Tag: Justice

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Recovering from Religious Trauma

12+

with Deanna Fraser

Recovering from Religious Trauma is a conversation that is desperately needed within faith communities and beyond. This session will share personal stories of religious trauma, responses and survival, explore the latest research, and have space for discussion and conversation for mutual learning. Whatever experiences you bring to the session, know that our intention is to hold space for your stories and move towards a healing community.
Since this session engages trauma, Deanna encourages all participants to engage in the way that is best for them, including taking breaks or leaving if need be. Resources and content information will be provided, and a chaplain will be available to listen.

about the facilitator

Hi! I’m Deanna (she/her). I am a religious trauma survivor and a sociology nerd. I am a 4th year Social Psychology student at McMaster, a queer single mom of 2, and a piano and voice teacher. In my spare time, I listen to nerdy podcasts and audiobooks, cuddle my pup, go on adventures with my kids, and go to therapy.

I was a missionary for a fringe section of a non-denominational Charismatic organization for six years and grew up as a ministry kid before that. I was twenty-seven when I burned out so severely I wanted to end my life. Over the next nine years, I began deconstructing my faith and discovered the phrase “religious trauma.” I became invested in learning as much as possible about it, connecting with others with shared experiences and finding ways to heal together. I have since facilitated two online religious trauma recovery groups and currently facilitate an in-person support group for survivors of religious trauma in partnership with Stardust Therapeutic Collective. I am currently involved in a capstone research project on the intersection of faith and disability and working on a proposal for a research project on the effects of leaving religion. It would be my great honour to hold space for your stories and share with you mine. We heal in community.

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Palestine Land Exercise

12+

with Miriam Spies, Diane Blanchard, Sheilagh McGlynn (assisting)

In order to understand the dynamics of settler colonialism in Israel and Palestine, we need to understand how land is being taken from Palestinians through the process of house demolition, illegal building of settlements and confiscation for military purposes. The Palestine Land Exercise shares some elements with the Blanket Exercise that helped many of us look at the history of colonization in Canada and its impact on Indigenous peoples.

about the facilitator

Diane Blanchard – chair of United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine/Israel (UNJPPI); retired United Church minister; traveled in Palestine/Israel in 2010

Miriam Spies – former SCM-C board member, current chair of WSCF-C; a crip theologian, ordained in The United Church of Canada; traveled in Palestine/Israel in 2009.

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Over my dead body: green burial today

12+

with Sue Lyon

Green burials involve a natural return to the earth—biodegradable caskets or shrouds are used, bodies are buried three feet down, there is no embalming, and natural decomposition nourishes the earth and can support natural habitats. In most areas, green burial is also the least expensive option, contrasting with the profit-hungry corporate cemetery “services” that often exploit ordinary people at a particularly vulnerable moment in their lives. Green burial resonates strongly with biblical Christian teaching. That we came from dust and to dust we return (Gn 3:19) and that our central human task on this planet is to care for the earth and for each other. Come to learn more about the principles of a green burial, how it contributes to our care of the earth and how we can take back control of the natural process of death.

about the facilitator

Sue is a studio potter in Kingston and an elder at Next church. She has been the convenor for Green Burial Kingston since its inception in 2018. GBK is an advocacy group for green or natural burial. She believes that 2025 will be a milestone year as the City of Kingston will open more than 100 green burial sites.

David Lyon is Sue’s partner, an author and a retired professor who supports Sue in the green burial work. David has written some op eds and articles about green burial.

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Entering into Trans Solidarity

12+

with Jack! (Silas Foxton)

This workshop will be largely geared towards cisgender folks looking to learn about trans experiences and how to be in solidarity with trans people, to hold a graceful space for learning and exploring uncomfortable questions. Through this workshop we will learn and discuss together the ways that we are all deeply interconnected to the struggles of transgender people and can find in trans liberation a movement towards life-affirming ways of being for all people. Trans and nonbinary people are also welcome to attend, as we can all learn and share something new about eachother’s experiences. Leave behind ideas of otherness but bring any burning question (or simmering ones) you might have about transness.

about the facilitator

Jack is a genderqueer artist and writer of many names and occupations meandering around the great lakes basin. They are deeply invested in trans community care and the relationships that keeps us alive and make that life worth living. Jack has been a rogue trans inclusivity educator for over 10 years and loves having challenging, awkward and important conversations.

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An Amateur Cartography (learning from strategic failures)

12+

with Isaiah Ritzmann

Just as in our personal life, our failures in activism have a lot to teach us. At this workshop we will have opportunities to share and discuss our strategic failures as activists (when we tried to make the world better by doing a thing, but it didn’t work), and what we individually and as group can learn from them. The workshop’s title comes from a Weakerthans lyric “armed with every precious failure – an amateur cartography.”

about the facilitator

Isaiah Ritzmann (he/him) has been part of the Cahoots “extended family” since the inception of the festival in ———–. A facilitator of community-based learning on sustainability, democracy, & degrowth in Kitchener, Ontario (Haldimand Tract), he also helped co-found a home-based hospitality network called Open Homes that serves newly arrived refugee claimants. A deep believer that God’s pedagogy includes our strategic failures, he’s excited to explore these in conversation with others.

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A Musical Journey Through Homelessness, Precarity and Mental Health Crisis

12+

with Chris Clarke

Come to sit and listen to stories and songs that will thematically march around experiences with homelessness, precarity, and mental health crises. Chris will weave together moments of reflection, dialogue and prayer throughout. This is likely to be a heavy session that will discuss severe mental health struggled so bring an open heart and only attend if you have the emotional capacity.

about the facilitator

Chris is a singer-songwriter from Toronto, ON trying to figure life out. An original and long-running part of the Cahoots organizing team he is enjoying seeing Cahoots from a slightly different perspective. Chris is extremely eclectic with a broad range of interests and has worked lots with children and folks experiencing homelessness.

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Work that Reconnects: Gratitude, Grief, Hope and Action

12+

with Sarah Shepherd

For as long as there have been problems in the world, there have been faithful people seeking to make changes. The Work that Reconnects is a methodology that grew from the need to acknowledge and honour the spiritual and emotional components of justice work. through a specific cycle of gratitude, honouring our pain for the world, visioning new responses, and committing to our own contributions, we deal with our pain and exhaustion and find renewed strength.

Come and explore this creative and interactive process, which also touches on concepts such as Systems Thinking and Deep Time/Ecology. Be open to hearing and sharing your own areas of pain and struggle in a supportive space.

about the facilitator

Sarah (she/her) lives in Tkaronto and did an intensive training in the Work that Reconnects in 2011, which resonated with her background in justice work as a Quaker, Anglican, and then–United Church national staff member. She is passionate about pollinator gardening, community-building, and singing.

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Beyond Rules: Christian Ethics as Skills

(16+)

with Michael Buttrey

Becoming a better person is less like ignoring the devil on your shoulder, and more like learning to play a musical instrument. Learn about ethics as skills we can apply, using the langugage of ‘virtue’ rather than rules or precepts. Bring along your memories learning ethics, your questions about how churches and society understand morality, and the willingness to re-imagine some good old-fashioned words like “prudence” and “temperance”.

about the facilitator

Michael Buttrey is finishing a PhD in Christian Ethics at the Toronto School of Theology and work part-time for an Anglican Church and for the Canadian Council of Churches. He is passionate about adult education, books, Star Trek, and tabletop role-playing. In recent years he has collaborated with others on open letters addressing the mishandling of sexual abuse by institutions like the Anglican Church of Canada and Regent College. Michael grew up in the Mennonite Church and still thinks faith and progress is best explored through grassroots dialogue and solidarity, not hierarchy.

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Drag as a Spiritual Practice: Theology and Performance Art

(16+)

with King Julez (Julian Munro)

What is Drag? This engaging session will take participants through the story of Drag through a lense of theology and faith. Together we will learn about the history and key figures in the development and popularization of the art form. We will touch on the different forms of drag, queer performance, theatre, and music. Through this time, folks will be introduces to a variety of skills and themes that artists have created through the ages. Let’s see how drag fits into religious spheres as an expression of theology and faith today!

about the facilitator

Julian/ King Julez is the chair of Affirm United/S’affirmer Ensemble, a national non-profit organization that works for full inclusion and affirmation of 2S-LGBTQ+ folks in religious spaces and in all of society, and a board member for Student Christian Movement. After getting a BA in Diversity and Equity, King Julez is studying their Masters of Divinity and Masters of Pastoral Studies at Emmanuel College in Toronto. Drag as a spiritual practice embodies theology and works to express understandings of God’s word in new and exciting ways while paying homage to the queer artists that paved the way so we can exist freely in the world today.

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SCM & International Solidarity

(16+)

with Johannes Chan and Kay Meshal

Did you know that the Student Christian Movement (SCM) is active around the world and is connecting with other SCM chapters? People are welcome to this session to learn about how students, staff and volunteers do social justice in other countries. Join Johannes and Kathryn to hear about the most recent trips SCM Canada took to the Philippines and Cuba. Reflect on your experiences in solidartiy movements and current issues in the world where people need internatonal solidarity and advocacy. Most importantly, you’ll hear what other SCMs around the world are saying and find out about the ways you can take action in solidarity with radical Christians elsewhere!

about the facilitator

Johannes Chan is a Science & Technology Studies student and a student coordinator for the Student Christian Movement at York University. In their free time, Johannes likes reading books, drinking tea, doing religious things, wandering around woodlots and parks, and tending to a messy vegetable garden.

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