A Letter From Shane Claiborne

To all my grace-filled revolutionary friends,

Here’s what I realized as I finished writing my new book Executing Grace. This isn’t just about a book. It is about a movement that has the potential to make history – to make the death penalty history.

This isn’t an ad (I’ve never been much of a self-promoter), it’s about uniting our voices and movements to stand on the side of grace, redemption, and life… and to put an end to the death penalty once and for all. I am hearing conservatives, liberals, and political misfits (I think that’s what I am) who are all convinced that if we work together we can create better forms of justice than killing those who kill to show that it is wrong to kill.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the death penalty – we Christians have been the champions of death. 85% of executions happen in the Bible belt. Where Christians are most concentrated is where the death penalty continues to flourish. It’s time to change that – as we declare the truth that no one is beyond redemption.  And for those of you who are not Christians, we need your voice and your courageous witness too. We Christians don’t own exclusive rights to grace and mercy. We need your voice.

So here are a few really practical ways we can collectively disrupt the machinery of death in America:

Order Executing Grace now, as it releases this week, so that it can hit some bestseller lists and get as much buzz as possible. If you like it, throw a review up on Amazon. If you don’t like it, keep that to yourself (just kidding). We have also created a very helpful “Influencer Kit” which is sort of a tool box with everything you need to spread the word, and keep amplifying the message of grace.

Go to our website and check out the materials there. We’ve worked hard to create practical resources, links, facts, and photos there… useful info for organizing and creating conversations. There’s also a press kit for media on the site.

If you’re feeling a little more on the wild side, join me and some of my heroes on the steps of the Supreme Court as we hold vigil to abolish the death penalty on June 29-July 2. Every year, groups working for the abolition of the death penalty converge during this specific week, which marks both the date executions were halted in 1972 and when they resumed 4 years later. Murder victims’ family members against execution, exonerees (folks wrongfully convicted), and families of the executed – all join together. It’s a powerful event, and I hope you’ll join, even for a day. Register for the vigil here.

I want you to know that I feel so honored to have such incredible friends with whom I get to conspire and plot goodness, and create holy mischief. We really do have a movement on our hands. So much is at stake. Many lives are at stake. The message of God’s grace is at stake. So let’s do this thing… and make the death penalty history.

I love you each and all. Thanks for being such powerful voices for grace. Thanks for doing what you can to amplify the message of Executing Grace and bring about an end to execution.

– Shane Claiborne
Author / Speaker / Activist
ExecutingGrace.com

There’s no better way to experience The Goose than by spending Thursday through Sunday immersed in this transformational, experiential, sing and dance and play and dream and eat and camp and meditate and talk and listen and twirl-you-around-and-shake-you-up gathering like no other. Seriously, have you seen the video?

However, if you can’t spend the weekend, the next best thing is to get a taste of it, by just coming for a day. That’s where Day Passes come in…a day pass is kind of like the Big Gulp of Wild Goose.

We’ve made a limited number of individual Day Passes available for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And they’re now on sale. Check out the day by day highlights and get your day pass tickets soon.

HIGHLIGHTS
Please check the detailed schedule (available next week) for full details.

THURSDAY
Rev Jacqui Lewis
Matt Maher
Ken Medema

FRIDAY
Jim Wallis
Stan Mitchell
Frank Schaeffer
Soong-Chan Rah
Doug Pagitt
Michael Gungor
Emilie Townes
Joerg Rieger
Look Homeward
Emmanuel Jal
Pato Banton
Home-brewed Christianity Live
The Liturgists Podcast

SATURDAY
Lisa Sharon Harper
Chris Crass
Charles Eisenstein
Shane Claiborne
Matthew Fox
Joe Davis and the Poetic Diaspora
Phil Madeira
Dar Williams
Indigo Girls

SUNDAY
Ask Science Mike

How to turn tenderness into fearlessness. A conversation with the leaders of Racial Justice Institute.

Are you tired of conversations about race that quickly turn into shouting matches? Do you feel uncomfortable, as a white person, bringing up race, or feel your “help” is not wanted in movements like Black Lives Matter? Do you feel frustrated, as a person of color, being asked to explain things to white folks? Is it possible to confront white privilege, promote racial justice, and still have friends?

The Racial Justice Institute is a day-long pre-festival event put together to tackle these questions and more. And though it’s called an “institute,” which may make you think of a stuffy classroom with long, boring lectures, it’s designed to be anything but.  Instead think “interactive workshop” — a day to talk deeply and honestly, sometimes awkwardly, about race, in a place where you will be respected and listened to. A time to feel, reflect, sing, pray, possibly even laugh, and most importantly, figure out how we can individually – and collectively – do something about racial injustice.

This personal and communal journey will be facilitated by a group of gifted and wise, multiracial and interdisciplinary facilitators including Micky ScottBey Jones, Kenji Kuramitsu, Rev. Jennifer Bailey, AnaYelsi and many more.

We caught up with some of these folks recently and tossed them a few questions about what to expect from the day and why it’s so important to be there.

Why do a whole extra day about Racial Justice? Won’t that be a big part of the festival?

Sure it will. There will be conversations and talks and storytelling and music around this subject throughout the festival. And on lots of other subjects.

This is a time to drill down, to participate in a facilitated conversation where you can engage honestly and openly, be comfortable asking uncomfortable questions, and spend more focused time with other people coming up with ideas for transformative action.

As you leave this event, we think your head will be spinning with new ideas, new understandings, and an increased depth of awareness, so as you go into the festival you’ll very likely enter into it more deeply than you would have before. Our facilitators will also be leading workshops throughout the festival, so participating in RJI will prepare you to get even more from those sessions. Not to mention you may also make some friends you can hang out with throughout the festival.  

Who is this for?

Everyone who wants to have a deep, open, challenging, thoughtful conversation about race and oppression. It is for people of color and for white people. It’s for people just beginning to engage issues of race, and those who have been engaged for years and need fresh perspectives.

What will I take home from it?

More awareness and wisdom. You might even leave with a commitment to change your life and the systems around you.

Why should I attend?

Because although ignorance can be bliss, one person’s bliss can create another’s hell.  Attending this will create knowledgeable bliss and less hell.  It’s backwards that way.

What will I learn?

How we’ve gotten to this place where certain people have privilege and others have been “disprivileged,” how it hurts, and what we can do about it. How you fit into the story of race, inequality and justice and what that means for you. How race has shaped American culture and systems like education, prison, economics and civil rights, where we are today and where we might be going. How none of us are free until we are all free, and the beauty of getting there together.

What will we do all day?  

Open our raw hearts so that the tenderness becomes fearlessness.

Yeah, but are we going to sit and listen to people talk all day?

Only if you want to. You can also speak if you’d like to share. And participate in all kinds of other ways. Which is why we call it an interactive workshop.

How will it be “interactive”?

Through contemplative exercises and small group conversations (including those we have at meal times) occasional singing, journaling, even, yes, possibly dancing. (For those who see themselves as “dancing challenged,” don’t worry, we aren’t talking “Dancing with the Stars” dancing.)

Is this going to involve a lot of debate?

Only if you can find someone to debate with. We’re planning opportunities for one-on-one conversations with each other and with the leaders…no game playing, just sharing our best truths.  Clear-eyed, vulnerable, compassionate truths.

Why are there so many people leading?

We want everyone to feel welcome, and we don’t want anyone to feel alone. Also, race isn’t just about black and white. So we’ve included facilitators with many different stories, many different perspectives and experiences —  black, white, Asian, Latinx, straight, queer, gay, 40s to 20s, Anglican to evangelical, black-churched to Pentecostal.

We heard there might be a campfire…will this be just another feel good campfire conversation about race?

It will be more like being the marshmallow in the campfire. We’ll let the flames burn away our sugary falseness.

If I attend am I going to get yelled at? Am I going to leave feeling more frustrated and/or guilt-ridden?

We recognize it can be scary to talk about race. We have created RJI to provide a place to experiment with being brave, to ask questions that bring up big feelings, risk vulnerability and to crack open complex ideas. In the process, perhaps we will find personal and cultural healing. Even transformation. It’s designed to be a day that leaves you not with more guilt but with deeper knowledge, inspiration, different questions and new relationships as well as resources and ideas for action. We hope that you’ll be changed and leave ready to help create change in the world.

Sign up to join us for the event here.

Check out the full schedule for the day here.

Have more questions? Contact Micky ScottBey Jones

This year, all over the Wild Goose Festival, and especially in the Wild Goose Studio Tent and Video Tent, you will have opportunity to hear stories, tell your own story, and be a part of workshops designed to help your story sing (y’know…metaphorically).

As people of faith, we’ve always believed stories have power. Stories matter. The stories we read in the scriptures and our own personal stories bear witness to what we’ve experienced of God in our lives and in the world. They tell of our small joys and huge moments of grace. And yes, also of all the ways we’ve failed ourselves and each other.

Get ready for some amazing storytelling opportunities throughout the weekend.  We’ll announce specific times soon – check the website for updates as we get closer. Here’s what’s happening:

1. Storytelling Workshop (two hours): Rebecca Anderson, co-host of Wild Goose Story Slam
You know a great story when you hear it – but what makes it work? In these two hours, come get an intro to the craft of storytelling, strengthen your style, and use structure intentionally and creatively for maximum impact. Offer and receive the kind of feedback that makes everyone’s stories better.

2. Tenx9 – with art!
Tenx9 (“ten by nine”) is a Belfast-originated monthly community storytelling night where 9 people have up ten minutes each to tell a real story from their lives. It’s about real people and real stories. It’s not about professional storytelling; it’s about strange people telling their strange stories to strangers, a place for the nervous and the unsure to get up and give it a go. We make space for the ordinary, because we believe everybody has a story. Tenx9 is thrilled to be hosting a night of storytelling at Wild Goose for the first time ever, and we’ve decided our theme will be “Courage: Stories of Resistance.” We welcome your submissions! If you have a story of courageous resistance, regardless the scale or context, let us know. Propose your story by filling out this form. We will get back in touch to confirm spots by June 17. To learn more about Tenx9 and our approach to storytelling nights, meander around our website at tenx9nashville.com. Tenx9 is a place where stories may very well break your heart and put it back together again. If you want to be moved, to feel deeply, join  us for Tenx9 at Wild Goose. Got a story? We’d love to hear from you. SUBMIT YOUR STORY HERE

3. Storytelling workshop: Michael McRay, host of Tenx9 Storytelling
In this two-hour workshop, writers will reflect on the overarching narrative of your life, brainstorm some of your greatest stories (interpret that as you will) through various themes, compare and contrast compelling and mediocre sample stories, and if time permits, peer-review each other’s narratives to provide constructive feedback for story development. Please bring a true personal story of no more than 750 words. These plans are subject to change.

4. Finishing touches
Been working on a story at a workshop or on your own?  Come get some feedback and tweaking designed to boost your confidence and get you ready to put your name in the hat at the evening story slam.

5. Wild Goose StorySLAM with Music! Hosted by Mark Longhurst and Rebecca Anderson. With live music
A fan of The Moth?  This is gonna be your jam.  Come and put your name in the hat to be one of 10 storytellers – or just come and listen to true stories, crafted for impact, humor, and connection. Our theme for the night is From Shit to Shine: Stories of Redemption.

Storytellers: Prepare a 5-minute true, first-person story about a transformation.

Think: a divorce that became a blessing, a fight that ended in friendship, an addiction that helped access vulnerability, a lie that stumbled into trust, a wound that became a scar, a death more crushing than you could endure…until you did. You lived to tell the tale, now’s your chance to tell it!

We’ve also got a need for stories to integrate on other stages. We need stories ranging from shorties (3 – 4 minutes) to mid-length (5 – 7 minutes) to slot between other events and as part of worship, too.  Sure, we’ll pull from the overflow of Courage: Stories of Resistance and StorySLAM tellers, but if you have a story on any theme that you’re aching to tell, SUBMIT IT HERE!  We need all kinds of voices, and all kinds of tales.

Tell Your Story on Video

We want to make sure your story is captured on video and archived for viewing on the Goose website after the festival.
Storytellers: We may not have video coverage at all storytelling events, so please make arrangements to tell your story to our cameras either before or after your scheduled storytelling time. We want to make sure your story is heard! When you arrive at the festival, please stop by to schedule a time to tell your story to our camera.
If you’re not a scheduled storyteller but would like to share your story – whatever your story may be – we want to capture your story too! All are welcome! In the past, we’ve grabbed people walking by and asked them to spontaneously “Tell us your story.” This year, we’d like you to think about what you’d like to say in advance, then stop by and talk to us.

Our video studio, “What’s Your Story,” will be located next to the Art Studio tent.

Why I’m Participating in the Wild Goose Racial Justice Institute
by Sarah Withrow King (Re-posted from Evangelicals For Action)
Sara Withrow King is a contributor this year and a leader in our Racial Justice Institute, a pre-festival event sponsored by Evangelicals for Social Action.

On July 7, 2016, on the eve of 2016’s Wild Goose Festival, I’ll be participating in a Racial Justice Institute sponsored by ESA.
My primary vocation is animal protection. I’m an indoor kitty, and this is an outdoor festival. I grew up in Oregon and get hot and cranky when exposed to temperatures above 65 degrees Fahrenheit. But I’m really excited, and I want to tell you why so that you’ll consider joining Micky, AnaYelsi, Darren, Kenji, Paul, Jen, Kristyn, and me for this one-day interactive workshop engaging issues of race and justice through practical, spiritual, emotional, historical, and social streams of knowledge.

And so, a list. I’m thrilled to participate in the Racial Justice Institute….

1. Because we’ll look at race through a whole bunch of lenses, making for a deeper, richer experience.
2. Because liberal progressives need to be redeemed, right alongside the right-wingers and independents and everyone between and beyond.
3. Because I’ve hung out with these folks before, and it’s a guaranteed good time.
4. Because in 1995, I told the only African American kid in my class that “racism doesn’t exist anymore” and didn’t realize how wrong I was until Trayvon Martin was shot walking home from the store.
5. Because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
6. Because my fight for animals, your fight for gender equality, his fight for the unborn, her fight for safe schools, our fight for one another won’t mean a thing as long as skin color is used to measure the worth of a person.
7. Because it’s possible to acknowledge past and current injustice, to accept that light skin is privileged skin and that people who looked like me perpetuated and continue to perpetuate horrific crimes against people who do not look like me…and not get bogged down in white guilt.
8. Because white fragility is as damaging as white supremacy.
9. Because I want my young son to grow up watching me tackle white privilege head on so that he becomes an anti-racist man.

Sign up, would you? I need people like you to walk this road with me.

Sarah Withrow King is the Deputy Director of the Sider Center, the co-director of CreatureKind, and the author of two books, Animals Are Not Ours (No Really, They’re Not): An Evangelical Animal Liberation Theology. (Wipf & Stock) and Vegangelical: How Caring for Animals Can Shape Your Faith (Zondervan).

“All are welcome.” We’ve been saying that since the very first Wild Goose and we’ve always meant it. And by welcome we don’t mean “tolerated,” or “accepted.” We mean embraced, as in long-lost-friend-embraced, you’re-finally-home-embraced. This “welcome to all” has been so much a part of the Wild Goose DNA that we’ve almost come to take it for granted.

But we realized, especially in light of the passage of North Carolina’s HB2, that we needed to be more explicit about our welcome. So we’ve adopted and put in writing an anti-harassment policy. You can read it here.  https://wildgoosefestival.org/anti-harassment_policy/

We’re committed to helping make our world safer for everyone. We hope this policy makes that clear, and if you have any questions about it, please ask.

When North Carolina passed this legislation, we thought long and hard about whether to cancel the festival or move it in protest. But ultimately we’ve decided it’s important to be here, to be visible, and to be a voice for God’s radical love (check out Kimberly Knight’s passionate blog post on Patheos). We hope you’ll join us!

Phil Madeira is a Nashville-based musician, songwriter and producer who’s worked with names like Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Alison Krauss, Mat Kearney, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Amy Grant and The Civil Wars…just to name a few. He’s also an author, painter, artist and long time friend of The Wild Goose Festival. And this year he’s helping curate the first ever Wild Goose Songwriting Contest.

Lenora Rand, author of the blog Spiritual Suckitude, who will be leading a workshop about finding the holy in our stories at Wild Goose this year, caught up with him this week to ask a few questions.

Lenora: In your 2012 album, Mercyland, Hymns for the Rest of Us, Paste magazine said, you coaxed “the divine from plain dirt.” Christianity Today said you captured “…the vulnerable exchange between hurting humans and a holy God.” And Evangelicals for Social Action, said, your music called us “…to live today in a way that brings heaven a little closer.” Wow. Is that what you set out to do?

Phil: Mercyland Volumes 1 & 2 were created as a response to the hysteria that continues to be stirred up by American fundamentalism, all in the name of Jesus.  Look at the so-called “religious freedom” laws being passed in the South in 2016.  I started the first Mercyland in 2009, writing with and recording the then-unknown Civil Wars.  “From This Valley” is all about  the outcast, the orphan, the invisible community that Christ spoke of often.  Emmylou Harris’ willingness to participate in both records gave credence to what I was doing, both musically and philosophically.  My intention was not to make a Christian music record, but to just make the statement that God loves everyone.  To that end, I succeeded.

Lenora: A lot of people might call Wild Goose a festival “for the rest of us.” Do you think of it that way? What drew you to Wild Goose in the first place? What keeps you coming back?

Phil: I was invited to play songs from Mercyland, as well as my own brand of roots music in 2012, I think, the second year.  What drew me was the opportunity to share my music.  What I found there was an interesting mix of folks trying to rescue a faith that has been politicized, nationalized, and de-sanitized by the status quo.  While there, I made vital relationships, including the woman who signed me to a book deal.  You never know what saying “yes” to the unknown will yield in your life, but in my case, I’ve been back every year for more of the same kind of community building.

Lenora: The theme this year at Wild Goose, “Story,” is all about bringing our stories together and seeing what happens when they rub up against each other. As someone who’s co-written with lots of musicians in your career, what’s the value of coming together and co-creating?

Phil: Co-creating is important to my very survival.  In the endeavor to get songs to the masses, I’ve found that writing a song with another person will always make the meaning more universal.  The co-written song becomes less about me and more about us, and usually that makes it much more resonant with a larger audience.

Lenora: Why did you agree to help curate the Wild Goose Festival’s Songwriting Contest? Why is this a good thing for the Goose to do?

Phil: The invitation benefits the Goose as well as the songwriter.  Who knows what bright light will shine from some unknown corner of our world?  Who knows what wonderful message or melody might emerge when we invite the unknown into our midst? 

 At our Mercyland Songwriter Workshops (this year in Hot Springs NC July 17-21 by the way), we’ve continually discovered those kinds of voices and hearts.  Because I’m often in the thick of unknown writers, I see it all the time, and I know that the Goose is in store for some wonderful new music.

Lenora: It’s pretty scary to put yourself out there as an artist and share your work with others, especially when they’re not your family and friends who are mostly fairly nice to you. Why do you think it could be a good thing for aspiring songwriters to submit a song to this contest? Besides the fact that they could win a lovely Republic 317 mahogany Parlor Resonator guitar, of course.

Phil: Allow me to answer with a story:
A few years after Emmylou invited me to be in her band, I found an album cover I had designed for a graphics class I’d taken in college.  At the time, I had no record to put in the sleeve, so I filled the credits with the great session players of the day- Lee Sklar, Russ Kunkel, Al Perkins, and others.  Thirty years after making this cover, I looked at those credits and realized I had played with every single person I’d written down in that waking dream.  What really blew my mind was reading Emmylou’s name among them!  At 21, I had dreamed big and then forgotten all about it. 

 I often share this story with people who are afraid to dream the kind of dream I was dreaming as a young man.  Wild Goose is offering the opportunity to share a dream, that impossible story that is waiting to be lived out.  If someone’s dream is to be a songwriter, here’s an opportunity to make it come true.  Again, it’s only a matter of saying “yes.”

 There’s still time to enter the Wild Goose Songwriters Contest. Submissions accepted until April 30, 2016.

Phil Madeira music, art, and books available at www.philmadeira.net

For info on Mercyland Songwriter Workshops, go to
http://www.writingcircle.org/mercylandsongwriterworkshop/