Conspire!is a quarterly publication from a diverse network of communities and groups. The magazine exists to explore in a collaborative, creative, and corporate way some of the unique issues that arise from community life. At the same time, it engages the struggles of many who are not in such communities.

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Issue 1

This Conspiracy of Hope

An Introduction to Conspire

Now is a time to rejoice, for God is still good. Resurrection still happens, every day. The lilies and the sparrows still shame Wall Street’s splendor. God is still calling people who do not conform to the patterns of this world or the empire out of Babylon to create a new society in the shell of the old.

We want to connect those outposts. You are holding our first issue of Conspire!—a conversation in words and image designed to connect the dots between all these amazing witnesses. Dozens of communities and organizations have become co-conspirators, each one kicking in support (prayer, money, vision, time) to bring this off. On these pages, we hope to create an open canvas for the imagination and to plot goodness together. We want to share stories, art, and holy mischief. We’re here to remind you that you are not crazy—or at least not alone. As old Peter Maurin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, said, “If we are crazy, it is because we refuse to be crazy in the same way that the world has been crazy.”

We are bucking the grain by distributing this little “literary co-op” through communities. Our readers have to connect with someone nearby to get it. It’s our way of pulling together all those dots on the margins of empire.

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Thinking About Tomorrow

Kingdom Illustration
History and its future are not determined by God from this perspective, but in a sense, the future is doomed by God – not doomed to failure and destruction, but doomed to eventual healing and joy, doomed to resurrection, because the living God will never give up and abandon creation.

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We Too Can Live

The hope of the Resurrection does not rest in the promise of eventual escape to heaven. The Resurrection shows us that Jesus has broken into this world, crippling the powers of darkness and making it possible for us to live, yes live, as unshackled citizens of His Kingdom. Jesus doesn’t merely make bad people good. He doesn’t merely make sick people well. He raises the dead to life. He is outrageous and inventive, subversive and ingenious, wild and creative. He liberates us from the powers of darkness and calls us into marvelous light. He raids our hospitals, turning bedpans into flowerpots and syringes into knitting needles. He converts our wheelchairs into go-carts and our sick-beds into trampolines. He trades our handcuffs for bracelets and paints frescoes on our bodies with prison tattoos. He teaches us to shake off our chains and use them as jump ropes. He springs kids out of jail and sends them partying with their probation officers. The Resurrection reminds us it is here, it has started, it is always but coming. Our groaning creation can begin to laugh again. Jesus lives, and so can we, and it begins right now.

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The Resurrected Family

The church that I served as pastor was in the midst of a heated conflict about the new attendance of a gay couple. One woman, vehemently opposed to the church opening the doors to homosexuals, marched into the senior pastor’s office screaming, yelling, hollering, and threatening my colleague. She was so loud that I wondered, from my office next door, if I should call the authorities to ensure our safety. She left in a rage. Shortly thereafter, another couple was scheduled to visit the senior pastor about the same issue. He was quite nervous, for he loved this family dearly, yet he new that they were quite conservative about the issue and feared they might leave if a gay couple became active members of the congregation. When the couple came to the door, they had in hand a pitcher and a basin. My colleague looked at them with a question. They said, “Before we begin this conversation, we wanted to wash each other’s feet to remind us all that we are to love and serve each other.” It was another sacred moment, bursting with the Divine.

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Clarence Jordan and the Consequences of Resurrection

So the resurrection of Jesus was simply God’s unwillingness to take our No for an answer. He raised Jesus, not as an invitation to us to come to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that He Himself has now established permanent, eternal residence on earth. . . . He is standing beside us, strengthening us in this life. The good news of the resurrection of Jesus is not that we shall die and go home with him, but that he has risen and comes home with us, bringing all his hungry, naked, thirsty, sick, prisoner brothers with him.

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Earth’s Easter Story

I live on a ridge top in a Christian intentional community in rural Kentucky. Together we have bought land, shared prayer and built resource conserving houses. I moved here to answer a call to become a steward of our eight acres, to live responsibly and lovingly among it. What I have learned is that I am not a mere observer, a custodian in a watch house. As I peel away layers of modern conveniences, I have found that I am a part of a holy, circular cycle.

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