Un-Moored

It's Holy Week in Christian Circles. It's the first Holy Week in nearly 20 years that I have intentionally absented myself from the traditional ebb and flow that begins with Lent, through Palm Sunday, the deliberate embrace of the heartbreak of Good Friday, to the Hallelujah chorus of Easter. I read the status messages of my Christian friends as they acknowledge the day and the season we are in, and I am moved in the same way that I would be if I was sitting beside them. I know what time it is; what day it is; and what season it is. I am moved by the universal embrace and celebration of our collective salvation as The Church.  I am not moved or motivated to make my way to the building, any building, where these celebrations are occurring.  Yet, I remember. I celebrate. I remember that the cost for my redemption was a price I could not pay.  I remember that my redemption was paid for with blood and death.  I remember that it was love for me, for ME, that held my Savior to the cross.  And while it is today that we acknowledge the horrendous price, it is also today, and everyday, that I say Hallelujah to the Lamb of God who was slain but lives. I raise my heart and voice to celebrate and praise the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Most likely I will not be among that number who gather to celebrate in the traditional building on Sunday morning. It is an odd, but OK for now, feeling.  Walking in the quiet means that I am not choosing a path, at least not right now.  Truth is that there are multiple paths that present themselves, but none in which Holy Spirit has said "here is a path, walk therein." So I will walk forward, in the quiet, prayerfully observing the shiny objects on the side of the road. Pausing occasionally to act or speak as I am compelled, but then continuing on the road, to a destination yet unrevealed.  A discovery (maybe re-discovery) this week as I was pondering being un-moored (set adrift), my direct encounters with the presence of God consistently happen in these periods of quiet dis-quiet. The quiet dis-quiet. Ahhhh ... Thank you God for that revelation.  But that is for another post! Wishing any who visit here a blessed Happy Easter. He is Risen!

Sacred Conversation about Race—part 2

It’s so hard to get perspective on anything when the noisemakers crowd out the voices of the truth tellers.  My perspective on the media has changed how I take in information. During the 2008 election I made an intentional effort to read, watch and listen to different news sources, not the ones that shared my particular views on a given matter.  It was enlightening, and disappointing, to learn that a single sound bite that is factually in error could make its way across the media universe and be touted, verbatim, as fact. I was amazed that what I thought was basic journalism – fact checking – was virtually ignored. I was shocked that opinions of the noisemakers then became the facts. No fact checking. No resource citations. Just simple opinion becomes facts. At one point I was so frustrated by the noisemakers that I posted on a blog that I followed what I now refer to as Sacred Conversation Part 1 (below).  I felt a little better getting that out of my system and shortly after I took a media fast— no TV news, no talk radio, stopped reading beyond the headlines of the newspaper.  I realized that it was making me sick—soul sick.  I share it now because not a lot has changed since 2008.  The precipitating incident is new, well sort of new. . But we, humanity, is still stuck in this place where healing does not seem possible.  The “fixer” in me wants to believe that maybe if we could stop talking at each other with our respective armor up, rather than to each other with our hearts open, then maybe there is hope for us, hope for humanity.  It’s hard to find the hope in the midst of the noise.  Sometimes we have to absent ourselves from the noise.  I guess maybe that’s what Jesus did when he left the crowds that followed him to find a quiet place to commune with his Father.  Finding the quiet place to commune.  Oh yeah, that’s what this blog is all about ………….

Soul sick….Spirit sick …. If my spirit is sick, then you God, the spirit that lives in me, You, you are sick, grieved is probably the right word. You are grieved to see your children, the ones that make up the world, that you so loved, wounding each other out of our own woundedness.  ‘Cause that’s where it comes from, right?  We hurt inside, so we project that hurt outside.  We are broken inside, so we use our words, our hands, our created instruments as weapons of warfare.  It’s easier to lash out then to rise above.  It’s hard for us God, to rise above.  But your Word says that all things are possible, and that we can do all things, when we look to you, when we depend on you as the source of our strength, when we look to you as the source for our very breath.  We, your children, need your help to rise above.  We need your help to deal with each other with armor down, and hearts open.  Help us, help me, to rise above.  Thank you God for helping us.  Thank you God for your Holy Breath.  Thank you Jesus for showing the way.  Amen.  Amen.

Sacred Conversation about Race, part 1 (originally posted in the God’s Politics yahoo group)

May 2008

“Because I've been deep into my textbooks I have not been following the dialogue on this group very closely. While perusing the topics, I noted the conversation about Rev. Wright and all the supposed
controversy surrounding his remarks.  A question that still seemed to be lingering was where or when Rev. Wright accused the US. Government of injecting African Americans with the virus that causes
AIDS.  I would be surprised if anyone could ever find such a definitive statement by Rev. Wright or anyone else.  What you might find is plenty of speculation among African Americans on why this
could be possible.  Rev. Wright would have been accurately reporting, this speculation. I too, can attest to the speculation that exists.  It was an extremely frustrating thing to deal with in the decade that
I worked in the HIV prevention field.  After HIV Prevention, I shifted into the minority health field. It was then that my real education began and how I have come to understand, not agree, but understand why some African Americans believe it could be possible. During the intensity of the Rev. Wright media storm, frustration and anger motivated me to post the following at a God's Politics blog. I apologize for its length, but I believe it may answer the question.......
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As a 50 yr old, middle class, professional, African American woman in the US, I struggle with the uneducated comments made here in this and other forums about how much has changed in the last 40 years, and how African Americans just simply "need to get over it" and the supposed "racism" of Rev. Dr. Wright and how he and others are just out of touch and factually wrong.  My generation is perhaps the first to experience the "fruit" of desegregation.  I remember my mother's stories of separate entrances, sitting on the back of the buses etc. But I now have my own stories about being denied housing and how that although I now live, work, play and worship in an integrated environment there are frequent small and large reminders that I am still not always welcome or safe everywhere I go.  I am still somewhat amused by the reactions I get upon meeting whites face to face when they have only spoken with me previously by phone.  My point here is that, yes, there have been a lot of changes, but there is still a lot of unacknowledged pain and injustice that is just under the surface of race relations in this country. The only outlet for some of this has historically been the African American church. This was the only place where it was "safe" to talk about this.  For those of you who do not know how dangerous it was, then I invite you to visit the website "Without Sanctuary" to learn why "hanging nooses" could be considered American terrorism by many African Americans.  For those of you who do not understand why African Americans may believe that AIDS was "manufactured" then I invite you to read the book "Medical Apartheid, The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" published in 2006.  Read this if you have the stomach for it.  I would invite you to read about
the government sponsored "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" which lasted from 1932 - 1972.  In terms of how far we have come, I would invite you to read "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic
Disparities in Health Care" which is an Institute of Medicine study released in 2002. "We" haven't come as far as we would like to think. That said, to really examine how far we have come then you must at
least know where we started.  "Before the Mayflower, A History of Black America, by Lerone Bennett Jr, is a must read if anyone really wants to "seek first to understand".  Finally, I'm not convinced that African Americans want an apology.  Speaking for myself at least, NO, that is not what I want.  What I would like to see in my lifetime is an acknowledgement that these things happened, and because of this history a continuing culture and system of privilege exists for Whites today.  This systematic injustice has and continues to result in disadvantage for African Americans and other minorities. What do we do about it? We make the effort to talk about it, even when, especially when, it's painful and makes our stomachs tight (like mine is right now). We stay in the conversation. There is a saying in the recovery movement -- "you can't heal what you don't feel." We (African Americans) need to talk about the pain of our history and everyday experiences without having to worry about offending Whites. Not talking about it leads to festering wounds that never heal. Whites should work at educating themselves about the history that wasn't taught in their schools, and listening without becoming defensive. All of us need to learn how to talk and listen without attacking, belittling or shutting the other down. I would like to feel a sense of hope that it is possible for the collective "WE" to go on a journey of discovery of that which unites rather than divides. I am saddened that this does not seem possible in my lifetime. **********************************************

I'm more encouraged now then I was a couple of months ago when I posted this. If you made it all the way to here, thanks for reading. It is because of you that I am encouraged.

Shalom”

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Fast forward to March 2012—it’s not the Rev. Wright controversy this year.  Rev. Wright’s public reputation was destroyed in 2008.  This year it’s Trayvon Martin, who was profiled, judged guilty, and who lost his life.  And the noisemakers have geared up.  Armor is up.  Hearts are closed.  Let us all try to find a quiet place. 

Getting to, staying in, the quiet place~

Abba.. How? How do those of us who know you, those who hear you calling us, how do we get and stay quiet when the voices of the world, when the cries of those who surround us crowd out all else?  This has been my challenge this week, o’God. This week when the media screams out inflammatory reports of pain, and injustice, and war, and the ongoing and forever present man against man, woman against woman, humanity against humanity tirade.  The voices, o’God. How do I tune them out? Do you even want me to tune them out?  While I desire to be still and listen, maybe it is your desire that I remain open to hearing the voices. There then is the challenge… to remain open to the voices.. the voices that align with my own spirit and heart, and the voices that rankle, that rattle, that force me to clench my jaws tight so that I will not speak words that I can’t take back, words that would pierce the hearts of my sister, my brother.  So that I will not lash out.  Truth is that you never tune out the voices. You hear us. You watch us.  I imagine that it hurts you.  It hurts you to watch your children hate on each other with words and actions.  You, who loved us so much, who loves us so much…. who has given us the prime example and definition of love, through the life and death of your Son.  For you so loved the world that you gave us the embodiment of love… can we remember to walk in, practice being in that place of love?  Help us…

Our walk of faith ...

...at least in the Christian tradition, is personal, but never private. Jesus Christ, who personally delivered the good news, asked those who follow him to spread that good news, that the kingdom is God is here, that we are loved, we are forgiven, our relationship with our Creator is restored. Spreading the good news was an instruction for all of Jesus' followers. Some followers are compelled to respond to Jesus' instruction through the established offices of the church. But what happens when that path is blocked, or cut off? It may be as simple as shifting one's focus. But when one's focus has been on responding to God's call, and the chosen path is blocked, shifting one's focus is life altering.

So what does one, who heard God call her name, do when the questions have been asked and answered, but the responses given did not pass the test of the decision makers? What does one do when “the process” results in the final answer being “No”? The answers, the comfort, offered by friends and loved ones …”choose a different path”, “choose a different church”, serve in this way or that, “grow where you are planted.” All responses that I might have given to others in this same scenario, in my efforts to sooth and comfort. If only it was that simple.
Responding to God’s call has never been about choice. At least not for me. It has always been about moving in the flow of a Holy Spirit who leads, guides, nudges, and occasionally bops me on the head. As the Spirit guided, doors opened, others closed. Opportunities to serve God’s kingdom abounded, sometimes they dried up. Even when things were difficult, confusing, or challenging, there was never a sense of being off track. Sometimes the road was winding. Sometimes there was a fork in the road. Always there was that small voice asking … “Do you trust me?” Always, my answer was yes. My answer is yes. Even now, especially now, when the voice says “be still, find the quiet.”

Being still meant stop. Easy. Sort of. Not really. Find the quiet, should have been easy. Wasn’t. Isn’t. Finding the quiet is difficult, partly because I’ve got popcorn popping in my brain. My natural tendency is to pray-journal my way out of the chaos inside my head. But that’s a private thing. And all of the things that are popping in my brain are matters of faith. Which is personal, but never private. So here then is the new thing for me. Pray-Journaling out loud. Kinda risky. Kinda naked feeling. Saying “Yes” anyway. Yes Lord. Yes.
Jdw 3/20/12