“Hospitality is the practice of God’s welcome by reaching across difference to participate in God’s actions bringing justice and healing to our world in crisis.”
― Letty M. Russell
Today I join the countless “misfits” who mourn the loss of one of our thinkers and leaders. Theologian Letty M. Russell died on July 12, 2007. As you may know Dr. Russell often referred to herself and any non-dominant culture peoples with her endearing use of “misfits.”
While a prolific author and wise educator, Dr. Russell may best be remembered for courageously stepping into the places she needed to be, often challenging the white, male, and straight systems of exclusion . She did not fit snugly or comfortably within dominant systems of power, yet was present. This is remarkable. Through her life of faithful presence she modelled and helped many others to see and feel that to follow Christ is to be a misfit in the corridors of cultural power.
I’ll just highlight two of her many books. Church in the Round, is one that I have read and reread , and it continues to open my being to interrogate my assumptions of church power and privilege. Even now as you read, imagine how church in the round reconfigures power… gone is the head of the table, and its foot, gone are the sharp corners, eye contact with everyone becomes possible, and all have equal access.
Her co-edited volume with Kwok Pui-lan, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, and Katie Geneva Cannon, Inheriting our Mothers’ Garden: Feminist Theology in Third World Perspective, opened me to a world I hadn’t even considered while introducing me to global thought leaders. This book not only gave me eyes to see, it also connected my bodied experience of my own Grandma Loeppky in her Niverville, MB garden as vital to my experience of the Divine and theological work. From garden… to table… to welcome… to love… to God. Thanks Dr. Russell.
Whatever else the true preaching of the word would need to include, it at least would have to be a word that speaks from the perspective of those who have been crushed and marginalized in our society. It would need to be a word of solidarity, healing and love in situations of brokenness and despair and a disturbing and troubling word of justice to those who wish to protect their privilege by exclusion.
Letty M. Russell
For a more robust description of Dr. Russell’s work read the Yale Bulletin & Calendar, or visit Wikipedia.
Rest in Peace, dwight
