resolving with others in mind

The ringing in of the New Year traditionally brings with it a natural time to reflect on the year behind and to think about how to approach the year ahead.  While this can be a time for excessive navel gazing, I think it also offers us a chance to think about the way we interact with each other.  As 2018 begins, we would do well to think beyond how each of us can personally resolve to improve our physical, spiritual or mental health; I am challenging us to also think about our collective health as communities.

“What could be possible if we, as a people, moved from postures against, to advocacy for?”

The weeks surrounding the New Year are fascinating to me because we acknowledge for a moment that our intentions and resolutions are worth paying attention to.  We understand that these lives we live are fleeting, and that we can do better.  That the way we treat ourselves, our families, and our communities powerfully influences the meaning we make in this life.  Changing that number on the calendar causes almost all of us to recognize that time is moving on, that each of us are aging, changing, surviving, one year at a time.  The loss of control we feel at the relentless progression of time creates a moment where we think about the things we feel we can control.  Thus, we resolve.  We resolve to care more, to create space, to be courageous, to be patient, to be present.  We resolve to actively produce good in ourselves and in our environments. 

“The way we treat ourselves, our families, and our communities powerfully influences the meaning we make in this life. ”

As we resolve to advocate for ourselves and our families in our thinking and practices, I want to suggest we take advantage of this same moment to observe the way we take stances for or against the people and policies in our greater communities.   In this season of obsessive reflecting and resolving, why not also think about the way we think about our place in society?  Do you have issues you care about?  Is the stance you take primarily negative or positive?  The New Year provides us with a built-in opportunity to resolve to be people who “advocate for” rather than people who “rail against” or, even worse, than people who roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders about the lives of others.

While many of us are committed to advocating for ourselves in our pursuits of emotional, physical and spiritual health, our default perspective in the public sphere is primarily negative.  When I reflect on the year behind, I observe that in small conversations and large interactions, many people approach others primarily through a stance-taking rubric.  I am against X.  The problem with my school/neighborhood/legislative body is the presence of Y.  These negative stances are the result of a paradigm of lack, of fear, and of blame, and they prevent possibilities of collaboration, destroying chances to improve through advocacy and cooperation. 

Many of us engage in the public sphere by being passively against things we don’t like, rather than being engagingly for things we find life-giving and good.  Allow me to be practical for a moment.  If you identify as a pro-life person, do you actually take action to advocate for life or do you demonstrate your stance FOR life mostly by being AGAINST abortion?  A person who resolves to be pro-life could advocate for life by educating themselves about rates of childhood poverty and food insecurity in their city, and then joining with the best non-profits to help lower those numbers.  They could find the best agencies in town who support and care for women navigating unplanned pregnancies, and walk with them as they try to care for their children after they are born and for the years that follow.  They could educate themselves about access to birth control, and work to make sure every woman capable of bearing children can prevent unwanted pregnancy.  They could educate themselves about the best organizations and government programs helping with early intervention and education for babies and young kids whose lives and opportunities are being slowly aborted with each benchmark they miss.  They could evaluate the other stances they take, and commit to align all of them with a perspective that values and affirms the dignity of every created being.  They could decide to be actively, productively, effectively for life.

“The New Year provides us with a built-in opportunity to resolve to be people who “advocate for” rather than people who “rail against” or, even worse, than people who roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders about the lives of others.”

In these days of the New Year, what if we began to notice the way we resolve to improve the health of the communities in which we live?  Are our resolutions focused on advocating for ourselves alone?  Do we primarily engage with our greater communities through rejection and negative stance-taking?  As 2018 dawns, I want to listen to the way I think about myself, my family, and my city.  It is worth knowing if the ways we think about others is negative and critical.  Those thoughts are not only toxic for our own psyches, they are eventually destructive to the people around us.

In this first week of 2018, as you resolve to create environments where your best self can flourish, join me also in resolving to think about the stances we take in the public sphere.  What could be possible if we, as a people, moved from postures against, to advocacy for? What could be possible if we rejected the idea that being anti-anything creates a positive trajectory? What if we resolved to be people who advocate for the things that engage our compassion and passion?  If we approach society with affirmative perspectives on the resolutions we make, we can move through the world on a foundation of possibility, abundance and hope. 

on advent: me or we?

The month of December means Handel’s Messiah is playing in my house.  My husband grew up in a home where music was life.  His mother sings every chance she gets, and his father can hardly speak when he hears beautiful choral music (St. Olaf’s Christmas reliably ushers him into the throne of heaven itself!).  My people hail from the hills of East Tennessee, and while I also love chorale music, I am most thankful for my family legacy when we are gathered around a piano, singing shape notes with a few guitars, banjos and a mandolin thrown in.  Family “sangins” were serious business in my world; Christmas brings these memories up for me, and remind me that Christmas carols are an important part of the way I experience Advent.

I teach a class on Christ, race and culture at my church, and while I appreciate the opportunity, it usually means I miss the corporate worship time.  This is a chronic tension I feel because I love to sing, but it never stings more deeply than during Advent.  There is something about singing those familiar carols together that reminds me that my understanding of the world is rooted in a God who calls me into the great “us” of humankind, not into my own private pursuit of God or moral goodness. 

Music reminds us we are better together, and this is why it is so pivotal to the way I approach God.  Even when we are very bad at understanding and appreciating each other (as we often, in fact, are), music seems to remind us that we are best when we work together.  I noticed a few years ago that many pop songs on the radio had choruses sung by large groups of people.  They beg us to sing along.  From Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk”  to Phillip Philip’s “Home” to DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean” to U2’s “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)”, pop hits contain lyrics recorded as sing-alongs.  My life affords me the opportunity to spend large quantities of time with people roughly under 30, and when I hear them sing along to the radio I am reminded that some thing in all of us finds belonging when we sing along with others.

“Advent reminds us that the faith journey, as designed by God and modeled by the life of Christ, is very much a communal affair. ”

This realization matters particularly at Advent because the promise of the Messiah, the One Advent expects and waits for, is very much delighted with the idea of singing along.  So much of western Christianity has rejected the importance of the communal nature of God in favor of a faith locked into the personal pursuit of the Divine.  The experience of a faith journey for many in American Protestantism is wholly about personal devotion to Christ and obedient evangelism.  Advent, however, reminds us that the faith journey, as designed by God and modeled by the life of Christ, is very much a communal affair. 

The prophecy which Handel memorialized in the Messiah, and which Christ quoted in his declaration of public service, is from Isaiah.

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.  They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”

— Isaiah 61:1-4

Advent, and the Christmas moment it looks toward, is about the Messiah coming to make things right for broken people.  A glance at this prophecy, which Christ himself claimed to embody, reminds us that the Messiah did not only come to justify individuals, but also to bring justice and equity to the present world.  Advent looks toward God’s cosmic invitation to humanity to sing along with Him, to join the work of bringing good news to the poor and wounded in every practical way.

This Advent, I would like to suggest that the Messiah came and is coming to bring righteousness.  Not only to justify us and make us righteous, but to invite us into the work of making things right for all our neighbors.  The highest devotion for a follower of Christ is not to live a life devoted only to knowing God personally, but to follow Him in the work of making things right for those around you.  To commit myself not to the flourishing of me, but to the deep right-ness—the peace and Shalom—of the we. 

“Advent looks toward God’s cosmic invitation to humanity to sing along with Him, to join the work of bringing good news to the poor and wounded in every practical way.”

Advent celebrates the fact that God’s fullness was revealed when Jesus sacrificed all His capital for the flourishing of others.  Might we best experience Advent by committing ourselves to the flourishing of the communities around us?  We must preach the good news to our own poor selves, but we cannot stop there.  Because the fullness of the purpose of the Messiah is only realized through sacrificial service to others, we cannot reflect on Advent by only focusing on our own interior lives.

This Advent, think about the reason your heart responds to meals and parties and carols sung together.  Our core selves already know we are looking for good news that works best in community.  We simply cannot understand the peace of Christmas unless we understand the needs and gifts of the communities in which we live.  Sing along. It’s more festive that way.

learning to listen to each other: there are heroes among us

These days it feels like our normal has become chaos, our lines have become blurry and any attempt to articulate a different perspective has become offensive.  Our heroes are falling, exposed for bigotry, assault, or for remaining silent in the face of power that abuses others.  At the same time, our vulnerabilities as women, people laid off, immigrants, people of color and people who need healthcare are exposed and being discussed.  In making sense of how we are to live in this moment of uncertainty, I remembered a morning that restored my hope in the everyday courage and beauty of the people around me, and thought I would share it with you:

I was drinking a cup of coffee, watching the smattering of humanity who passed me by.   Although I was consumed with my own junk—an unexpected trip to the mechanic left me stranded at a nearby medical clinic—I quickly snapped out of my frustration when I began to see what I was seeing.  Before me walked dozens of people who were beating the odds.  As I started to pay attention, I was moved to tears at the resilient heroes I witnessed walking down the hallway, nameless to me but impacting me in marvelous ways.  Sometimes the best way to resist being consumed with self is to simply notice the people around you. 

“ Sometimes the best way to resist being consumed with self is to simply notice the people around you. ”

This is what I saw:  A woman, animated by her own story, cackling with a friend while wearing a scarf to cover a bald head over sunken eyes, body wrecked from chemo.  A child in sunglasses, hand linked in the crook of an elbow while navigating steps with the aid of a walking stick.  A parent, leading this blind child, digging in her purse for keys, oblivious to the remarkable fact that she had empowered her daughter to function in a world hard to navigate.  A man, rolling his bent and casted leg atop a scooter, moving with such ease that I realized his apparatus was the distant cousin of a child’s scooter, highlight of many Christmas mornings. 

As I took these resilient people in, I faced the beautiful truth that each of them—and their families—had been devastated when the reality of their illness or impairment became apparent.  And yet, somehow, these unremarkable people had found astounding doses of courage and grit and determination in order to, as Raymond Williams says, “make hope possible rather than despair convincing.”  They did not stop in the awful reality of their diminished and unfair lives, but found a way forward. 

“Make hope possible rather than despair convincing.”

— Raymond Williams

In a season in which my outlook can usually be described as incredulous despair, I find myself clinging to those courageous strangers.  Granted, I have lived a charmed life that led me to believe in the idea that America is the land of the free, a fabulous meritocracy where everyone is valuable and has the agency to freely act on their own behalf.  I have not been assaulted, and although I have consistently been undermined as a woman, I mostly believe people are kind and generous, willing to lend a hand and access empathy for others.  In the last few years, however, my illusions about who we have been, are now, or might be have been exposed as ignorant delusions.  Apparently we might be a people who choose greed over compassion in huge and tiny ways.  We might be a people who choose to protect our own platforms instead of advocating for vulnerable others.  We might be people who think we can both “respect” women or people of color and demean them for their bodies or stereotyped proclivities.  We might be people who respond to a different perspective with cynicism and blame.  We might be people who are so divided—indeed, isolated into likeminded tribes—that we skeptically dismiss anyone’s experience that exposes injustice, calling it preposterous, untrue and even unpatriotic. 

The profound alienation I have experienced this year stems from observations I’ve made that reveal a deep conflict in the souls of Americans.  Are we committed to liberty and justice, for all, or are we committed to ‘my liberty and justice trumps your access to those rights?’ Many fundamentally reject the idea that we are a country where injustice reigns as doctrine in our laws, lending practices, access to healthcare, housing, professional advancement, education, hurricane relief and criminal justice systems.  Because we don’t know each other, entire communities of people live and breathe the short stick of injustice, poverty, bigotry and hatred on a daily basis, while the other half of the country swear up and down that such things do not exist.  In the wake of kneeling football players, stagnant education and employment, vanishing healthcare access and assaulted women, are we a people willing to listen, or are we a people who demand that vulnerable people have to prove how bad they really have it before we will listen?

“In the wake of kneeling football players, stagnant education and employment, vanishing healthcare access and assaulted women, are we a people willing to listen, or are we a people who demand that vulnerable people have to prove how bad they really have it before we will listen?”

We don’t know who we are as a nation because we don’t know each other.  This lack of knowing is a product of centuries of bad habits: certain types of men have power and everyone else doesn’t, but we are not gonna talk about these gendered and racial and ethnic and sexual divides because that might delegitimize the aforementioned power.  Instead, we will pretend that where inequality exists, laziness or sexiness or anger or entitlement warrant the “less-than” label.

Seeing so many resilient warriors at the medical clinic reminded me that while I am crusading on my intellectual high horse about the nature of injustice and the identity crisis of America, there are millions of people who have always known that much of our country is not committed to justice and equality.  Instead, we are committed to a haughty rhetoric that defends such ideals while ignoring human beings whose lives reveal a different story.

The survivors in the clinic remind me of so many people in our own country who wake up each morning to a chorus of, “You are not welcome here,” or “you and your body exist to bring me pleasure,” or “you are demonized because I fear you,” yet somehow find the courage to get out of bed, dress their kids, and go to work determined to prove their worth.  Although I did not know any of the people I watched that day, I do know many others, and I am sobered by their commitment to keep going.  Just as a blind child cannot spare energy wondering what the seeing community thinks about her journey, the many Americans abused, forgotten or feared by those with power do not spend time complaining about their plight.  Instead, they see the reality of American power dynamics and prove themselves worthy whether the rest of us care or not. 

“We are surrounded by people who know how to keep on keeping on, and as they bravely speak up about the hardships they face, perhaps we can understand our role in validating their experience instead of asking them to prove it.  ”

If you also feel overwhelmed by the numbers of women claiming #metoo, by the people dying in Puerto Rico, by the kids attending under-resourced schools, by the millions who will lose healthcare, by the blame being shouted, I’d like to suggest you get to know a person aware of their own vulnerability.  We are surrounded by people who know how to keep on keeping on, and as they bravely speak up about the hardships they face, perhaps we can understand our role might be to validate their experience instead of asking them to prove it.  Perhaps we can learn to watch the heroic people living around us, choosing to dignify their everyday courage instead of dismissing them when they mention the courage required to function in our America.  Perhaps we can stop asking what is happening to America and instead notice who is embodying American ideals.  Perhaps we can stop accusing others of dividing us and actually get to know someone from whom you are divided.  Perhaps we can expand our us.