Celebrating the good

Without ignoring the bad

One of the greatest lessons my father taught me about how he stayed in peace-and-justice activism for decades was to take time to celebrate the victories, even if there are still challenges all around.

So when the church body in which I’m ordained wanted to visit and officially recognize my ministry as pastor of Moveable Feast, I saw it as an opportunity to celebrate the whole community. I found myself encouraged as I created a list of what all of us connected to Moveable Feast have done in the past year. It’s not even a complete list. Some highlights I shared were

• Building bridges with interfaith partners, including practicing mutual aid with Jewish Free Loan Chicago and beginning to plan an interfaith iftar this coming Ramadan.

• Creating and caring for a pollinator plant corridor in our neighborhoods for migrating monarch butterflies and other vulnerable creatures.

• Joining Christians for a Free Palestine in Solidarity Circles, screening a film and holding a panel discussion.

• Welcoming the births of three children and delighting in them as they grow and learn alongside us.

• Starting a community meal initiative, Gather Together, with neighbors cooking with neighbors and eating together. At our first meal on October 18, some who attended had just come back to our neighborhood still carrying their signs from the No Kings Rally.

• Protesting at the No Kings Rally, at Broadview, and in many other ways standing against the injustices of this federal administration.

• Responding to federal agents menacing our vulnerable neighbors and our communities, and continuing to help asylum-seeking families build new lives in Chicago.

• Nurturing social action through shared contemplation on Sunday mornings: preaching the good news together, imparting the lessons of Ignatian exercises, playing music, sharing original compositions of poetry and song.

This weekend we will have our first Moveable Feast retreat in the woods in Michigan. I am grateful to gather with community to pause and rest. I know that I can’t figure out on my own what healing looks like after the trauma of the past six weeks.

Rumor has it we will finally move out of crisis mode and most Customs and Border Patrol agents will leave the city this weekend. While I’m grateful for every time we were able to prevent an abduction by federal agents, far too many families were torn apart. Like many of our neighbors, I find that my nervous system remains on high alert. Ten days after federal agents tear-gassed my block, on October 24 I witnessed agents in head-to-toe camouflage tactical gear taking a worker from the crew rebuilding a neighbor’s front steps. When I’m in my dining room my eyes often stray out the window to where I saw fascism unfolding before my eyes. I see again in my mind’s eye not only the phalanx of agents but also the handcuffed man’s head bowed as he exercised his right to remain silent.

These are times when the myth of self-sufficiency shows itself especially to be false. I’m grateful for colleagues, neighbors, and my faith community as we mourn the harm, rage against the injustice, and seek healing together. Like many before us, we are in this for the long haul, and we need each other to keep going.

Book 50% off through end of November

Maybe you know someone who might like to receive my book, What You Sow Is a Bare Seed, a biography of countercultural disciples, as a holiday present. Until the end of this month, it is 50% off from the publisher, Wipf & Stock. Use code CONFSHIP at checkout. Shipping by Media Mail is free. I think it’s pretty good, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask Brian McLaren, author of Life after Doom: “My life has been enriched with the overflow of the community you will meet in Celeste Kennel-Shank’s new book.” Or Carol Howard, author of Healing Spiritual Wounds: “Celeste Kennel-Shank tells this story with such hope and grace that in the process of reading, I could feel that hope and grace extend to us.” Or Jennifer M. McBride, author of You Shall Not Condemn, “As a pastor attentive to practical wisdom, a journalist skilled at storytelling, and a former member of this remarkable Community, Kennel-Shank reminds us that what they experienced, we may experience too.”

Reading and listening

“ICE Kidnapped My Neighbor in Broad Daylight. The Aftermath Left Me Reeling. Watching disappearances in our community leaves psychological trauma, but we can counter it with our solidarity.” By Freddy Martinez, Truthout. October 25, 2025

I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. I got it out from the library to try to find this quote in its pages: “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going, what you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”

While talking about our struggle to bear the unbearable in recent weeks, a friend reminded me of the hymn, “I don’t want to get adjusted to this world.” We often used to play Iris Dement’s album Lifeline when we lived in intentional community together. We don’t have to adjust to what is happening because we know that another world is possible. In the solidarity that we’ve also seen in recent weeks, we are seeing that other world come into being.