We Who Believe in Freedom...

I delivered most of the following words to my beloved church community yesterday. I have added a few other thoughts that I didn’t speak yesterday because of time constraints.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 5, 2020)

Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until It comes.”

– “Ella’s Song”, by Bernice Johnson Reagon, originally sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock

I have sung these words many times. As much as I love the song, recently I have had a niggling discomfort with this refrain. Yes, if we believe in freedom, we must work toward collective liberation. None of us are free until all of us are free. I believe the movement toward collective liberation is long work, longer than any of our lives. For that very reason, I believe that sometimes we have to rest. I believe that sometimes the work toward collective liberation actually is to rest.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus invites those “who labor and find life burdensome” to “[t]ake my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me... You will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The second reading tells us that we are called to live by the Spirit.

How do we live by the Spirit during global upheaval? How do we translate Jesus’ message to these times?

It feels safe to say all of us have been affected by events of the last several months. Some have experienced some slowing down, new spaciousness in their days. Others have experienced a speeding up, crowded days and crowded space, bearing the months-long weight of 24/7 parenting, full-time jobs, plus the new job of school teacher, all under one roof. Or taking care of COVID patients, or responding to mental health needs- anxiety, loneliness, grief- in a country and world that’s been turned upside down. Lost joys, lost jobs, lost loves. We know these realities. In one form or another, we are all living them.

In the midst of the pandemic, George Floyd was murdered by police, knee on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. And we learned about Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and remember so many others before them and learn new names of people who’ve been killed afterwards. Eyes that had not previously seen the disease of systemic racism are being opened. In response, people in all 50 states and across the globe, in big cities and small rural communities, have taken to the streets, willing to risk COVID-19 to affirm that Black lives matter. Then there are those at higher risk or caring for high-risk folks who are staying home, apologizing for not being on the streets and discerning how to respond in other ways.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest.

Take my yoke upon your shoulders, you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 

The culture we live in doesn’t value rest. Our culture values production, workaholism, working until we’re sick- physically, emotionally, spiritually- even working some of us, historically our Black and Brown siblings, to death. If we want collective liberation, the means are as important as the ends. We must build new systems even as we live in old ones crashing down around us. If we want to live in a world where people are valued simply because they are, then we need to free ourselves from the idea that people, including ourselves, are, first and foremost, what we do.

A few years ago I spent about a week at the Dakota Access Pipeline protest site of Standing Rock in North Dakota. By the time I got there, it was bitter-cold winter, there weren’t protests going on. Within minutes of arriving, I found work in a community kitchen, taking the place of someone who was leaving. A few nights into my stay, I was in a cozy tea yurt with a group of people and someone asked the group, “Why are you here?” My immediate answer: I am here to tell people to rest. The answer surprised me, but I knew it was true. I had encountered many dedicated folks who’d been at the camp for weeks to months- they were worn out, sick, edgy because of all they had experienced. From my place in the kitchen I found myself encouraging people to rest- to take more time sitting and eating by the fire, to get more sleep, to take a day or two away in a hotel where they could shower, take off a few layers of clothing, sleep in a bed. Some heeded the advice; others didn’t.

When I came home from Standing Rock, I went right back to work. Even though I’d only been gone for a week, I ended up with both the flu and a bad sinus infection.

I am only beginning to follow my own advice. My experience at and after Standing Rock is not the only times I have’t allowed myself to rest. I have too often gone from intense experience to intense experience without time to recover. It has too often resulted in physical illness. So I continue to try to integrate the lesson.

Slowly I am learning to practice it better. The very first card I made for my Cards for Remembering reads “I am allowed to rest.” During these weeks of protest, I’ve been aware of my capacity; I’ve stepped back more than I might have in the past or found ways to contribute that have been less taxing while I recover. I have accepted help when people have offered. As a result, when I do show up, I am doing so from a place of greater grounding and readiness.

adrienne maree brown cites Toni Cade Bambara when she says that “we must make just and liberated futures irresistible. We are all the protagonists of what might be called the great turning, the change, the new economy, the new world.” What a time to be alive!

To create a new world, we must not only do the serious and hard work of dismantling systems of oppression, but also cultivate joy, pleasure, and rest. We must interrupt the messages that say that resting is for the weak. We must take note of the weight we carry and consider whether it is ours to take on more or to allow others to take some of our load. This is not a once-and-for-all decision; it changes according to context. Knowing what is ours to carry comes from listening deeply to the Spirit that lives in us- individually and collectively. If you are weary, you are allowed to rest. If you’ve had time to rest and are ready to take on more weight, there are ways to do so, even from the safety of your home. A few days ago, community member Anice Chenault wrote this description of movements. It feels both specific to now and timeless. I wonder if you find yourself in this description or can imagine a place for yourself that’s not mentioned. 

Here’s how movements work. Dreamers and visionaries imagine up powerful actions, rooted in culture and the present moment. Actions are placed in the context of larger strategy and mission. Many actions, many different ways. We learn from our movement elders and listen to the leadership of the youth. We unlearn the white-washed lies we’ve been told. OGs train new folks in Direct Action tactics - most importantly, how to stay grounded and embodied and de-escalate ourselves and others. Folks show up to the front lines. Grandparents keep the kids when the risks are too high. Moms organize supply collections and deliveries. Businesses offer their physical locations as collection points. Our geeky friends provide tech support. Folks offer their presence - for hours, days or weeks. Street Medics work in shifts 24/7. Stay-at-home folks staff social media. Volunteers get folks to the polls on Election Day. Thousands of people join phone banks to raise awareness and funds. Night owls stay 12-hour shifts to make sure that loved ones are apprised of the status of folks in jail and are there at 4am when they are released to cheer, offer water and pizza and cigarettes and a ride home. We build locally and nationally and internationally. Sometimes, one partner handles a full-time job, a quote on a new water heater, getting the lawn mowed, and registering the kid for summer camp so another can be about movement work full-time. Single parents move mountains and show up with babies in slings and set about the work. People give money to keep it going. Mental Health folks and healers show up because there is TRAUMA in this work and it is imperative that we heal. We check in on each other. We build community and trust over time. Pot-lucks are strategic movement-building tools. We risk the conversations to break white silence. We believe people of color and women and trans folk and anyone who is telling us about their own oppression. We call each other in when we make mistakes. We learn to apologize to each other. We try again. Moms organize family-friendly actions so we can start to train the next generation. It takes us all.

When we each take a part, the work becomes a little lighter and a little more sustainable, particularly for those who have historically shouldered the most weight. And so I wonder, what is yours to do right now? Is your work to offer or to receive relief? Could both be true at once? Trust that both are beautiful acts. We who believe in freedom must sometimes rest.

The above video was recorded in Louisville, KY on July 4, 2020 at Jefferson Square Park, which many people now refer to as Injustice Square or Breonna Taylor Park. Located between the City Hall, Louisville Metro Police Headquarters, Metro Corrections, and the courts, it is the center of ongoing protests seeking justice for Breonna Taylor and the larger call to racial justice. Singing this song not quite perfectly, at this place, with street sounds and whoever chose to be around us, on Independence Day felt like a way to honor a fuller meaning of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

To Whom Am I Accountable?

Before I went to bed Tuesday night, I had a deepening sense of dread. When I woke up Wednesday, my fears were confirmed: a man who during the election season had spewed hateful rhetoric against people of color, immigrants and refugees, Muslims, disabled persons, women (though that hate started long before he was a presidential candidate), and so many other people, was going to be our next president.

Even before Election Day, even when many people thought a different candidate would win, it was very clear that people in the U.S. would need to do some serious collective soul-searching work to bridge an ever-widening divide. Days before the election, I wrote a blog post for JustFaith Ministries, voicing both my concerns and my hopes for our country.

All throughout the election season and even before, I was asking the questions – of myself and of others – What is the positive vision for our country or world? How will we mend the ripped fabric of our nation or world? And especially, What is mine or yours to do?

Any time I offered the questions on my Facebook page, friends and family chimed in, but often the people who responded were like-minded folks. I was interested in a broader spectrum of answers, but didn’t feel that calling specific people out was the way to go, so I accepted whatever answers I got.

On Wednesday morning when I woke up, the fissure in our country felt deeper and more dangerous. Many people I know felt closer to falling into the widening crevice than they had just 24 hours before. I braced myself for what my Trump-voting friends might post on social media as I saw so many people I knew expressing fear for their well-being, wondering what might happen to them when they went to school or work that day, or the next, or the next.

Because the Trump supporters I knew hadn’t ever answered my questions (why, I will acknowledge, I don’t know; I am not accusing them of anything here), I decided to write them a letter:

Dear Trump supporters,

I am sure you are feeling happy & excited that your candidate won, but please understand that many people, your fellow Americans, are grieving. If you care about those people, if you care about me, today is not a day to gloat or say, "I told you so." We need some time and space to regroup.

Our country is so divided and your candidate saying "it is time for us to come together as one united people" does not erase the hateful rhetoric and broad generalizations made against people of color, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ, immigrants (especially Latino/as), refugees, women, disabled persons, etc. that he and some, too many, of his supporters have spewed over months, or years, or decades (even before he was a presidential candidate). It does not erase the fact that policies he & his running mate have proposed will continue to marginalize and harm the above or increase marginalization/harm done to them.

If you care about our country, as you say you do, please tell me how you personally are going to work to bridge the divide, how you personally are going to affirm the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" for ALL Americans. I'm not asking about what the president-elect will do, I'm asking about you.

I write not to argue and will not be pulled into an argument or debate. I am sincerely interested in your answer.

What positive steps are you going to take for the well-being of all people in our country?

Thank you.

I chose to make the letter a public post on Facebook. Several friends reposted it; one sent me a message saying she had cut and pasted it without my name, because she didn’t want to subject me to any ugliness. I wrote her back and told her I had deliberately shared it publicly. I did not intend to hide in fear or quiet my voice because someone might not like what I had to say.

Both friends and people unknown responded to the letter.  Those who knew me honored my request to refrain from arguing or debate. I was grateful.

Several people who didn’t know me answered with responses dripping with disdain or telling me what I or we (“the left,” “liberals,” etc.) needed to do. I carefully responded to the anger, explaining that I wasn’t asking a question that I hadn’t asked myself and others. I posited that since we didn’t know each other, there was no foundation to assume anything about what I had or hadn’t done in the past. Finally, I asked them not to post unless they had something constructive to add. The reply was more anger, assumptions, and inflammatory language. I again responded respectfully, as did several friends. When more anger came my way, it seemed best not to respond.

One stranger in particular (who identified herself as a Bernie supporter) posted numerous times with multi-paragraph responses that included phrases and sentences in ALL CAPS and comments about the “spoiled, lazy generation that thinks they don’t have to struggle as every generation before them” (my generation, presumably). After I tried to answer respectfully and without debating (I had stated clearly that debate wasn’t what the post was about), she responded again with an analysis of my letter and ending in another implication that I was doing nothing to address the issues our country faces. I simply replied, “As I said above, you don’t know me, what I do or do not believe, or what I am or am not doing. I am not here to argue, so I will simply wish you well.”

Admittedly, prior to posting that response, my ego and my higher nature battled fiercely; my ego really wanted to tell her exactly how wrong she was about my work in the world. Thankfully, my higher nature won the battle. I remembered a meme I’d seen: You don’t have to show up to every argument you’re invited to.

She responded again with multiple paragraphs, educating me about white privilege, telling me how I didn’t understand what people of color go through, and ending by telling me that my heart was in the right place, but that if I wasn’t willing to engage with tough questions and issues or with discomfort, I would be “lost in the abyss of white privilege and all that that brings.”

I am aware of my white privilege (and so many other points of privilege she did not mention). I am aware that I have no idea what it feels like to be Black or an immigrant or LGBTQ or…

I am aware that there are layers – many, I would guess - of my privilege and others’ oppression to uncover and sort through. I am trying to do that sorting and I intentionally put myself in places where I am forced to do that uncomfortable and precious work. I am aware that the work will extend to the end of my life.

But did I owe any explanation to this stranger who didn’t know me but presumed to?

My higher nature and ego battled it out again. I typed replies and erased them, typed and erased, typed and erased, until finally, I pulled myself away without hitting “Post.”

It came down to one question: To whom am I accountable?

I am accountable to my brother-in-law and nephews whose skin is darker than mine, who were born outside of the U.S., who have suffered harassment simply for existing and now fear even more for their safety. I am accountable to my godson, whose parents are from Latin America, who was afraid to go to his high school the day after the election.

I am accountable to immigrants and refugees who have suffered nightmares I can’t even imagine in their home countries, in their passage to this country, and maybe even here. I am accountable because too often, my country’s foreign policy has caused or contributed to those nightmares.

I am accountable to people of color, friends who have patiently pointed out my blindness, even though it’s not their job to do so, parents of Black sons and daughters who fear for what might happen to their children for “driving/walking/playing/laughing/doing anything while Black.” I am accountable to the 12-year-old Black son of a white friend who told his mom that he skips and smiles through their neighborhood so their white neighbors will not be afraid of him.

I am accountable to my Muslim friends, as two Muslim women were attacked the day after the election, the attackers grabbing their hijabs and trying to rip them off. My Muslim friends whose children ask if they’ll be forced to leave this country. Who have to defend their religion over and over again because some people can’t make the distinction between extremists and ordinary Muslims and don’t want to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of (mostly) Muslims our “Christian” nation has killed overseas.

I am accountable to my LGTBQ friends who wonder if newly gained rights will be taken away, who wonder if they’ll soon face legally-enforced discrimination when they try to conduct their daily business.

I am accountable to women who have been victims of sexual harassment (aka all women) and sexual assault, girls who may be more likely to become victims of sexual assault, because “if the president can do it, so can I,” words that a few boys have already used as an excuse after grabbing  and groping their female classmates the day after the election.

I am accountable to people with varying abilities, who may not move through the world the way I do, but have gifts that are just as valuable as my able body.

I am accountable to others not listed above, “for I was hungry, for I was thirsty, for I was sick, for I was a stranger, for I was in prison, for I was naked” and so many more. It is these people who I have to answer to.

It is the ones closest to me, the ones who know me, who I will trust when they tell me “you’re blinded by your privilege” (not an easy pill to swallow). There are times when I must hear this message from strangers, too; I know that. I also know that not all voices that challenge merit a response.

It is people under attack telling me “we need you to do this work for us, so we can do our own” or “we need you to do this work with us” who I must answer to. And if I fail, I must answer their questions “Where were you?” “Why didn’t you…” “How could you…?” “How could you not…?”

Even as I type, I know I will not be able to do all the work that is asked of me and I know that only some of it is mine to do. Giving my energy to every cause that asks only depletes my energy to do the work that is truly mine.

When the work is not mine, I can encourage the people doing it through words or financial support, just as others have encouraged me as I’ve walked down paths that scare me, stretch me, and sometimes scar me.

It is my work to keep walking those paths, reminding myself that my great privilege demands great responsibility so that my friends, neighbors, and family don’t have to carry quite so heavy a burden. It is my work to remind myself that while my privilege allows me to walk away, to forget, or to ignore, my responsibility does not.

And so I will try to be responsible, even if I do so imperfectly (which, of course, I will).

I will try to discern between the voices that I must listen to and the ones that only distract me from standing where I need to stand, speaking when I need to speak, and moving my body where it needs to go.

I hope that I will discern well and that I will not disappoint the people to whom I am accountable.

To whom are you accountable? What voices call you to action?

Greg Brekke/Six View