the stories we tell

and how the Lord's Prayer will turn us inside out

Happy Sunday Morning,

I’ve found a church where I feel like I am *exactly* where I need to be: Ravensworth Baptist Church. (I’m skipping today: basketball games, and birthdays.) I am going to become a member next weekend. Preaching there on March 30th. It is affiliated with a tiny Baptist denomination called the “Alliance of Baptists.” Their home page says,

“We are a faith community knit together by our love for one another and God, combining progressive inquiry, contemplative prayer, and prophetic action to bring about justice and healing in a changing world.”

I wish I had known they existed a long time ago. I signed up to attend their annual gathering in March. The theme is “I met God, and she’s a black woman: Womanism and Traditions of Resistance.” The keynote speaker is Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney (!!). I will try to be cool.

After a tough week, I re-discovered my peace yesterday.

First, I realized that no matter what happens in this world, I will survive with a sense of deep purpose and joy. I still have my family. I still have my friends. That's all I need. I don't think I need all our pets, but I still have them.

Not pictured: Another bird, a hamster, and fish.

People have been resisting injustice for a long, long, LONG time, and they have maintained their peace and determination while doing it. Why can't we?

I read this Substack from Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis earlier this week. She advised Nice Whyte People to take time to learn about the experience of black people and women in this country. Yesterday afternoon, I followed her advice and watched Mississippi Burning on Prime. After I watched this movie, I wondered if some of us white people can be a little presumptuous and insensitive as we lament the state of our nation today and grieve on behalf of others (and ourselves). Have we asked people about their experiences? Other populations in our country have been experiencing injustice for their entire lives, even in the United States. Their ancestors have died fighting for the rights enjoyed today (well, not today). I’m feeling like a bit of a wimp to crumble the minute my privileges are threatened. Those of us who feel overwhelmed by fear and anger might take a step back to consider how the “experts” have maintained their peace while fighting for justice.

(Note: I am not suggesting that anger is not allowed. I am only suggesting that our rage is destructive if we do not maintain our peace.)

Earlier this week, I got a haircut. I go to a Spanish-speaking Peluqueria (@dreambarbershop on IG) to maintain some of my Spanish language skills. I asked my lady how everyone was feeling. She said the guys are feeling “tranquilo” - calm. She was a little worried because her visa expires in April, and the U.S. is not issuing any of these visas right now. But she said that Venezuelan lawyers were working on this and seemed hopeful. If those under the most significant threat are tranquilo, we can be tranquilo, too. People who have had to survive before know that they will be able to survive again. Those of us who have not had to “survive” in these new ways might feel we won't be able to. We have never had to, and we cannot imagine it. We might lose our jobs and other rights we have always taken for granted, but we can find a way to move forward. It might not be how we want to move forward, but joy and purpose await us on every path, even those that terrify us. It would be a good time to read about folks who have moved forward, persevered, and effected change throughout history. I just started Jemar Tisby’s new book, “The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance."

We need to pull ourselves together to resist injustice and effect change. Take a moment to drop into your senses by noticing the sound of nature, the feel of the wind on your cheeks, the lotion on your body, or the taste of your favorite foods. Take time with your favorite person, and remember there are still amazing people all around. When everything feels overwhelming, take time to notice everything that is not overwhelming and everything you are still grateful for. This is how we discover our power, peace, and hope as we persist in our fight for justice.

A couple of Sunday recommendations.

The “No Hard Feelings” episode of the Hidden Brain podcast. In this episode, Fred Luskin says that the real suffering of injustice occurs when our grief becomes a part of our identity. In this episode, Luskin tells the story of a woman, Debbie, who had been cheated on throughout her marriage.

And so, for somebody like Debbie, it was, ‘Hi, I'm Debbie. A woman with a lousy ex-husband and a failed marriage.’ So, that meant that it was now integrated into her self-concept.”

This is what happens when we keep our grievances alive. We can’t imagine who we would be without it. Luskin explains that when something happens, we can choose how we talk about it. He says,

And so we can talk about it as a normal life event, a catastrophe, something to cope with, something I'm here to learn from, or a sign that the world is an unfair, unsafe place. What we lose when we get too deep into a grievance story is 1.) We have a choice. So that story of, ‘Hey, I got a really crappy deal with this wife, and she messed up my life for six months.’ That's a healthy story for a month or so, you know? It's like, that's how your brain rebalances and reorganizes itself from the disruption, and it can go directly to, oh, let's think about this. I didn't make a good choice in marriage, she gave me lots of clues, I didn't do X. You can't reorganize, you know, coherently right away, so she's a terrible human being is a wonderful way to reorganize. The Grievance story is a practice for how it is we're going to explain to ourselves what happened and what's an appropriate response for us to deal with it. The practice of it is very useful short term and destructive long term.

As I listened to this episode, I considered how I had internalized my grievance stories and how I might begin to tell those stories in a new way. But this episode connects to our collective experience, too. We cannot take everything personally, and we cannot take current events personally. We cannot respond to our fear by blaming our family, friends, and neighbors who support this administration (though healthy boundaries are encouraged!). If we react with blame, we will only seek revenge and hurt others as we do. Alternatively, we can choose to talk about what is happening differently. “This is where we are and who we are, somehow. This is not who we will always be. It is our responsibility to work together (non-violently and with love). Together, we will build a better country.” When we choose to tell the story without blame, we become healthier (physically and mentally) and will be prepared to use our anger constructively, never losing sight of love and peace. You’ll have to listen to the episode to hear their advice on how to do that. I plan to unpack it with my therapist.

Forgiveness was on the brain, so I opened this Substack post by Kristen Du Mez. She is the author of the book my book club is reading, “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.” She writes:

In the Civil Rights era, the notion of “beloved community” cultivated a deep sense of courage, and it also defined the course of action people would decide to take. Rooted in faith, the tactics of nonviolent resistance sent a powerful message in the face of violence and cruelty. It didn’t come easy.

I think often of the witness of Civil Rights activists these days, and find myself wondering if we are drawing sufficiently on the moral inspiraton to guide the actions we take, or hope to take. When the language of us vs. them abounds, when powerful interests provoke and benefit from division, and when confronted with real threats to life and liberty, how do we not become what we wish to defeat?

And THAT is my greatest sorrow. When we become the monsters we hate. When we become what we wish to defeat. It is so important to avoid this. If we do not, there will be no progress. Blame, hate, and revenge do not inspire collective action. They do not effect change. They are not hospitable and do not draw people to the “Beloved Community.” Du Mez’s post, which I linked to above, explains how as we pray the Lord’s Prayer, a subversive prayer, we will be transformed and gradually turned inside out. She quotes her pastor’s sermon, and I’ll end with this:

A couple weeks ago, I finished reading Jonathan Eng’s moving new biography of Dr. Martin Luther King. Non-violence and love of one’s enemies were King’s bottom line message through his whole life.

I listened again to what he said that night in church in Memphis just hours before he was hit by a bullet and passed over to the promised land. It’s good to hear it these days.

Of course it was a message for a specific people at a specific time. We, mostly white folks here, can’t simply adopt it as our own. In fact, it points to injustices we participate in.

But it’s also a universal struggle, and we might humbly learn from Dr. King and his movement how we can stand up to evil and injustice today with our souls intact.

“We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do…. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round." Bull Connor would say, "Turn the fire hoses on."

“Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out….

And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing "Over my head I see freedom in the air." And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can…. and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome."

And every now and then we'd get in the jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs….”

Love and justice belong together. Forgiveness and the enduring protest against evil belong together.

Perhaps in these days of growing injustice, hatred, and greed, amid intensifying calls for retribution and payback and authoritarian power. In an atmosphere of degrading speech and hateful attitudes, it’s good to remember how Dr. King ended his speech that night.

“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will.

And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. For mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday. Right now, the best thing you can do is anything that will help you stay centered and connected to a “beloved community.” Stay centered so that when the time is right, your anger and actions will pack a (loving and effective) punch.

Peace!
Lauren

P.S. Please share and subscribe.