The Ferment: Recent Episodes
Marcus Peter Rempel & Alana Levandoski
Some would question the wisdom, or the right, of someone like me--White, Mennonite, Christian--writing about the historic practices of torture among Indigenous cultures on Turtle Island. Hopefully, the work I have been doing on this podcast and in my book so far has helped me pull enough of the log out of my own eye that I can at least look at the speck in my brother's eye, from a place of connection that says, we've all got some dirt that clouds our vision. "For all have fallen short of the glory of God," as Saint Paul says. Repentance is for every human culture, as is the wideness of God's mercy.
A golden-voiced radio host falls from glory. A rooster crows and struts and demands rough sex. A husband catches some reflections of himself.
A horse-and-buggy Mennonite community has all of its children apprehended by agents of the state because of the use of corporal punishment in the community. What does this story expose about how we think about the legitimate use of force in our modern world? Girard and Illich offer some insight on the odd role of the Gospel in reshaping everything from parenting to policing.
A recommended related story that I covered on another podcast: Diandra Rose Powderhorn on the Return of the Buffalo Podcast: I am the best person for my children
For our fourth and final conversation, around and beyond the legacy of Ivan Illich, we hear reflections and discussion from Katherine Bubel and Michelle Berry Lane before moving into an extended open discussion.
Katherine discusses Illich's mythopoetics of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Pandora, the latter a patriarchally diminished version of the Earth Goddess Gaia, who Katherine connects to the biblical divine wisdom figure of Sophia, and Mary, Mother of God. Where Prometheus pursues mastery and technology, "Epimethean man stays and listens to the dream of Gaia/the Earth."
Michelle talks about about the conviviality with and of bees, and connects Illich with Suzanne Simard’s work on tree talk, and Lynn Margulis' work on symbiogenesis. She makes the case that the lost sense of contingency--life hanging moment by moment on God's grace--can be recaptured in the modern awareness of the complete contingence of our life on the health of our relationships.
Katharine Bubel is assistant professor of English at Trinity Western University.
Michelle Berry Lane is a poet, a teacher of environmental science and a student of theopoetics, and part of Rochester Pollinators, a pollinator advocacy organization in southeast Michigan.
Sources mentioned in this conversation:
- "Un Certain Regard," in which gives his take on the myth of Pandora, Prometheus & Epimetheus.
- Illich's essay, "The Dawn of Epimethean Man"
- Illich's Tools for Conviviality
- Ilich's Gender: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ivan-illich-gender
Thanks to David Benjamin Blower for the transition music. Check out more of his offerings at the Messianic Folklore Podcast.
Gustavo Esteva coined the slogan "One No, Many Yeses" to communicate the way Illich's sense of "the vernacular" offers many small and winding exits off of the one big road of industrial "progress" that tries to gather up the whole globe into one great machine, one overriding system. In this conversation, Dougald Hine, Sam Ewell and friends colour in some of the small, convivial possibilities that lie on the other side of a no to the promises of modernity, the kinds of gardens that can grow up in the cracks of big systems.
Christian mission has gotten a bad name in our time, for good reason. Illich talked about the razor's edge walked by the missionary, between violating the world into which one has been sent (he used the word raping, actually) and betraying one's spiritual inheritance. Some have read Illich as anti-mission. In this conversation, both David Cayley and Sam Ewell argue that Illich is decidedly not anti-mission, any more than he is anti-technology, but that he makes us sensitive to the imperialism of either one when they tilt us out of the convivial relationship of friends and the action of citizens into the docility of clients who believe that only armies, machines and experts can save them.
Welcome to chapter 2 of Life at the End of Us Versus Them. This is where I give an introduction to the thought of Ivan Illich's sense of the way Christianity was perverted when it sought to impose the Gospel of Christ through state power and institutional administration. I could think of no clearer case example than the Indian Residential Schools project.
Two Illichian thinkers dialogue on the legacy of Illich, in the light of our present times and predicaments. This is the first of four fortnightly conversations.
David Cayley: friend and associate of Illich and the author of Ivan Illich, An Intellectual Journey.
Dougald Hine: co-founder of The Dark Mountain Project, A School Called Home and the author of At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics, and All the Other Emergencies.
To join in the upcoming Zoom meetings, reach out to either Dougald Hine or David Benjamin Blower on Substack to become a paid subscriber for this and other excellent offerings by these two.
Firing up the old podcast again! This is the first in a series of audiobook chapter releases. I never did figure out how to package and sell my book as an audiobook per se, but it feels like the right time to put this out into the world. The "expectant - and apocalyptic time" that was named on the back cover seems more vividly at hand now than in 2017 when I first published the thing. Illich and Girard helped me find my bearings in this strange time that is the end of something big--Dougald Hine names it modernity, Paul Kingsnorth calls it The Machine, Joe Biden calls it "the rules-based international order"--that last name loaded with what Girard would call a "misrecognition" of the sacred violence that we have called "good" and tried so desperately to distinguish from the violence of others we have called "bad." Will we renounce our violent passions in time to avert an apocalyptic escalation? There are many ways to pray. Perhaps relaunching a podcast is one of them.
Lydia Wylie-Kellerman is co-editor of the blog, radicaldiscipleship.net, coordinator of Word and World: A People’s School bridging the gap between seminary, sanctuary and the street, and the newly minted editor of geez magazine, recently flown the coop of Winnipeg to be nested in Detroit.
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
One of the strange wonders of Marcus’ life is that the core of his after-degree theological training came to him through the medium of publicly funded radio programming, almost all of it curated by David Cayley. For over 20 years, Cayley was a producer for a program entitled simply, “Ideas” at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Always clear, always careful, always genuinely seeking after the Good, David Cayley has deepened and enriched the public conversation in this country and well beyond it. “What is worth understanding is worth being understood well by everyone,” said Northrop Frye, one of Cayley’s many interviewees. Cayley made a career of helping the Canadian public understand ideas with philosophical heft, and, perhaps even more challenging in the present milieu, ideas of great spiritual significance. We were delighted to have Cayley’s warm and iconic voice on The Ferment.
Episode References: * David Cayley’s programs on several thinkers and themes: + Ivan Illich + Rene Girard + Simone Weil + After Atheism + Between Two Ages + William Blake * David Cayley’s books: + Ivan Illich in Conversation + Rivers North of the Future * Ivan Illich’s work: Deschooling Society * Marcus’ book: Life at the End of Us Versus Them * The New Left: a loosely organized progressive movement that emerged in the 60’s and 70’s that emphasized personal initiative over state reform. Think home-schooling, organic food, intentional communities and back-to-the-land experiments. Cayley features some of the important voices of this movement in his first documentary series for CBC Ideas, Between Two Ages * William Blake’s mythological figure, Urizen * Eric Voegelin – (the tragedy of the western tradition is the separation of theology and philosophy – theology takes a propositional form, e.g., web article by Yotam Hotam) * Bruce Cockburn “The ones who know don’t have the words to tell/ and the ones with the words don’t know too well” – from “Burden of the Angel/Beast“ * Thomas Merton, Gethsemani Abbey, Merton’s monastery, and St. Therese of Lisieux, the “Little Flower,” one of Merton’s inspirations * Alana’s song, Little Flower, from the album Point Vierge:
Little Flower I will be your monk, little flower Show me what to do, little flower Pray for me, little flower Pray for me
In the late winter of 2016, Alana Levandoski and her family traveled to Beausejour, Manitoba to give a concert in a small country church, one of the oldest buildings in the rural town. Alana was promoting her album, Behold, I Make All Things New.The acoustics were gorgeous, and attendees were hungry for an authentic, living voice to sing songs of praise and longing in the century-old, near-defunct sanctuary. A little group called Saint Julian’s Table was trying to keep alive the embers of a worship life in the building of Saint James Anglican, a local parish that had ceased to gather. The experiment of Saint Julian’s Table would die within a year. But the next morning, Alana had a conversation with the group’s convenor that would birth The Ferment podcast.
Alana had connected with Marcus Peter Rempel previously as a Kickstarter backer of his book, Life at the End of Us Versus Them: cross/culture/stories. After breakfast at Ploughshares Community Farm, where Marcus homesteads with his family and some fellow Christian agrarians, Alana and Marcus got to talking about collaborating on a podcast that would call itself “The Ferment” – referring both to a moment of social unrest, and to the magic that preserves the integrity of good, homegrown food by feeding a good culture instead of by sterilizing and killing bad culture.
Like good wine or good sauerkraut, it took a while. Now it’s time to taste and see if this thing is good! In this episode, Alana teaches and sings her way through the church calendar as a Christ narrative. Consider it the starter culture for The Ferment.
Episode References * Richard Rohr’s Living School * Alana’s discography * Hildegard Von Bingen * Frederich Buechner’s sermon series “The Birth”: + The Shepherd + The Innkeeper + The Wise Man * saint benedict’s table Anglican Church * You Are Stardust – children’s book * St. Benedict’s Monastery * Truth & Reconciliation Commission * James Finley
James Alison might insist that he is “fairly clearly not an authority, and often just a silly old queen,” but underneath his mirth and modesty lies an exceptional theological depth. America: The Jesuit Review hails this institutional outsider as an authority who “belongs on any short list of the most important living Catholic theologians.”
In this conversation, Alison addresses himself to a generation that has good bullshit detectors, but little social glue, speaking into the challenge of how to cultivate a togetherness no longer defined over against the “baddie du jour.” Questions of catholicity, original sin and the high priesthood of all believers are dealt with in due course. An uncloseted priest from the edges of the Roman Catholic Church speaks into central issues for our time.
Episode References: * James Alison’s websites: jamesalison.co.uk / forgivingvictim.com * James Alison’s book: The Joy of Being Wrong * Matthew Fox’s book: Original Blessing * Duncan Derrett, NT scholar * Ojibway Elder – The Ojibway, or Anishnaabe, as they call themselves in their own language, are one of the main original people groups in Manitoba. Their territory stretches far east into Ontario and Quebec and south into Minnesota. * Alana’s song, The Heart of God, from the album, Behold, I Make All Things New:
The Heart of God has been revealed The Heart of God has been revealed To bring love not hate Pour out not dominate The Heart of God has been revealed. The Heart of God has been revealed The Heart of God has been revealed To forgive not blame To make whole not shame The Heart of God has been revealed. Halleluja, Halleluja, Halleluja, Halleluja The Heart of God has been revealed
In this episode, Alana and Marcus introduce the vision of The Ferment and introduce ourselves from opposite shores of a prehistoric lake. Then we ring in the coming New Year with Alana’s musical take on Tennyson’s achingly beautiful Ring Out Wild Bells. We couldn’t think of a better way to name our tender hopes and fierce longings to “Ring in…the larger heart, the kindlier hand; / Ring out the darkness of the land, / Ring in the Christ that is to be.”
We made some references in our conversation that you may want to follow up on. Here are some notes to get you started:
- Wendell Berry – the war economy vs the peaceable economy. Berry discusses this in Thoughts in the Presence of Fear, an essay he wrote in the aftermath of 9/11.
- Walter Brueggemann – The Prophetic Imagination
- Alfred Lord Tennyson – In Memoriam. An epic poem of 133 “cantos.” Alana composed music for canto 106, “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” which she performs at the close of this episode.
- Jamie Howison – God’s Mind in that Music. Jamie is a priest in Winnipeg who serves up good spiritual food on an open table, saint benedict’s table, to be specific.
- Belden Lane – The Solace of Fierce Landscapes
- René Girard – Very influential for us at The Ferment, especially for Marcus and Matt, who identify as “Girardians.” For starters, check out I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.
- Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove – Upcoming guest on The Ferment. Co-founder of Rutba House, colleague of Rev. William Barber II in Repairers of the Breach.
- David Cayley – Upcoming guest on The Ferment. Author and radio producer. A treasure trove of his work is available at davidcayley.com.
- James Finley – Co-conspirator with Alana on two recent albums, Point Vierge and Sanctuary. Depth psychologist, Merton scholar and spiritual teacher.
- Thomas Merton – Trappist monk, contemplative writer and master teacher. Managed to build a bridge to Eastern mysticism and provide a leading voice to the anti-war movement from the seclusion of his hermitage in rural Kentucky at Gethsemani Abbey.
- Lake Agassiz – At the end of the last glacial age, a lot of water built up at the southern edge of the ice mountains that covered what is now Manitoba, while the northern mass of ice blocked the outflow to what is now Hudson’s Bay. Alana lives on the escarpment that was the western shore of the old lake, while Marcus lives near the Agassiz Forest on the old eastern shore. Matt and Samantha live in Winnipeg in the Red River Valley, the bottom of the old lake. We are all happy to be keeping our heads above water for the time being.
- Ploughshares Community Farm – an intentional Christian agrarian community that is home to Marcus and his family, and some other fine folks.
