There (but) for the grace of God

This winter, I've once again been volunteering with Georgetown's Hypothermia Outreach Team (HOT), a joint effort between the university's Center for Social Justice and a local non-profit called Georgetown Ministry Center (GMC). On nights when the city activates its hypothermia alert, we walk a route around the neighborhood, talking to folks experiencing homelessness. We check in on people; we encourage them to seek shelter and connect them with transportation if they're interested; we have some snacks and water, some socks and hats, some hand-warmers to give out. If they haven't heard of GMC, we give them info about the services offered there. At least once or twice every winter, we end up calling an ambulance for someone suffering from the first stages of hypothermia.

In a way, it's not much -- preventing hypothermia deaths is hardly a long-term solution to homelessness. The hope is always that the consistent outreach provided by GMC and HOT will connect people who otherwise exist largely outside of the city's network of services to housing and longer-term solutions. On many nights, that doesn't happen. But we keep going out, because on some nights, it does.

---

There are all sorts of reasons why I started volunteering with HOT, but there's one in particular that I've been thinking about more and more lately as I layer up to head out into another cold night. (I hate being cold. This is not a natural choice for me. It takes me a lot of layers.)

Most, maybe all, of the folks we talk to on a given night have some sort of mental illness. These aren't folks who have simply lost jobs or been priced out of affordable housing. (Though there is a lot of that in DC, too.) These are folks with multiple challenges, experiencing chronic homelessness and major mental health challenges. Of course, there's a chicken-and-egg question here: does serious mental illness lead to homelessness, or does the trauma of living outside lead to serious mental illness? Both, of course.

So as we talk to folks under bridges, huddled in sleeping bags in storefronts and alcoves, even tent-camping in Washington Circle, I am constantly aware of my own mental illness. Our experiences are so different in so many ways, and yet on paper, I share a diagnosis, a disorder, with many of them. I am much more like the homeless "them" than most of the outreach team "us" realize. These folks are, in some sense, "my people." The fact that I am "doing outreach" while they are the ones "being outreached to" is pure luck. A couple of ticks in my genetic code, a couple of facts about family life -- there's not much that inherently separates their lives from mine. It's a thin line between our lives, and yet a massive chasm of privilege and circumstance.

Living in the same neighborhood, we live in entirely different worlds.

---

There is a phrase which perhaps you have heard. It's sometimes attributed to an English Reformer named John Bradford, who apparently muttered it to himself while witnessing the execution of a group of prisoners. (Thanks to Wikipedia for that tidbit.)

The phrase is: "There but for the grace of God go I."

The expression is supposed to communicate that my own fortune comes by no merit of my own, that I have not earned my life. It has been given to me as a gift.

But there's something wrong with that expression, at least in my book, at least in this instance.

It is not grace that separates my life from the kind gentleman sleeping under the bridge, who always thanks us for the visit but ever-so-politely declines our offer of shelter. It is not grace that separates me from the couple sleeping in the tent near GWU, who says they came to D.C. from Houston after the floods. It is not grace that separates me from the angry man who tells us, in no uncertain terms, to leave him the f**k alone tonight (which we do).

If I believe anything, I believe all of these people are as much recipients of God's grace as I am.

Look to luck, or to privilege, or to systemic injustice, or to the contingencies of life on this "not-yet" side of heaven's reign if you seek an explanation for these circumstances. But do not blame grace for this.

So instead -- as I have walked around Georgetown in the freezing temperatures, talking to the people who are willing to talk to our teams, checking in even on the folks who tell us, night after night, to go away, just in case, just in case -- I have been repeating a different phrase to myself. A slight variation, but more accurate, I think.

"Here, for the grace of God, we go."

We go here, because this is where the grace of God lives. Under this bridge, on this park bench, in this alcove. God lives here, in these homes we call home-less. "Foxes have dens," Jesus once said, "and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One has no place to lay his head."

It is not the grace of God which separates me from the experience of those sleeping outside. It is the grace of God which connects me to them.

And so I pray, as we walk and talk. Pray for this grace to be felt. To be seen and heard. To somehow become more concrete than the concrete on which some folks sleep even on cold, cold nights.

There go I. For, not but, the grace of God.

---

You can find out more about Hypothermia Outreach Team by clicking here, or learn how to support Georgetown Ministry Center here. And if you're interested in hearing more about my journey with mental illness, check out my upcoming book, Christ on the Psych Ward.

Below, I've pasted some resources for the DC/MD/VA area if you encounter someone in need of shelter. If you're outside of the DMV, and want to share resources you know of in your area, shoot me an email. 

Resources:

THE DISTRICT:
Hypothermia Hotline: 202-399-7093
D.C.'s Hypothermia Shelter Hotline provides transportation to emergency shelters, and distributes items such as blankets, gloves and jackets.
For more, see https://dhs.dc.gov/service/hypo-hyperthermia-watch

MARYLAND:
Montgomery County:
Community Crisis Center: 240-777-4000
Shelter Services: 240-777-3289
Non-Emergency Police: 301-279-8000
For more, see http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/hhs-program/program.aspx…

Prince George's County:
Homeless hotline: 888-731-0999
Non-Emergency Police: 301-352-1200
For more, https://www.princegeorgescountymd.gov/1672/Emergency-Shelter

VIRGINIA:
Alexandria:
Carpenter's Shelter: 703-548-7500
Non-Emergency Police: 703-746-4444
For more, https://www.alexandriava.gov/…/economicsupport/default.aspx…

Arlington County:
Arlington Street People's Assistance Network (A-SPAN): 703-228-7803
Non-Emergency Police: 703-558-2222
Department of Health and Human Services: 703-228-1350
For more, https://publicassistance.arlingtonva.us/shelters/

Fairfax County:
Office to Prevent and End Homelessness: 703-324-9492
Non-Emergency Police: 703-691-2131
For more, https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/…/hypothermia-prevention-prog…

Falls Church:
Winter Homeless Shelter (217 Gordon Road): 703-854-1400
Non-Emergency Police: 703-248-5053
For more, http://www.fallschurchva.gov/686/Shelters

A Palimpsest, My Arm (a post for National Suicide Prevention Week)

Content warning: this post discusses suicidal ideation and self-harm. 

National Suicide Prevention Week is observed in the U.S. through the week following or including September 10th, recognized as World Suicide Prevention Day. I had meant to write this post last week, but I was sick all week, so I guess this is something that needed to percolate.

If you or someone you know is suffering from suicidal thoughts or feelings, help is available. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is available 24 hours a day: 1-800-273-8255. The hotline also has an online chat option. 

You are not alone. Your story isn't over.

---

My new tattoo: "My grace is sufficient for you;"

This summer, I got a tattoo on my left forearm.

I've been thinking about getting it for a long time. People who knew me while I was going through a particularly hard time a few years back might recognize the words. I used to write them on my arm in Sharpie marker, over and over again. For the past five years, by the grace of God, I haven't had to write them. But for those five years, I've thought about getting them tattooed over -- but not fully concealing -- the underlying scars, the criss-crossed white line reminders of hurt.

I put those scars there myself. I had run out of words, or so it seemed to me. So I cut and burned those scars onto myself because somehow, having that pain on my skin seemed better than having it locked up inside of me. Because somehow, if I was going to feel so hurt and jagged and cut-up inside, I wanted the outside of me to show it. I wished those cuts were deep enough to kill. But then I was ashamed, and hid my arms in hoodies in the anvil heat of D.C. summer.

One night, by some intervention of grace, I picked up a Sharpie instead of a blade. What I had intended to write on my arm was more shame, more anger. I intended to write, "You should be over this."And by that same gracious intervention, instead, I wrote a snippet of a Bible verse, a line remembered from a sermon in the hospital, from 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9: "My grace is sufficient for you," the apostle Paul recounts hearing from God, "for power is made perfect in weakness."

I dedicate a chapter in my book to this sufficiency, this enough-ness, in all of the many ways that it has wound its way through my heart and my mind and my soul as I have learned to live with mental illness. And after all these years I still need that reminder. The tattoo was a way to have my body be part of that reminder -- a reminder of enough-ness rather than a reminder of shame.

And now, my arm is a palimpsest.

Definition of "palimpsest" from Merriam-Webster

A palimpsest is parchment that has layers of writing on it, older layers having been erased to make room for new writing. But the erasure is never quite complete -- evidence of the old writing remains.

"My grace is sufficient for you;" my new tattoo reads. (The semicolon is a reference to Project Semicolon, whose founder, Amy Bleul, claimed it as a symbol of a sentence that could have ended but continued. The semicolon represents a story that is not over.)

It's written on my arm permanently, now, in much darker ink than the white scar tissue. But the scars are still there. That is part of the story, too. The new story contains the old story. We cannot erase the past, only write new words, new sentences, over and in and through the older layers of our lives.

My arm is a palimpsest, as is my life, as is our world, layer upon layer of story that cannot ever be completely erased or covered over. Evidence of the old words remain.

But. I couldn't have gotten this tattoo five years ago. I couldn't have done this, safely, if the wounds were still fresh -- certainly not if the wounds were still being inflicted.

And that matters, because as a country, it often feels as if we are not only trying to erase the past, rather than writing a new story over the still-visible scars of the old, but that we are trying to write a new story while still self-inflicting the very repetitive wounds that we are attempt to deny.

Just as one example: this week, here at Georgetown, we (chaplains and other campus voices) have been responding to what the University refers to as a "bias-related incident." Specifically, multiple cases of swastikas, with accompanying writing about violence against women, being painted in a residence hall bathroom right at the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days.

I would like this to be in the past. I would like for the swastika-shaped scars to be faded and white and ready to be permanently written over with new words. But they are fresh, and red, and hurting, and that means a different type of response is needed. The wounds of white supremacism, of racism, of antisemitism, of sexism, keep being re-inflicted. I want to scream at them, "I thought you were over this!" To end them with shame and fierce ridicule. But we are not over this. We are not. And perhaps there is still a different, more honestly and graciously true story to be written of us.

So we respond to the wounds, and we try to take away the weaponry, the blades, and we write tentative new stories, with soft markers, and it all seems like not enough, like such a paltry response to such harsh and repetitive wounding.

"My grace is sufficient for you," I wrote, over and over and over again. Sometimes it was enough to keep me from hurting myself. Sometimes it wasn't.

But it was a breaking-in of something that at the time seemed so foreign to me, so impossible. Some tentative hope. Some mysterious enough-ness that I could only begin to appropriate and internalize.

Some kind of grace.

My arm is a palimpsest now, so that when I look at it, I first read the grace and the enough-ness, before I encounter the old scars.

And encounter I must. They are a part of me, a part of my story. But they are not all of me. They are not all of my story. And they are certainly not the period at the end of my story.

And so we begin, tentatively, uncertainly, armed with markers against the blades:

to write new stories of grace.

--

Thank you for reading about a difficult topic. If you appreciated this post, you might check out my upcoming book, Christ on the Psych Ward, which expands on many of these themes and is now available for pre-order at churchpublishing.org or amazon.com.  And if you're in the DC area, you can come here me read a bit from it and chat about it this coming Wednesday.

Also, here's a helpful recent article from Mental Health First Aid USA about the differences between suicidal ideation and self-injury. 

Grace is a Preexisting Condition

I don't want to write about Congress.

I don't to write about this latest horror show of a bill, a bill I won't call a "healthcare bill" because it is whatever the opposite of that is, a bill about not caring about people's health.

I don't want to write about the group of white men who just blithely voted to threaten my health coverage, while making sure to keep their own (taxpayer-funded, government-provided) coverage.

I don't want to write about the stunning hypocrisy -- frankly, that's too generous of a word, as hypocrisy requires some sort of consistently expressed set of values to violate -- of a party that's run on the image of "traditional family values," yet is just fine with defining sexual assault and domestic violence and postpartum depression as "preexisting conditions."

I don't want to write about any of that. It makes me sick, and other, more politically savvy people have already put out plenty of analysis.

What I want to write about is grace.

In 2011, when a doctor first told me that the awful experience I was having might be a mental illness, the diagnosis came as a relief. I am a person of words, a person whose purpose, whose vocation, has always been caught up in a love of words. I write stories, I sing songs, I preach sermons, I love theology -- theo logos, words about God. To hurt without words was, is, terrifying for me. Some people hate the label of a mental illness diagnosis, and I understand the resistance to a simple, narrow label. But me, I was relieved to have words.

There was, I know now, a naivete to my relief. I didn't know, then, that bipolar disorder constituted a "preexisting condition" which would allow insurance companies to categorically deny my applications for coverage. Over and over again.

Or don't, I'm getting bored with it. 

Of course, my prior indifference to this reality was privilege, plain and simple. The maladies considered to be "preexisting conditions" were -- and are again -- Legion, and innumerable are those possessed of them. I was shielded from this particular thorn in the side until my mid-twenties; most Americans are not so lucky.

I had a brief respite from this under the Affordable Care Act -- which, simultaneously, expanded Medicaid enough so that I was eligible for coverage under it while still a student -- but Congressional Republicans, apparently lacking any real guiding set of values, any real compassion, and secure in their own tax-payer funded, government-provided health care coverage, could not let such a thing stand.

But I don't want to write about that.

I want to write about grace.

Grace is the welcoming, the reconciling, the transforming love of God.

Grace is a preexisting condition.

Grace is prior to what we do and what we say.

Before bipolar disorder. Before words -- words about politics, words about mental illness, words about me. Before me. Grace is.

Grace creates us, grace forms us, grace breathes life into us. Grace is the original intention, the creative and unitive force, that goes before...everything.

We are breathed, formed, by grace. Nothing to be done about that. But what we can do, what we are in fact quite stunningly capable of doing, is getting in the way of grace, restricting and blocking the channels by which divine love flows in and through us.

Here's some ways to do that:

We can refuse to listen to people who are sick and suffering, people struggling with cancer and with mental illness and with diabetes. That is a way to block grace.

We can refuse to listen to the stories of those who have been sexually assaulted, raped, abused. That is a way to block grace.

We can shut down our inherent capacity for empathy and connection, can see people as problems to be solved, sickness as personal failure, suffering as moral inferiority. That is a way to block grace.

But people are not problems. Sickness is not failure. Suffering is not immorality.

When we cut off grace -- when we purposely block the preexisting rhythms of creation and compassion -- that is a problem. That is a failure. That is immorality.

That is sin.

Grace is a preexisting condition. Choosing to hurt people, to reject people's story, to refuse care for people -- that's a choice. That's us. We do that.

But we don't have to. We could make different choices. We were made for love, for empathy, for connection, for the sharing of stories. That's what we were intended for.

Because grace came first.

Perhaps Congress should remember that. Perhaps they should remember that their actions will be weighed on a cosmic scale. But my faith isn't in Congress, that is for damn sure.

In the beginning, before words, there was the Word, and the Word was Love. Grace is a preexisting condition.

--

If you found this post to be helpful, or inspiring, or interesting, then you might want to know that I'm working on a book that touches on a lot of these themes. It's called Christ on the Psych Ward, and you can find out more about it and pre-order it by visiting this page.

Semicolons and commas

I was so very sad to hear about the death of Amy Bleul, founder of Project Semicolon. Project Semicolon arose out of her own struggles and her desire to honor her father, who she lost to suicide. Amy popularized the symbol of the semicolon for survivors of self-harm and suicidal ideation. The semicolon, Amy explained, represents a sentence the author could have ended, but chose to continue. The message: life goes on. The story goes on.

Amy's social media post that inspired Project Semicolon

I did not know Amy personally. I know her presence will be missed by so many people. And I know, in the spirit of Project Semicolon, that her story, her care, her love, will go on, and continue to influence and help many people.

Strange as it sounds, I have been thinking about semicolons this past week. At Leigh's hospital chaplaincy, her cohort watched the film version of the play Wit by Margaret Edson. It just so happens I was involved in a staging of Wit while I was in college -- it's a beautiful and heart-wrenching piece of art.

The cast and crew of Wit at Washington College in 2004 --
that's baby-faced me on the bottom left

The play revolves around Vivian Bearing, a scholar and professor with a particular interest in the poetry of John Donne and little time for nonsense. Bearing is dying of cancer, and we see her final days in part through the lens of the Donne poem "Death Be Not Proud." In particular, Bearing remembers her own mentor, E.M., addressing the issue of how to punctuate the final lines of the poem:

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, 

And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.

Some editors place a semicolon, rather than a comma, between "be no more" and "Death," a decision which E.M. considers a grave offense:

Nothing but a breath—a comma—separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause. This way, the uncompromising way, one learns something from this poem, wouldn’t you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma.

So. A comma - a bare breath - between life and death. Or a semi-colon - a sentence that could have ended, but didn't, that hovers somewhere between an end and a continuation.

Some days, I want to write a semi-colon on my arm.

Some days, it feels like a comma would be more accurate.

But then, another punctuation association slips, unbidden, into my head. For awhile now, the United Church of Christ has used a comma as a symbol for their "God is Still Speaking" campaign. Granted, it's church PR, which always  has a bit of potential for cheesiness, but still. I like it. I like that comma:

I mean, it beats "ReThink Church"

God is still speaking, the comma says. Another version of the slogan is: "Never put a period where God put a comma." The story continues.

The story continues.

I didn't know Amy, personally. But her story continues. Our story continues.

Love without end; amen, amen.

A sermon, a devotion, and a few scattered thoughts

Hello blog-reading-type-friends,

Wanted to share a few things with you:

I had a short reflection published in Georgetown University's daily Lent devotional, which you can read by clicking here.

I also preached this past Sunday at Dumbarton United Methodist Church, as part of their "Unpacking Church Words" Lenten series. My "church word" was grace. You can listen to the sermon here; the texts were Exodus 32:9-14, Ephesians 2:4-10, and this comic strip:

So check all that out if you're interested.

As far as "Lithium for Lent" is going: I'm at the part of my book-writing project right now where I'm doing some reflection on medication and meaning. Here's a short excerpt from one of my favorite books on the topic, John Swinton's Resurrecting the Person: Friendship and the Care of People with Mental Health Problems, with references to sociologist David Karp:

The act of taking medication for mental health problems is a clear affirmation that the person has a stigmatized emotional disorder, and as such, requires a dramatic redefinition of his or her concept of "self." .... One of Karp's interviewees puts it thus: "I didn't want to be told that I had something that was going to affect the rest of my life, and that could only be solved by taking pills. It was sort of definitive. I had a label, and it was a label that I thought was pejorative." Thus, even if medication does reduce symptoms and allow a person to achieve a better quality of life, this does not necessarily mean that the person will perceive the medication in a favorable way. In my experience this deeper meaning ot the process of taking medication, highlighted by Karp, is highly significant with regard to the care of people with mental health problems (pg 73-74). 

So, that's a brief synopsis of the problem that I'm supposed to be reflecting on and addressing. I've done some writing on it before, like this post called "Lithium and a Prayer." 

But I'm having a bit of trouble concentrating on it, for several reasons, one of which is this:

Questions of meaning aside, my medication makes me feel kind of crappy all the time.

Don't get me wrong. "Crappy" is better than "breakdown." "Crappy" is better than "hospitalization."

But it's still...just...crappy.

I don't want to whine about it too much. It isn't the worst or most awful thing. It just is what it is -- a a stomach ache, a wee bit of nausea, a sort of steady low energy. Just...crappy.

So here I am, trying to be really articulate and reflective about medication and meaning and spirituality and all these themes I'm trying to weave together in this book I'm writing, while trying to scrape together the various part-time jobs and commitments I have, and feeling, overall, just a bit crappy.

And so maybe that will be the chapter title for the book:

"Just a Bit Crappy."

Which is a better way to feel, anyway, than nothing at all.

So maybe, if you get a chance, just say a quick prayer for me. Oh, and I'm almost to the point where I'll be sharing book excerpts on my Patreon site, so if you haven't already visit over there and maybe become a patron. Thanks!

The Rhetoric of Unity and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion

Over the summer, I wrote a series of posts about unity -- what unity means from a Christian theological perspective, and the difference between that and the rhetoric of unity in the institutional church. Recently, I've been hearing a lot of unity rhetoric from more secular sources, and I'm once again pondering the uses that rhetoric of unity is put too. What's going on in the name of unity?

Just a quick summary of my earlier posts about unity: I contrasted the mystical, self-emptying love of unity in Christ with the monolithic, institutional unity that has more to do with Babel than with Pentecost.

The Tower of Babel, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)

Just a photo of some other tower

"Babel" seeks unity through monolithic sameness, through the building of a fortress, a tall tower. You are in, or you are out.

"Pentecost" receives unity as a gracious gift, which facilitates mutual understanding among people who are, and who will remain, very different, but can nonetheless enter into a space of deep sharing.

"Unity," in other words, is a word that can be put to different uses. It can indicate sharing, interconnection, and inclusion. It can also be a remarkably exclusive word, one that shames or ejects anyone who won't toe the party line or commit themselves to the upholding of the institution above all else.

I have become increasingly suspicious of the rhetoric of unity, both in church and in society. It's a word that too easily means Babel, and too rarely is talking about Pentecost. Pentecost is challenging. It's risky. It's vulnerable. It's a bit scary. Babel emphasizes security. Peace through strength. Certainty.

Babel is, I think, the more natural, or the more instinctive, human impulse. At least that seems to be the case in our current mode of being as a society.

Pentecost is an in-breaking, an accessing of a deeper and truer level of unity.

So when I hear people saying things like, "We just need to come together and unite now so we can move forward" -- I hear Babel, not Pentecost.

Or when I hear people say, "Don't critique x march/action/group, we have to come together and unify against y," I often wonder, "Is that Pentecost speaking? Or Babel?"

The term "the hermeneutics of suspicion" was brought to bear on the Christian tradition by feminist scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. She argued that, when reading biblical texts, people who are concerned for justice cannot simply accept the text at face value or assume that the text is a good, benevolent, and truthful thing. Instead, we have to read with a lens of suspicion, paying attention to who is silenced or hurt or left out by the text.

It's not that the text is inherently bad. It's just that the text emerges from, and is interpreted in, contexts that have power dynamics at play. And it pays to be aware of those often-hidden dynamics.

So, when you hear the rhetoric of unity being used, it pays to be a bit suspicious. Whose purposes is this unity serving? Is the the unity of Babel? Or is it the unity of Pentecost?

--

Like this post? Want to see more like it? Become a Patron! This month I'll be donating my revenue from Patreon -- more info on that coming soon. 

I may not be doing enough, and also I am enough, and other tangled-up thoughts I'm having

No new 'Fooling with Scripture' podcast this week, because (a) I've been traveling, (b) I lost my voice, and (c) I want to focus on book-writing this week, as well as posting some blog reflections I've been messing around with. If you'd like to see me post more often, you can help by becoming a Patron! The generous support from Patrons helps me take the time to create new stuff.

A little while ago, I posted a reflection about repentance based on a really old story. At the end of that reflection, I wrote: "But those two things -- the internal work of repentance, and the external actions of repentance -- don't happen in isolation from each other....They go hand-in-hand. And when we're hand-in-hand...well, it's a lot harder to hold on to violence, isn't it?"

And I wanted to share a bit about that internal work I've been doing, or at least, the landscape in which that eternal work is taking place. Which for me, comes down to a bit of a conundrum I have, which I suspect many of you have as well:

How do I confront the sense that I'm not doing enough, without falling into the trap of thinking that I'm not enough?

For anyone just arriving on the scene: there is a simple fact about my emotional life, and my mental health, that is important for me to keep in view. When I don't keep it in view, bad things happen. Breakdown things. Hospital things. Avoiding those things, and all the practices and habits that avoidance entails -- including visits with my counselor and my psychiatrist -- is a big priority for me.

And the thing I need to keep in view is the simple emotional fact that "I'm just not doing enough" can become a really toxic message for me.

By "toxic," I don't mean, "bums me out." I mean, "sends me into harmful spirals of self-hate and potentially even self-harm." I mean, "is bad not only for the intangible contours of my emotional, mental, spiritual health but for my concrete physical health."

It could be argued that such a consideration is a privilege, and indeed, as with many aspects of my life, privilege plays a role. But I would argue that ignoring such things is a privilege in and of itself; that it is only within the remarkable privilege of the post-industrial "West" that the insistence that "doing more" is always the best way forward coheres; that it is the privileged few rather than the oppressed many that tend toward "functional atheism," a term defined by Quaker author and educator Parker Palmer as

...the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. This is the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything decent is going to happen here, we are the ones who must make it happen -- a conviction held even by people who talk a good game about God. 

Oppression and violence are, of course, also bad for the health -- physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual -- of their victims, and need to be opposed for this among many other reasons.

But as, at the beginning of this new year, as I reflect on myself and on those things I need to turn from and toward, I am conscious of living in a tension between the very real sense that I am not doing enough -- enough to confront racism, or sexism, or heterosexism, or violence, or mendacity, or oppression -- and the reality that this sense can be quite harmful, not only to myself but to those around me.

Tension is a word I use often, and it's one whose meaning is easy to lose sight of. Think of a rubber band, which only does its work by holding tension between two poles. If the band is pulled too much, it might break; but if it is not being pulled at all, it serves no function, no purpose. The purpose is in the tension.

And so here is the relevant tension, the two poles that must be pulled against each other if any work is to be done, if anything is to be held together:

It is true that I am not doing enough. This is true because of the simple fact that, short of the eschaton (a topic I'm going to take up in a series of podcasts this month, by the way), there will never be a time when enough has been done, when the work is finished, the struggle won.

It is also true that I am enough. This is true because I am, and you are, made in the divine image, breathed into by the Spirit, loved madly and wildly by a God who creates in and through love.

If I only look to "I am not doing enough," then more than burnout happens to me. Personal collapse happens to me. And my actions and activity come from a frenetic, desperate place of trying to prove to myself and others that I am, finally, doing enough. Which is often ineffective and sometimes very harmful.

But if I settle down into the interior space of "I am enough," then not only may I actually accomplish more, but I am less likely to cut others with the jagged edges of my ego that I am trying desperately to force on the world in the guise of "doing more."

Brene Brown, in a passage I share often because it is worth sharing, writes:

Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It's going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn't change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging. 

So here is the landscape of my internal work, here at the start of a year that is going to be marked, I think, with a lot of struggle and a lot of rolling-up-of-sleeves:

I am turning, again, to the practices of "enough-ness." Not to indulge myself. Not as part of some sort of feel-good escapism plan. But because it's by sinking downward into that enough-ness, rather than climbing up to the peaks of "doing more," that the real work gets done.

The work, not only of my own repentance, but of the transformation of the world into a true reflection of God's justice, compassion, and peace.

I may not ever be "doing enough."

But I take a deep breath and remember: I am enough. And that is where we begin.

---

The Parker Palmer quote is from Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (John Wiley & Sons, 2000), pg. 88.

The Brene Brown quote is from Daring Greatly (Gotham Books, 2012), pg. 10.

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The violence that is in my hands

Crispin de Passe (1564-1637)

Jonah 3:6-9 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

---

There is an old, old story I think about often.

It's a story about an angry, sad young man from a backwater town in a occupied corner of a world-spanning empire. The story goes that God tells this young man to get up and go to the capital city of this empire -- this violent empire which has occupied and oppressed his people -- and tell them to be nicer and to say they are sorry and to stop committing violent acts. The young man, understandably, does not want to do this. He runs away. There is a storm. A big fish. A prayer. The young man, eventually, goes to the capital city. He tells the people there to stop doing the terrible things they've done. Amazingly, they listen to him. The young man doesn't feel any better, though, because all of the awful things that have happened in the past are not magically wiped away by the success of his mission. He is angry. And God talks to him about how angry he is, and why.

And that's how the story ends. We don't know what happens next. Probably because it's up to us to decide. In a way, it's like one of those old 'Choose Your Own Adventure' stories.

There have been times in my life where I have compared myself to this young man. There is something noble about it, a false humility to it -- to say, "Oh, yes, I ran from God for so long, and then I stopped running and reported for duty, and now I am doing what God wants me to do." That's a nice narrative.

But I am not that young man.

I am a citizen of that capital city. And there are a lot of angry voices who are telling me that this city, and what it represents, needs to change.

To repent. Which is a word, in Hebrew, that just means, "to turn."

In the story, the king of the city listens to the angry young man. In a silly and satirical scene, he orders everyone in the city, including the animals -- what have the cows ever done to anyone -- to put on mourning clothes. It is an act of repentance, at once somewhat foolish and yet powerful in its own right. And he says this: "All shall turn from their evil ways and repent from the violence that is in their hands."

The violence that is in their hands.

And that is the phrase that has been echoing in my head for the past week. Because I have been thinking a lot about what I need to repent from, what I need to return from. I have been thinking a lot about what I need to drop. About the violence that is in my own hands.

Here are a few things I think I need to repent of. Here are a few types of violence I think are in my own hands:

1) Cynical detachment
When I choose a cynical detachment over a critical engagement, I'm using cynicism to try to prevent myself from being hurt. Cynicism allows me juggle the violence in my own hands like a hot coal, trying to keep from being burned without dropping it. It won't work -- and it will burn others in the process. I think I need to repent of -- to turn from -- cynicism and turn towards engagement and connection.

2) Privileged hubris
When I choose snarky humor over real action, or when I dismiss the real concerns of marginalized people and groups because "I just don't think it will happen," then I am revealing the hubris that comes with privilege. I need to turn from privileged hubris and turn towards a posture of humble listening.

3) Standing By
When I choose not to interact and intervene in situations where someone is being hurt, I choose passive standing-by instead of active coming-alongside. I am preparing, this coming weekend, to lead a training for college students on what we call "pro-social bystander intervention" or "positive bystander intervention." We teach students that they have the responsibility to intervene to prevent interpersonal violence and abuse. It's a lesson we all need to learn, not just on a college campus, but in our society as a whole. We are responsible for each other's safety. We have a responsibility to intervene. I need to turn from passive standing by to active intervention and solidarity.

3) White Supremacy
With the election into the highest office of the land of a man who used blatantly racist rhetoric, and that man's appointment to a White House position of another man who is an overt white supremacist, it would be easy for me to deny my complicity in white supremacy. Surely not I? I am no bigot. But there is more to white supremacy than open bigotry. Here is one definition from my friend Alicia at Chasing the Promise, from a dialogue I participated in at a recent conference:

White supremacy establishes whiteness as superior to other racial identities through the elevation of the needs, wants, concerns, perspectives, feelings, and desires of white people over that of people of color. This includes the centering of the theological, rhetorical, aesthetic, and economic priorities and preferences rooted in whiteness as well as the appropriation and rebranding of cultural expressions sourced from people of color.

At the conference which Alicia writes about, I shared one of the ways in which I participate in this system -- by centering my questions and efforts about the church in the issues facing predominantly white churches in this country. In their statement following the election, the Black Lives Matter movement said the following: "White supremacy fortified the decision to disregard racism and sexism as serious variables in the outcome of this election." So you see the tie between white supremacy, and my cynical detachment, and my privileged hubris. I need to turn from white supremacy and turn towards the centering of the needs of people who are different than me -- the centering of the needs, wants, concerns, perspectives, feelings, and desires of people of color.

4) Sexism
Again, with the election of a man who has bragged about sexual assault, and who uses gendered rhetoric that I literally train college students to interrupt and challenge, it would easy to say: not me! But when I fail to listen to the voices and stories of women, when I interrupt or talk over or pretend to have some sort of expertise that I don't, I participate in a sexist structure. I need to turn from misogyny and turn towards a centering of the stories of women.

What I've written here about sexism and white supremacy, I could also write about heterosexism, about ableism. About the hundreds of ways that I center the needs and concerns and stories of "people like me" over and against -- that last phrase is important -- the needs and concerns and stories of people who, in one sense or another, are different than me.

In the story, people put on sackcloth to indicate their repentance. This was a symbolic action which would have been widely understood in its time as a sign of mourning and a break from normal day-to-day activity. But our society sometimes lacks such commonly held symbolism; and, just as importantly, sackcloth would have been more than symbolic. It required a very real divestment of the regalia of power, including a disarming of the populous and the halt of normal economic activity. The symbolism was overt; but a concrete disruption accompanied it.

And so, as I consider what my sackcloth will look like over the coming days, weeks, and months, I'm thinking about action. I'm thinking about concrete attempts to release the violence that is in my hands.

Some of those actions are likely to be continuations of things I'm already doing. Like facilitating Bystander Intervention Trainings at Georgetown. Or working with Friends of Sabeel - North America, whose younger members and staff are working to make the organization more intersectional and more attuned to anti-oppression work in our organizing. Or working with some of the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our society, those who experience chronic homelessness and severe mental illness, in my job at the Georgetown Ministry Center.

But a lot of these actions are going to have to come from a place of humble listening and re-positioning. Some real soul-searching and internal work.

So I'm going to write a follow-up post to this one, once I've had a bit more time to do some of that internal work. But those two things -- the internal work of repentance, and the external actions of repentance -- don't happen in isolation from each other. They're not as easily split up as two blog posts.

They go hand-in-hand. And when we're hand-in-hand...well, it's a lot harder to hold on to violence, isn't it?