understanding of salvation that was not based on an assumption of essential human depravity. For Shroyer, the blessing of humanity by God “is not if-then but as-is.” We may “choose not to echo the blessing of God, but God’s blessing will never stop echoing over us.” Danielle Shroyer joined us for a dynamic and refreshing conversation on The Ferment. We are grateful for her curiosity and her courage.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a southern-bred preacher, a New Monastic, and a street-level activist. His disciplined life of prayer has driven him straight into the public square as a leader in North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement, a movement that has now morphed into a nation-wide poor people’s campaign, Repairers of the Breach.  In a wide-ranging, candid conversation, Jonathan offers a compelling argument for faith-based political engagement, a punchy deconstruction of the Religious Right he once served as a foot soldier, lessons from the Black church in challenging the “bullhorn racism” of Donald Trump, and a hopeful vision for a grassroots ecumenism coming together as Christendom falls apart.  Welcome to this episode with Jonathan, named for a burning question that drives his work and witness: “What Does Love Look Like in Public?” Note: Some time has passed since the original interview. The monthly podcast of “The Gathering” of the Repairer’s of the Breach has run its course along with the campaign of focused action that ran in spring and summer of 2018. But the content is still worth checking out. The issues remain and the fight for justice carries on. Episode References: Reba Place Fellowship Koinonia Farm Rutba House Benedictines St. Benedict’s Monastery Andrew Nikiforuk, journalist & author of: Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude Rev. William Barber II Wild Goose Festival Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats Ivan Illich on houses of hospitality – check out “The Corruption of Christianity, Part 1,” one of a series of interviews with Ivan Illich by David Cayley. Book of Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, by Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove, Shane Claiborne and Enuma Okoro

Kathy Kelly learned not long ago that her last name is Gaelic for “strife.” Kelly has spent a career coaxing communities into the struggle for justice, always nonviolently, always in the face of formidable violence. So successful has she been in recruiting young people to this dangerous, disciplined activism that there is a joke going around about the formation of a “Mothers Against Kathy Kelly” group among families wanting to save their children from the influence of this peace-waging “granarchist.” In a wide-ranging conversation, Kathy Kelly shares stories about her family’s history with the IRA, the racist uproar of her North Chicago neighbourhood when Martin Luther King Jr. tried to move in, the Arab Spring in Yemen, of living through the bombardment of Baghdad when she and others refused to abandon their Iraqi friends to the US aerial assault, of courage and analysis she has learned from Afghan teenagers, and of how the IRS became her “spiritual director,” overseeing her life of poverty when she became a war tax resistor. Whether from far abroad or close by, every story Kathy Kelly tells hits home. CORRECTION: In the preamble, Marcus mentions Donald Trump hosting a red carpet tour of a Yemeni crown prince at the time of the interview. It was in fact the Saudi crown prince who was touring the USA. Kathy Kelly was describing the role of the US Air Force in the in-flight refueling of Saudi jets, allowing for the uninterrupted bombing of many civilian targets in Yemen. Episode References:  Kathy’s organization, Voices for Creative Nonviolence The War in Yemen: at the time of the interview, Donald Trump was giving the Yemeni crown prince the red carpet treatment on a goodwill tour through the USA. For the release of this episode, Kathy sent along some updates on the situation in Yemen. Seeing Yemen from Jeju Island A Shift: Repudiating War on Yemen U.S. Is Complicit in Child Slaughter in Yemen Holiday hunger strike calling for an end to the US-Saudi war in Yemen. Video coverage by the Real News Network CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) War tax resistance – In the place where The Ferment podcast team touches the earth, there is Conscience Canada. In the US, you can find out more here. Catholic Worker movement Clarence Jorden Symposium MLK’s notion of the beloved community. Read more here. Jesuit Volunteer Corps

Tim Otto is an openly gay Christian pastor, affirming of same-sex relationships for others, while committed to a life of covenanted celibacy for himself. He is truly queer. In one sense, he doesn’t fit in anywhere. In another sense, he has found his people and lived among them for thirty years. Tim lives as a life-long student of the art of loving as a member of an intentional, common-purse Christian community in San Francisco. In his characteristically soft-spoken way, Tim challenges the self-righteous chauvinism of both right and left in the culture wars, holding out a vision of brave spaces, where the adventure we are called to is to love the people who make us uncomfortable and to seek truth in the conversations we find difficult. Episode References: Tim Otto’s book: Oriented to Faith Church of the Sojourners Shane Claiborne Pope John Paul II, Theology of the Body Richard Sipe, expert on celibacy and clerical sex abuse Robert Bella, Habits of the Heart (edited) Alana’s song, “Holy Fool”  It makes all kinds of sense If you clench your fist that I clench mine more that I close my door We all understand if I raise my hand back at someone else to protect myself But what do we do with our Holy Fool? What do we do with our Holy Fool? And when my god is mocked and my cheeks get hot I can mock right back to stay right on track And laugh at your own crude certitude 'cause I can't be sure if you are too But what do we do with our Holy Fool? What do we do with our Holy Fool? I want this plot of mine to align with a triumphant march that "changes hearts" But what I often mean is for others to see with the kind of sight that would see I'm right But what do we do with our Holy Fool? What do we do with our Holy Fool? And if Easter can't be the loser's chant and I've forgotten what this is all about Then my hallelujah Maybe my hallelujah my hallelujah is a violent shout What do we do with our Holy Fool? Who hangs between our differences over what needs to be saved What do we do with our Holy Fool? Whose foolishness outpours the heavens into the wisdom of our graves Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah to this Ancient, Holy Fool Collapse