Each of these times of rest, the sanctuary given freely and openly, has made the next move possible. Each has been an immense privilege and gift. I know that my own privilege and status in our American caste system has made all of it possible, but I also know how easy it would have been to reject these offers of help along the way.
For me in my life it has been important to have this changing and shifting comprehension of time. It has freed me both simply to be in an experience, and to juggle, compress, and expand time as needed. As I primarily work in the climate justice world, and that is a world made up almost completely of immediate tasks that all requires long time spans, the graciousness of unfolding, in order to be successful and sustainable.
It is the small connections that anchor us not only to each other, but to our own lives and selves. I’m a fan of the four-way stop as a traffic intervention because it forces interaction between drivers. But all the small exchanges matter. Nodding to the stranger we pass on the street, or the neighbor. Taking the extra minute for the next question. It’s more than giving up a parking place.
We must know ourselves more deeply than we do, that we might be less swayed away from our cores when challenged. We must know what truly motivates us, not just what we’re willing to do. And we must discover what motivates others -it probably isn’t what we thought. We must engage more critically and full-heartedly with our common and civic lives, even if only in increased communication with family or neighbors.
Know that you are not alone. People all around you are waking up to some of the same things you are. All of us have questions and seek generative conversation about real things. Regardless of what you have been evicted from or are deconstructing, putting aside, needing to shed -there are tools and resources, mentors and companions. Most importantly, whatever you do or do not call the force of love that weaves throughout our universe, that binds us a Creation made and called good, and compels us to heal the world, know that you are precious and known, seen and heard.
Restorative justice is hard, intimidating. We are used to a retributive model, wherein crimes are punished, criminals become marked as separate, and punishment is harsh. We have dallied in this country with some rehabilitative justice models, and those are of course more effective than the retributive, but less politically popular, rarely fully funded, and still missing the mark.
The most frequent phrase in scripture is “Be not afraid” and it always precedes the messages of God. It is spoken hundreds of times by God’s angles and prophets throughout the stories of God and God’s people.
This is not an accident or a coincidence. This isn’t a joke or a baseless wish. This is actually the entire point.
as I consider the Incarnation of the Divine this year, I’m struck not by that infant but by his parents, a couple on a journey -not one they’d planned nor would’ve chosen, the trip to Bethlehem for the Census, but also their broader journey. An unplanned child. Visions of justice proclaimed by Mary. The flight to a foreign land for their safety, perceived by the dreamer Joseph. The parents of Jesus of Nazareth were on their own journey of life, one full of danger and protection, vision and purpose.
I believe that worthwhile actions are those that unfold, evolve, and emerge. Very rarely, but sometimes, these include special events with an intended purpose such as a march or rally around a cause, a theme, an anniversary in time. I even gladly participate in these kinds of actions when called to them by those I follow, such as Indigenous voices, youth and children, or on-the-ground collaborative partners.
I have learned that a hand placed on my back, or any simple touch, with the reminder to breathe can re-focus me. I have learned that I can stop my own spirals into anxious patterns with slow and controlled movement, breath, and speech. I have learned that I can channel my despair and confusion into art, poetry, if I just slow down enough to let it change.
I have been asked to speak at a Climate Justice retreat about the potential before us in regards to living with Climate Change, and I suppose that syntax itself reveals my first point. We are living with it now. It isn’t stoppable. What IS stoppable are the worst effects of inaction, and for that we need only begin.
This week, I am wrapping up the preparation for the first installment in a Seminar series on Scarcity & Abundance. While I have been ordering my thoughts about what to say precisely when, the world has been on fire and crumbling beneath our feet. It has been distracting to both my attention and my heart. It is easy to be swept away in that deluge.
I grew up an Episcopalian, and while they do attempt to be open and accepting, Episcopalians have many, many rules that are active within any Episcopal community. Not knowing them can be an obstacle for newcomers, and sometimes longtime members as well. Who can do what in the service and who cannot. Who can do what in a congregation and who cannot. What types of activities are allowed of by or within the church. All of it is documented in something called the Canons and Constitution, which dictate the parameters of all these things. And yet few Episcopalians themselves, people who attend and volunteer and sustain the church, know anything about these documents and how their lives are formed by them.
Throughout the worship service texts are instructions, called rubrics, that tell you where to go and when to sit or stand and if you might have a choice about that at a certain time or situation. Rubrics tell you all of the things actually, but most of the actions tasked are so ingrained by the congregation that they are done without reading anything, simply followed.
Those are the official rubrics, of course, as a seminary professor would say “Rubrics with a capital R” but there are always little rubrics as well, sometimes more ‘important’ to the Rule of Life in that place. These are the expectations, traditions, patterns, and placements that make a congregation unique, the choices that over time have paved particular pathways of what is possible. Violating these rubrics can cause anything from embarrassment to ostracism. But it has been my experience that people know more about these rules than the others, and that they are happy, even honored, to explain and unfold the traditions of that church for new members.
But now I am an American Baptist pastor, and my congregation couldn’t really be termed as fitting into any denominational structure. Little that we do meets the ‘warrants’ of Christian worship as established. I officiated a wedding for former members of a church youth group now grown, with an assembly of almost all traditional church folk, that left blank every single box down the checklist of such warrants, those required characteristics.
But I contend that what we do IS Christian in a broad sense, and of the Gospel, and that while few Episcopalians would recognize it as such, we have a liturgy of our weekly gatherings. As we move into our fifth year of regular worship together, we have even developed small ‘r’ rubrics, such as the chanting of one particular song and the usual use of a particular poem as an ending prayer. But these things are also changeable, and do shift as per need.
We certainly wouldn’t pass the purity tests established by many religious systems. I recently learned during an odd exchange with fringe Evangelicals that although I am an ordained minister of the Gospel in the Baptist tradition, can tell the stories of Jesus like they happened to my brother, have formed my life to live out those stories’ lessons, and deeply love the usually eschewed Paul, I did not meet their criteria for being a Christian.
I am still not sure what being a Christian or following Jesus meant to them, because nothing they said had anything to do with actions or behavior. There did not seem to be any active Rule of Life other than casting people out of the ranks of the righteous due to unbelief or a near obsessive need to testify to others.
That said, I would be hard pressed to define the Rule of Life at Living Waters other than by a few things. Firstly, we have made a commitment that no one must go through something alone. A virtue of community is that we can collectively weave trust and vulnerability together to form a fabric that covers all of us. No one person has to be that assistant. And no one person has to travel alone. Secondly, I ask members of Living Waters to consider their own spiritual journeys as valid, sacred, and real. I ask them to consider, and act upon, how their own hearts, minds, and spirits call them into the Universe. I suppose our Rule of Life is community and intention.
We all have these small ‘r’ rubric lists, sometimes known and sometimes unknown, that define for us what something is, and if it be authentically that or something else. We see this active in Houses of Worship, sure, but these lists are also a prime motivator in the political sphere. What constitutes a ‘real Republican’ these days seems to be fluid and dynamic thing, and I certainly hope the conversation keeps going there. What makes a ‘real Democrat’ was stretched and pulled into heretofore unknown shapes via the Presidential runs of Bernie Sanders, but that conversation seems stalled. Certainly what makes a ‘real American’ is infused with racial, classist, gendered, and religious projections and expectations.
But far too often these arguments are only about what people THINK, and not what they do, advocate for, or endorse. This makes the crafting of policy near impossible. I believe that politics is merely the mechanics of our common life. But right now, politics is only a stage for shallow power, and we don’t have time for that nonsense.
Politics is all about the posturing and the platforming when what we need it to be is active, engaged, and responsive to real needs. Without Rules of Life, the Evangelical church has radically lost its way, becoming so disassociated from Gospel truths that endorsing Donald Trump as President seemed reasonable. With no actions expected, no lived lives as models, and no commitments on record, there is nothing to hold on to, nothing to compare to, nothing against which to say “this thing is so far from that thing that they are no longer the same thing.”
And so what might be our Rules of Life for an engaged citizenry? Actions of dissent against injustice on the regular? Frequent check-ins and accountability regarding policy development?
I’m not sure exactly what that would look like, but I do know it’s needed. Our current political party system has failed. It no longer serves the people, and only perpetuates monied interests. Perhaps the answer is like unto what has happened in churches and other Houses of Worship, a separation from expected systems and a forming of new communities of faith. Is regionalism one of the answers for us politically? Smaller more responsive systems could incorporate more contextual needs.
Again, I am unsure how we should proceed except to say that we must examine our political Rules of Life, not our pet theories or opinions, and see where that focus on work can bring us.
I know most of the country felt horrified and helpless as Flint, MI, went without a safe water supply for years. YEARS. And even now, the lead pipes remain a clear and present danger to the populations they serve. We rarely think about where the water in our ubiquitous bottled water comes from, but much of it is essentially stolen by mega corporations like Nestle and Coca Cola. You can walk into your local convenience store right now and buy water bottled from Las Vegas’ municipal supply. Las Vegas. A desert city.
Many things matter to me, and I am vocal in several spheres. But it is articulating and uplifting the moral voice in the care of Creation that makes up most of my work. I believe that we who live in that world are ideally placed to help us transform and shift as a culture into one that can thrive in a world of radical global change.
