Grace is always good. Creating space for a pause is a healthy thing for a system to do. I believe more dissertations would be completed, for example, if the time constraints were removed. More art would be made if basic living needs were met first -it’s not about paint or clay. Counter-intuitive perhaps but nonetheless true.
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.
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.
As a Southerner, church is expected. Synagogue or mosque is of course an acceptable substitute, and my hometown of Memphis has a vibrant and robust Jewish and Muslim community. ‘Where one goes to church’ is an introductory question, and even those who don’t really claim any faith often have an answer ready for that query.
But we still have the same separations along the wide spectrum of faith traditions that you’ll find in any American city. The left leaning Houses of Worship communicate, the right leaning ones collaborate, but little common interaction happens. So we grow up in silos as tight as any country church in many ways.
As a teenager, I broke into some of the conservative christian communities when I was ‘outed’ as a Christian. I think act I fascinated the conservative church goers I knew, because I was a theatre person and known to be political. They started asking me questions and inviting me to things but it didn’t quite go as they’d planned. I got kicked out of a bible study (a great story I’ll tell another time), was asked not to return to a church that hosted monthly lock-ins, and occasionally got into shouting matches with friends in the halls.
The biggest distinctions and the thing that seemed to truly raise their ire, was some iteration of this conversation:
Them: But that sounds like a social justice Gospel.
Me: I don’t know any other kind of Gospel.
Them: We are saved by grace, not works.
Me: Faith without works is dead.
Them: People have to believe in Jesus.
Me: If they don’t do what he said to do, why bother?
In many ways, I dove into theological education in order to be better equipped for those conversations. But I now realize what an opportunity I missed timing wise! This was the 1980s, and I was receiving fruits from the first wave of our modern christian political complex. Little did I know then that the term “Social Justice Gospel” was coined by a Baptist theologian over 100 years ago. It isn’t new, leftie, or radical -it’s just the Gospel and it’s solid Christian tradition. Who knows how much of that tenuous ground I could have shaken up, kept from setting, if I’d just realized I was seeing glimpses of a coordinated, strategic attack on Gospel Truth.
Maybe ‘Gospel Truth’ isn’t a commonly used phrase in your life, but I grew up in the American South. Faith-based language permeates everything, and swearing something is the gospel truth is a promise of truth-telling. Unless said with a wink and a “Bless their hearts” and then you know there’s no truth anywhere ‘round at all. And so culturally, the meaning of Gospel Truth is fungible, movable.
Elected officials swear oaths of office most typically on a bible, as most elected officials claim to be Christians, but any text sacred to you is acceptable, which is interesting in and of itself. What exactly is being vowed here? The words spoken have to do with upholding the jurisdictional Constitution or Charter, and being accountable to constituencies. But there are never explicit moral or religious promises made. So why swear on a bible?
I grew up in the 1970’s when we all still said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning to start school. By the 1980’s, this had been replaced by a moment of silence, an interesting swap of patriotic vow for pseudo-prayer time. I didn’t learn about the addition in the 1950’s of references to God not only there but on our money until I went to college.
It also took time to learn more in-depth church history, and to discover the ways in which Christianity moved from an anti-Empire movement to becoming the moral voice of the secular powers, the frequent provider of the rationale for colonial expansion.
Many years ago, I decided to stand but remain silent during any Pledge of Allegiance or singing of the national anthem as my own response to a growing discontent. At first, I would say the Pledge but omit the “under God” line, but that did not satisfy me. Eventually, I adopted the choice to remain silent, but then Colin Kaepernick modeled a new way of resistance. His actions and the vitriol that followed led me to think again about my relationship with vows. About what it means to swear on something sacred.
Where I’ve landed for now is no more vows. I’ve made marriage vows and ordination vows and upholding those is a lifelong journey. I think we need to step back more often, and consider what it means to align ourselves, swear something’s true, vow an allegiance, or adhere to a theory. We need more critical thinking. More prayer. More humility. And more integrity to what we say we believe and hold sacred.
I’ve been married for almost 30 years. The most important thing I’ve learned might be how to monitor my own communication, how to watch my tone and choose my words from a place of love first. It took a long time to learn this, and I often fail at the tone part. I can be petty and snarky, especially when tired or hungry. But my spouse and I trust each other, and that’s really crucial for any of it to work.
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.
I grew up on the Mississippi River, in Memphis, TN. Water does not only form our western border, water is all over the city itself. The Wolf River winds its way into the Mississippi here, and small streams and creeks are woven throughout the neighborhoods. Much of the city’s storm runoff system is made up of these water channels reinforced with structure and drains.
Right before Earth Day last week, someone - no one yet knows who conclusively - took a chainsaw to 200 yards of trees on the Mississippi River bluff in Memphis, TN. This is in an area so sensitive, the US Corps of Engineers is the permitting agency for anything done there. The bluffs are held in place partially by the roots systems of the trees and other vegetation. These bluffs are what separate Memphis from the Mississippi River.
Furiously searching news sites for other incidents of such crimes, I found many. It is apparently common for the wealthy to fell trees and clear land with no regard for anyone else, future generations, or the environmental impact of their actions. It should not surprise me, this arrogance and self-centeredness, but it always does. Especially when these people could pay to do it right, with some care and respect. When the wife of the famous entertainer Steve Harvey had 2 magnolia trees illegally removed from their Bluff home in March, she at least paid professionals to do it properly.
I find the hubris of the rich shocking. Mudslides will take their ten million dollar homes as quickly as they will take a shack. Their grandchildren won’t have special air to breathe. I have no illusions that I will be able to imbue the wealthy and privileged with a sense of common cause or obligation. Frankly, I’ve spent decades trying to do that in a variety of systems and I’m done with it for now. Those who think they know best simply believe this so deeply that little evidence to the contrary is effective.
But they got what they wanted, as the wealthy usually do - the trees are gone. For now, we’re left with the aftermath of their destruction, the need to replant, and the sense that all of us are doomed if we can’t somehow get these people to see that we are all dependent on each other.
You can read the article in the Daily Memphian here: https://dailymemphian.com/article/21490/200-yards-of-trees-below-martyrs-park-cut-without-permission?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A%20Trending%20Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3XI_Hzfgy9Bt-G2MR3ovmJeg9BUoU5sFUhTK4LYFu_c5nW4L_7T8y7Lmk
Honestly, I haven’t always celebrated Earth Day in such a joyous or communal way as is usually done. Oftentimes, I have chosen to be on my own with Creation, either on the banks of some body of water, or riding a train. I grew up on the Mississippi River, so water will always soothe my soul. But ride a train?
I am a member of the Southern diaspora, but do not appear so at first glance. Many people I know in Memphis work ceaselessly for justice and equity, and I love the meme that asks us to “Consider the South to be large communities of people of color and small resistance cells held hostage by fascist governments.” I am not alone in my belief that the American South is key to shifting how we live, to teaching us how to work together, to building the world we need to survive crisis and change.
Last week I wrote a little bit about the political scene where I live, about the interesting coalitions and fluid communities of those affecting change in their worlds. The post wasn’t mostly about that, just a wee bit, but I have been thinking deeply about it since. In light of the current Presidential race, I have also been musing on deep entrenchments, on divides that seem insurmountable, and whose interests are really served by these systems. I’ve been pondering the damage of purity tests and conformity covenants and how they are affecting our political discourse, our search for a common civic life.
I live near the state Capitol and we have a part time legislature here in Colorado. The lawmakers are only in session from early January to early May. So a lot needs to occur quickly while it’s all happening concurrently. This timing makes the Fall an interesting period of coalition building and information gathering. The flurry they are immersed in now is palpable in my neighborhood; the atmospheric political speech isn’t all NOV2020. Or even mostly.
I took a sabbatical in January, and am not yet back to work full time. I have been catching up of what’s going on with the crafting of laws and the volleying of influence, and noting where the quiet and effective work is being done. I have been eyeing the committee schedule for likely testimony opportunities, and reflecting back on my impressions and insights from previous years’ experience.
I am feeling grateful for testimony from those on the opposing side from me. Generally, I have been for things, and these other folks against them. Occasionally that is reversed. Regardless, it is from these opposing witnesses, from those folks begging the legislature to keep the status quo just a little bit longer, that I learn the most.
It was from them that I learned farmers lease their water rights to oil and gas interests in order to pay their mortgages, thus remaining farmers. No one else is offering. It was from them that I learned the fossil fuel industry has fed its workforce a diet of persecution stories and anger sprinkled liberally through with denial. I learned that this denial isn’t real, and fear and anxiety crept into most testimonials. It was nearly tangible. It was from them that I learned they already know their industry is dying, and that some of them are fine with that, but that they are all uncertain what the future holds.
And it was from them that I learned about the vast diversity of industries and workforces that anticipate major shifts in their near futures due to both climate change in fact and climate regulation in action. Coalition members, testimony givers, and lobbyists all shared some knowledge that change is imminent, and represented a broad spectrum: railroad unions and trucking interests, farmers and ranchers, faith-based organizations, and indigenous and native communities were all speaking out in new ways.
One of the unmentioned truths of life in Colorado is that we are an oil and gas state, regardless of the image we like project of being environmentally aware. Significant changes to the fossil fuel industry WILL ripple impacts throughout the state. That is no hyperbole. Truckers who haul gas, rail workers moving coal, field workers tending pipelines and wells –all will experience loss as their jobs disappear. Entire towns’ economies will falter if dependent on oil and gas for survival. But all of it WILL disappear –all these jobs will shift by necessity. As well they must, for our (ab)use of fossil fuels is why the world is on fire.
The oil and gas industry likes to say that they built the Denver skyline. And in part, that is true. But thousands were displaced by this development. The oil and gas industry likes to say it employs a significant part of the state’s workforce, but these are the men who die in refinery fires and the women who daily breathe toxic fumes in extraction fields. And yet… even the oil and gas industry is a part of the picture. I am planning on at least a couple of these companies to be around to clean up the messes and manage the ongoing waste issues. As we move towards hemp fuel and plastics, wind and solar power generation, and geothermal heating –all possible here as WELL as the fossil based production –everything will change.
As things have been going, the backlash against these changes could be huge, the propaganda virulent and fear based, the divisions fed by those who intend to fight the movement towards fossil independence. We intend to change how we power our lives, for what we have been doing is toxic, unsustainable, exploitative and has in truth only benefited few. Fossil fuel industry subsidies and profits reveal a picture I won’t paint here, but one I find obscene. We intend to be a place of generative, sustainable work, a region that builds industries to support Earth and all beings.
By deeply listening to each other, we learn. We grow. We adapt. By being present and remaining around the table, by building bigger and different tables, more are heard. HOW to do that? And where is this working? Happening now? My initial responses to those questions are for next week. Tune in. The answers are intimately entangled with the building of these tables, with the coalitions and alliances.
One of the clearest stories I have is of an official leader, that is in an elected position, who had been part of the congregation for over 15 years. Yet when he was part of making a decision that he had been tasked with, a power broker at that church, a community elder, asked him why they were not included in the decision. The official leader was shocked - there was nothing specific for checking in with this “power broker.”
“But beware of the Dark Side. Anger, fear, aggression, the Dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If you start down the dark path, forever will it consume your destiny.” -Yoda, Empire Strikes Back
I don’t really remember a world without Star Wars. I was 6 yrs old the summer “A New Hope” was released, and 9 when “Empire Strikes Back” came out. If you don’t know the story of Star Wars at all, very little of this post will make sense to you. I suggest you check out its Wikipedia page, found here.
While Darth Vader was certainly a villain in the first film, it wasn’t until Empire that we really begin to learn about the Dark. It is here that we glimpse some of what it might mean to take the path towards the Dark. Now, I grew up in a political family, and by the time Empire was released, I was already hoping for more information about the dissolution of the Republic’s Senate that began the first film. And I suspected the work of the Dark Side.
Empire Strikes Back introduces many messy situations, which include betrayal, misunderstandings & assumptions leading to mistakes, dropping out & abandonment, humanity within the grotesque, and the possibility that our hero Luke is Darth Vader’s son.
Oh, how many hours my friends and I spent discussing that! Could it be? We debated and dissected. We feared and somehow pitied the Man-machine Vader as he communicated with his Master. We questioned how Obi-wan Kenobi could have lied were it all true.
These days, I laugh out loud at the scene in “Pitch Perfect” when one of the leads dismisses the question by translating Darth Vader from the German, dark father. But then? We were deep into questions of theodicy -how God allows evil or absent that premise, how on earth do we understand evil- and relative ethics.
When I was 17, I watched Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell on PBS’s “The Power of Myth” with my father. By then, “The Return of the Jedi” has wrapped up our space opera saga and Star Wars was simply something that informed my worldview. The ideas of common archetype, narrative and truth, and sacred story, that Moyers and Campbell debated were easily absorbed by my brain. Some of my conclusions included:
Epic things happened and the smallest of decisions mattered.
Small choices that turn you towards ‘power over’ always seem rational.
Arrogance is blinding.
Redemption is possible for even the worst of the worse.
These are some of the things that Star Wars implanted in my brain, in my mind’s eye, as I learned to navigate the world. The Dark Side is real. These choices are always before us. And while the space between the Light and the Dark is dusk and twilight and dawn, that is, navigable and transitory and ripe with possibility, they are not safe.
“I fear nothing. For all is as the Force wills it.”– Chirrut Imwe, Rogue One
The ways in which we move towards the Dark Side? They always feel rational and responsible and damn righteous. They are the choices we make out of fear. They are the choices we make out of anger. They are the choices we make in order to guide the actions of others. They are the choices we make to keep order.
The clearest place this all plays out is indeed in politics, the first arena wherein young me applied these concepts. I think we can all see how greed and anger and fear are manifest in our “civic” and common national dialogue. And local corruption is always linked to these small decisions in generally discernable ways.
But frankly, this dynamic is everywhere. As a minister, I’ve seen these choices destroy marriages and communities. As an activist, I’ve seen these choices tank movements. As a friend, I’ve seen these choices embitter and warp open hearts into unrecognizable stones.
And know this. it IS always a choice. At every moment, we make the choices where to stand, what power we seek, and where it is based.
Love bears its own power, as we know. As Star Wars knows. As all of our faith traditions know. It is not, absolutely not, the power of kingship and rule, control and anger. For Christians, we reference Jesus and Pilate in conversation about this exact question.
I know that nothing is as straight forward as Darth Vader choosing his son over his Master in such epic moments in our own lived lives. Singularities like that happen, sure and yet, day to day these choices are smaller. In fact, we want this to be the case. Small chances hone our turning towards instead of acting against, train us to open our hands instead of clench our fists, and build the structures of response that make the different choices we need clear.
Light grows slowly. It builds and catches and kindles.
Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker: Just for once, let me look on you with my own eyes. (Removes mask)
Now go my son. Leave me.
Luke: No, you're coming with me.
I'll not leave you now. I've got to save you.
Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker: You already have.
-Return of the Jedi
I serve in a variety of capacities as I live out my ministry. I am the founding pastor of a small faith community that meets in Denver on a weekday night and enacts justice work in the region at all sorts of times. I work as the Colorado regional organizer for a global NGO committed to the moral voice in issues of climate change and creation stewardship.
I represent my urban community in a statewide coalition of clergy and other faith leaders. I am a chaplain to the politically and civically engaged in a few American cities, including my own. Several atheists claim me as their priest, although I’m actually a Baptist preacher.
In short, I’m all about power.
“Um, what?” you might think at that. Nothing there seems very powerful, except for maybe the global thing. Well sure, I suppose. If your view of power is all about massive numbers, political clout and access, economic control, or ever necessitates a cult of personality or power-concentrated savior, then no. I am not engaged with power at all.
However, I reject this as the only view of power. These are symptoms of fallen powers, of twisted and oppressive systems that have been used to bind and control rather than empower and nurture. These are the heresies against the deep power of Spirit, and are fed by fear and scarcity, panic and hubris.
If your understanding of power can include the ability to act, the knowledge of who you are and what you truly wield, and a functional reliance on community-based actions (people having your back), then you may understand my take. This list represents a redeemed view of power.
This is an understanding of power as grounded in love in action, an embodied solidarity and commitment to a fundamental belief in the sacredness within all, and a continual recollection of a greater spiritual purpose within all systems. This sense of power wells up from increased deepening and accountability. It develops and nurtures trust, as it is based in mutual listening and humility.
20 years ago, I participated in a small group deep dive of Walter Wink’s Powers Trilogy: Naming the Powers, Unmasking the Powers, and Engaging The Powers. Together, we parsed through the 1,000 or some odd pages that make up these three books. It took about a year to do, if I remember right. Or maybe longer.
It was during this time that I began to see the scope of the problems in how we live. I began to suspect that the systems and institutions around me, the situations I had accepted as normative and simply issues to be negotiated and maybe fixed when possible were in fact structural pieces that could be dismantled. While I was still trying to use a system of great traditional power, The Episcopal Church, I began to seek out the ways in which that system itself upheld the fallen powers
I’d been brought up with a deep suspicion of all traditional powers that be, or as my late hippie father would occasionally say, The Man. This new understanding of Power itself was key to integrating my lived and embedded theologies with my desire to live a life of integrity and authenticity. It provided me a platform on which I could seek the good inherent and build upon it. It provided me a worldview that could seek out intersections and shared paths and alliances.
It put me on a spiritual journey that I’d seen in visions and not known how to start, but that forever colored my lenses moving forward. I believe nothing is without virtue or value, for at a very basic level, all can be redeemed. Will be. Is already.
And because I did all of this in community, albeit a small group, I knew from the beginning that I didn’t have to do this alone. I learned that I could talk these things out, and that I did not have to know what I meant or where I was going, because none of us knew anything.
The Powers That Be around us are broken and our own connection to divine power is blocked and yet it need not be so. We know that where are as a ‘society’ isn’t working. The effects of white supremacy, greed and control, the zero-sum games and battles for territory –they destroy us daily. And yet. And yet, we declare that it can be different. We seek a new world, and the Reign of God behind all things.
Rev. Jessica Abell
