Where Your Eyes Go (Revelation 3:1-6)- Nichola Torbett

Guest preacher Nichola Torbett shares reflections from the letter to the church in Sardis, reminding us that where we focus our attention dictates what we move toward. How might we be called to adjust our gaze - away from the enactors of imperial violence and toward those who are being crucified by it?-----Nichola Torbett (they/she) is a white, queer, raised-working-class organizer, survivor, recovering addict, direct action trainer, teacher, abolitionist, and preacher in the radical Christian tradition. Politicized predominantly by Black- and Brown-led movement struggles of Oakland, California, they are a student of transformative justice, disability justice, and ancestral lineage healing (specializing in working with Euro-descended folks with ancestors who committed harm). Driven by her passion for both spiritual formation and social change, she co-founded Seminary of the Street, a training academy for love warriors, in 2009; Second Acts, a liturgical direct action affinity group, in 2014; and the Alternatives to Policing Project, organizing faith communities into abolitionist visions of community safety, in 2018. She is co-editor with Vahisha Hasan of Resipiscence: a Lenten Devotional for Dismantling White Supremacy and was, for many years, a regular contributor to The Word Is Resistance, a podcast from SURJ-Faith and SURJ-Action. She has contributed to GEEZ Magazine, Liturgy That Matters from enfleshed, The Yoke, and the recent book Building Up a New World. They currently serve as associate director of Kirkridge Retreat & Study Center.