No Time to Lose: A Dharma Response to Climate Change Part 2: Jack Kornfeld
This is the second post of notes from the Livestream event held on September 15th, a fundraiser for OneEarthSangha.org and in anticipation of the Climate Strike, led by students, to be held September 20, 2019.
Sunday, September 15, I attended No Time to Lose: A Dharma Response to Climate Change held at Spirit Rock, and to my gratitude, Livestreamed. As it was an all day event, I took notes from numerous speakers. I will post them over the next few days so that each person's words will have space to be digested.
The following are my notes of Jack Kornfeld's talk. The words and ideas are from him, which, once again, makes for an odd blog post.
Kornfeld told of asking his old teacher in Thailand about the struggle American students had with self-love and self compassion. The venerable answered that if the students went out in the woods and prayed for loving kindness, the students would soon include themselves. He then mentioned the Buddhist response to deforestation in Thailand was to go in the forest to ordain trees. They would ordain the largest, oldest trees as Abbots of the Forest. These sections of forest were left alone.
So the question is how do we live with climate change, and how do we practice with it?
It is best to return to the four noble truths.
One. Life has suffering.
Billions of tons of methane have been released. Glaciers and icebergs are disappearing. The polar ice caps which reflected the sun, and consequently the sun's heat, have shrunk almost to nothing in the North Pole, and actively shrinking in the South. The military and the shipping industry are just waiting for the ice to melt in the North Pole to open up shipping lanes. We are experiencing the sixth extinction.
Two. Causes of suffering.
Just as in our human lives greed, delusion, and hatred are the causes of suffering. The delusion is of our separateness. Every breath we take was breathed by someone before us, generations before us.
Three. There is an end to suffering.
Waking up from the trance of separateness.
Four. Eightfold Path.
And so forth.
Kornfeld followed with a story about Christiana Figueres, the former chief of the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change, who orchestrated United Nations climate negotiations in Paris, became suicidal while planning and orchestrating the Paris Climate Conference. She read Thich Nhat Hanh's books, and went to Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh's monastery in France, and was able to heal. She used the teachings not only to get through, but to teach others. One of the most important things was for countries to look at themselves not as victim, nor as perpetrator. One hundred and eighty six countries signed the accord.
Kornfeld emphasized, for us not to feel guilty. "Do not try to save the world out of anger, fear or guilt. Save the world as an act of love." He recommended a book called Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, Paul Hawken, ed. http://www.drawdown.com
This book has a list of things we as individuals and as society can do to reverse climate change, in order of importance. Paul Hawken gathered together the worlds experts on each item. The most important, are reduce food waste, rebuild the kelp forest(kelp in cattle feed causes them to pass less gas), and educate and empower women.
The earth wants to renew itself. He mentioned Chernobyl. No matter how the government tried to cover up the accident, the winds told the story. Kornfeld also mentioned Wengaari Maathi, who orchestrated the planting of fifty-one million trees, one tree at a time, [side note: by empowering women].
"Save the world as an act of love. How you do it matters."
Kornfeld finished with a Molly Ivins quote. “So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it."
No Time to Lose: A Dharma Response to Climate Change Part One: Joanna Macy
This is the first post of notes from the Livestream event held on September 15th, a fundraiser for OneEarthSangha.org and in anticipation of the Climate Strike, led by students, to be held September 20, 2019.
Yesterday, I attended No Time to Lose: A Dharma Response to Climate Change held at Spirit Rock, and to my gratitude, Livestreamed. As it was an all day event, I took notes from numerous speakers. I will post them over the next few days so that each person's words will have space to be digested.
The following are my notes of Joanna Macy's first talk. The words and ideas are from her, which makes for an odd blog post.
While she was practicing walking meditation one day, recently, a minor memory replayed over and over, in her head. She heard a voice: "Just Fall in Love with What Is." She had a vision of two curtains, one uncovered the IPCC report where we have twelve years, and the other revealed Bolsonaro's election. In essence, she was being told to stop her preoccupation with herself, and accept what is happening.
Macy told us that we are entering a time of "bardo," that is a huge change in the conditions of your existence, according to Tibetan Buddhism. Climate crisis is a bardo. Enter it together. Enter from the East where the Mirror Wisdom Buddha resides. The mirror is to us and our world.
There are three realities:
Business as usual
The Great Unraveling-which is accelerating
The Great Turning-Inspired by the wheel of the dharma
The world, maimed and burning as it is, is alive. You are a part of the earth. You are the earth. We cannot stop climate change to go back to what we were before. We can build a society that works within. We need to learn how to take care of one another. We need to find our way back to each other. Indigenous traditions show us how. Take stock of your response to a society in collapse so:
As I face the world collapsing, what I am grateful for is:
As I face the political economy collapsing, what I fear is:
As I face the political economy collapsing, what I will try to remember is:
Even though the economy is big and noisy, it institutionalizes the three poisons.
Consumer, growth orientation: Greed
Military industrial complex: Hatred
Media: Delusion
Don't privatize your grief. It is a collective phenomenon. It's the other face of love. The political economy holds on to its power by pathologizing our grief.
Today is Pentacost Sunday. I celebrated twice, first with the Earth Holder Sangha, online, from home. The topic was "Being a Lotus in Today's Sea of Fire." Our facilitator, George, referenced an early book by Thich Nhat Hanh called _Lotus in a Sea of Fire_, and asked, "Can we be that lotus - one that is fresh, beautiful and strong, amidst today's raging seas of hatred, tribalism, greed and indifference?"
The lotus flower referred to is from the Lotus Sutra, referring to a flower rising up from the fire, much as it rises from the mud. The mud and the muck is just as much a part of the lotus as is the bloom itself. It's beauty and strength comes from the muck. One of the Plum Village nuns shortened the saying to No Mud, No Lotus, for Thich Nhat Hanh's, calligraphy. The metaphorical flower that stays fresh, cool and beautiful in the fire, does so by zen practice, compassion, mindfulness, meditation, and keeping centered. He brought up a quote by Justice Ginsburg arguing with Justice Thomas, that his argument had more heat than light. Essentially, by modeling these practices, being the light, much compassion can be generated to alleviate day to day pain, suffering, and indignities, and inspire others to learn to alleviate the suffering of our broken world. Our earth is literally and figuratively on fire. George envisioned us as lotus flowers with little solar panels in the center, offering light, and I imagine, cooling relief.
Next, Kimberly and I attended the Pentacost service at Holy Faith Episcopal Church, a truly multicultural church with a bilingual service that we drive thirty minutes, or more, to attend. Father Francisco's sermon reminded us that the church was born in the fire. Much like today, the church was born during a declining empire, with pain and suffering for most. If we do the actual work of the church, that is feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, visiting the incarcerated, welcoming the stranger, caring for the sick, and clothing the poor, we too, can walk through the fire. Inspire rather than preach. Be the light and ANSWER the call. "The fire next time," kept going through my head, reminding me that we are most likely in the proverbial "fire next time." I am reminded time and again that my liberation is bound with the other oppressed, and that I must continue be anti-racist and work against white ideology, that sin with particular meaning and unhealed history, in this country.
The service did end with a hymn that I loathe. "They will know us by our love." I think that's the title. I have had it as an ear worm throughout the day. I do not like to consider myself Christian, because of how much petty meanness, pain, and suffering have been caused by those in the church today, all the way back to the crusades, and further, I am sure. When I see lights, like my seminary professors, and Francisco, Gene Robinson, and the womxn of Black Lives Matter, Aisha Mason, and Anthony Manousos, my Unitarian Universalist activist brethren and my wife, whose lights have been lit by those who have gone before, I can step back, and place them in the continuum of those who have thirsted for justice.
How does one shine a light on for others in the midst of a world of Racism, Nationalism, Homophobia, Transphobia, Ableism, phobias of the poor and the different, and finally, a Climate Emergency. Answer the call, and care for your spirit first. It's both/and, not either/or. In order not to not burn out, the Zen practices will help allay the inevitable suffering that goes along with my passion for making a small difference. How do you take care of your spirit, and are you?
A Metta Prayer for Activists
May I recognize happiness.
May I abet human rights for every single human being.
May I nurture sustainability for Mother Earth.
May I cultivate compassion for the suffering.
May I know enough.
May you recognize happiness.
May you abet human rights for every single human being.
May you nurture sustainability for Mother Earth.
May you cultivate compassion for the suffering.
May you know enough.
May they recognize happiness.
May they abet human rights for every single human being.
May they nurture sustainability for Mother Earth.
May they cultivate compassion for the suffering.
May they know enough.
What if we are simply acting as parasites fighting with each other to devour the earth? What if our galaxies are like mitochondria, the power houses of cells? Thus, in the metaphor, we, are solar system, is contained within a cell. We are intimately connected with each other, so much so that our actions and decisions reverberate out affecting every one else, as everyone else's affects us. Still, we continue to duke it out as if subjugating or rejecting or killing those of another group is not killing us, and the organism that serves as host. What does it take to see the larger picture that we are so infinitesimally small in the larger universe, that the divisions we perpetuate are ludicrously petty. Would we treat one another better then? Would tribalism, nativism, nationalism, racism, sexism, fill-in-the-blank-ism ad infinitum, cease?
What if we dedicated ourselves to the betterment of all of our solar system, our galaxy, knowing that to be the only way to ensure our own survival. What would we lose? What would we have to give up? Could we find less destructive ways to create, build, feed, house, clothe, and deal with waste, that would be good for each occupant and the earth as well? There are so many pieces of the puzzle that the entire planet population could be occupied. We would not leave space junk, or litter on Mt. Everest, symbolic of our Western use abuse and discard ethos, recycling all that we use.
So, too, What if there was a change in consciousness about our effect on everyone and everything else on the planet, a mindfulness, if you will. Would it make a difference? Would we as a human race then change for the better?
"What do you like about being white?"
The anti-racism training facilitator chose me to go first. My view of myself as multicultural Latinx, with indigenous heritage and light skinned privilege, was discounted a room full of other participants. Every struggle of not being white enough, or Latina enough flew up to my throat into a knot. I could not get past the word "multicultural," because the facilitator, an African American man, kept interrupting, insisting I was white. I thought my story about my grandparents and great grandparents had explained who I was the day before. The Latina facilitator said in a stage whisper, "She's Latina." The white facilitator said in a stage whisper to the Latina, She's white!" Whispering ensued between them. The facilitator who asked the question more than once said, "Fine, let's move on. We'll get back to you." I sat in shock. The next white individual, somewhat understandably, did not want to claim he was white either.
When I had gone to a people of color retreat last summer, the speaker, Zenju Earthlin Manuel had brought up an example that made sense. In 2013, Black Girl Dangerous blogger, Janani, published, "What's wrong with the term 'person of color?'" In it, they wrote about an exercise about race in an anti-oppression youth camp in the South, in which they, along with two other Asian attendees, were put in the white group rather than the black group. Janani wrote,
I want to return to that moment of racial ambivalence, and why it happened. That moment was unsettling precisely because even if Black and Asian kids had a common experience of being racialized, we didn’t have a common racialized experience.
It seems as if it should be obvious, but upon hearing it the first time, my heart opened with more compassion for we of whom are not of the dominant culture. In our workshop, every single person had been racialized as a consequence of living in the United States. Each one is racialized based on their geography in the country, in addition to the relationships to friends, relatives, loved ones, institutions and society. Not one person's early soul tenderness was battered by racism the same way. I have no claim to the experience of being black, but navigating La Frontera, the borderlands as explained by Gloria E. Anzaldúa, is its own experience. I grew up occupying that liminal space of in between, not pale enough to be white, but without the Spanish language, unable to navigate in the Latinx sphere either. How you were treated could turn on a dime. Especially, if your name changed from European to Hispanic or back. I was punished a whole school year for a surname change and return. My mother experienced it, and my sister, who has fairer skin than mine with dark hair and eyes, experienced it.
As the daughter of a Mexican American mother with the black hair and beautiful brown skin of her father, I was the first of sixteen grandchildren with the black hair and dark brown eyes that favored him. Unfortunately, he died before the year before. As the daughter of my Irish, Scandinavian, Northern European father, I'd never quite fit in. The McGregor family loved me anyway, often pointing out how smart I was, or tall I was, even though my build was more solid, and I tended to be chubby and darker. My heart and self-esteem suffered each time others were disparaged for gaining weight by the weight and look obsessed white women in the family, or how "Mexicans" or worse, "wetbacks" were disparaged by my new German stepfamily, most often by my stepmother.
If I had been asked a different question, the rest of the workshop might have gone differently. Instead, I became the female example of white denial. The trainer said to the group, "We people of color see you as white. You are not fooling us." My shutting down served as another sign of whiteness. In truth, I was in shock. Every misgiving about not being a person of color enough, was laid bare. I did not speak out about myself, nor with anyone else, the rest of the workshop. So, was he right? In a way, yes. And in a way, no.
I have much baggage: growing up in colonialized geography, feeling less than, being a widow of a small, dark, non-gender conforming, Filipina, a raw recent falling out with a relative, being enraged by my late beloved's treatment in the world, the traumatic death and aftermath, being an outcast accused of being unfeeling because I was white, and as such, had no culture, a coopted memorial. To say anything would have sounded like an excuse, or worse, as if I was trying to divert the discomfort, to make the conversation about my feelings, or separate myself from other whites by claiming I had suffered more, or that I had my own oppression, and therefore understood people of color's experience. Diversionary tactics are not new, and I've witnessed each one more than once.
For the evening and the next day, memories of scenes in the hospital, the funeral, and the aftermath haunted me. PTSD is real. When the other facilitator discussed what ends up lost to whites for opting to participate in whiteness the next day, I still could not trust myself to speak. When she blamed herself, her white privilege and ignorance, for the early loss of her own spouse, I just felt ill. I'd just managed to work past the survivor's guilt, stopped finding reasons to blame myself for my beloved's early death.
Going in to anti-racism work the decade before, I needed to be clear in my identity. I considered myself one of the mestizaje, on the border. After much discussion with my minister of color, I took on "person of color" identity as a political statement. That meant the battles are mine. Every single day, I choose not to walk away. My liberation is inextricably woven into the fabric of all people of color. Although there are days I hate the injustice too much to be healthy, I am committed. I'm committed to being open, learning, and to defer to the leadership of those people of color most affected by the intersecting issue at hand. I'm committed for all the multiracial children who do not quite fit into either family, and do not understand why race is such a big deal. I'm committed for gender nonconforming people of color, who are the most vulnerable, the most in danger, in our society. I'm committed for queer people of color, who are nearly as vulnerable. I am especially committed now for queer and gender nonconforming immigrants .
I'm grateful to have recently married, to a partner who works with me and learns with me. Still, I have married back into white privilege. So, what do I like about being white? I like that in passing, I can use the privilege I do have to speak out, protest, agitate, and put my body on the line for those who cannot. I like that in passing, I see and hear white people for who they are with each other. I like that in passing, my privilege can be used for the common good, rather than to get ahead in the capitalist white cultural narrative.
When I arrived at seminary, I brought two documents with me, the anonymous, Norman, Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, and Thich Nhat Hanh's Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. Those two were what I modeled my life by, imperfectly, reflecting the kind of Christianity I wanted to keep, and the Buddhist precepts that best reflected my aspirations as to how I wanted to relate to the world.
My goal was to delve deeper into Buddhism, once I finished seminary. In the interim, the seminary library helped me keep my my sanity by having a large selection of Thich Nhat Hanh books. After graduating, my Unitarian Universalist tendency to question meant discerning whether Thich Nhat Hanh's tradition of Zen Buddhism was right for me. After looking at numerous other traditions, his Plum Village tradition appealed most in its profound reverence for the Earth, the primary focus on Peace, and that being queer was not a deal breaker.
Coming across a "Buddist Mantra based on the prayer of St. Francis" several weeks ago, I was inspired to craft my own Both/And prayer using phrases familiar to the Plum Village tradition. In these troubling times, I hope this might be useful to others, with the reminders for self-care.
Note: I need to add that UU Rev. Erik Wikstrom wrote a book called Simply Pray. It was a good manual on writing our own UU prayers. I rewrote the prayer of St. Francis to give it Buddhist language but keeping the structure, after I saw someone's version. I did not give Rev. Wikstrom credit, but it's where I saw it done first, or was encouraged to do it first. I had also collected various versions of the Our Father before that, trying to find something different, but had not thought to write one myself. The oldest translation of the prayer from the original French, which is out of copyright, served as the foundation.
Dear Thay, Dear Sangha, Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Taking refuge in the three jewels,
May I be an instrument of peace,
Where there is hatred, may I water the seeds of love and compassion, sowing metta.
Where there is offense, may I practice Beginning Anew.
Where there is discord, conscious breathing and walking,
Where there is error, mindfulness, to remind myself delusions and enlightenment inter-are.
Where there is doubt, return happily in the present moment.
Where there is despair, touch Mother Earth, remembering that so as seeds endure birth and death in each moment, so do I.
Where there is darkness, may I awaken to the light of my true nature.
Let me not seek so much
to be consoled, as to soothe strong emotions the way a mother soothes her child,
to be understood, as to realize the Dharma, Sangha, and Buddha are the way to understanding,
to be loved, as to cultivate a true love, a boundless love,
for I vow
to meet all sentient beings with kindness and compassion,
to meet suffering with patience and love,
to delve into the deeply into the teachings of the Buddha,
and to know in the very depth of my cells, the interconnectedness of all.
In early November, I flew to Minnesota to join a delegation of clergy vanpooling from Minneapolist to the Standing Rock Reservation, in North Dakota. The Minnesota Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Action Alliance, or MUUSJA, or Moose Jaw, for those of you who are familiar with the UU's tendency to reduce everything to initials. MUUSJA is the equivalent of the Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry of California, organized and funded a good part of the trip. The local Episcopal priest, Father John Floberg called for clergy to help the Sioux tribe, with members from more than 300 tribes across the Western Hemisphere in solidarity, protest the building of an oil pipeline near the Standing Rock reservation. What is at stake is their only source of water at risk of being poisoned by the Black Snake, the Missouri River, which is a tributary of the Mississippi River. *And* this company building the pipeline is notorious for leaks. Drinking water for millions of people are at risk.
My decision to go was a spiritual one. How could I with my presence be helpful to the Native women who are up there, prayerfully fighting for their land, and by extension Mother Earth and all of us. It helps to be aware of one's social location, especially when going into another culture, which in going to the reservation we were told again and again that the culture was different. My own social location as a Mestiza, or mixed European American and Mexican American, including indigenous heritage, queer woman. Part of my lived experience is having lived on the White Mountain Apache reservation in Northern Arizona when I was young, where I went to Head Start rather than kindergarten, and the first grade. I'm a Unitarian Universalist candidate for ministry who practices Zen Buddhism on my spiritual path. I have had a profound love for nature as far back as I can remember. In holding these identities in tension, social location certainly informed my experience while I was there.
Standing Rock is at the center of numerous intersecting issues. Going forward,Unitarian Universalists need to start thinking about issues, beyond single issues, such as environmentalism, rather through the lens of "intersectionality", a word coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw that recognizes and names the fact that there is no single issue. Environmentalism is a popular issue with UUs. What gets overlooked more often by those who have environmentalism as their issue is that communities of color most often deal with toxic dumping, factories, or chemical or petrochemical storage or pipelines with unhealthful tendencies that are put in that area because white communities do not want them and have the power to demand that they are placed elsewhere. Not in my back yard(NIMBY). Plus, you have women who are affected by the chemicals and possibly that affects reproduction. The water is affected so there is external health effects, as well as internal. In this example, environmentalism intersects with racism, feminism, and it is systemic in that those in power in the government are deliberately making laws to limit companies to be near communities of color rather than white predominantly white communities.
This Dakota Pipeline protest is about the Black Snake going through their land and ground water, but it is also about the way that Native Americans continue to be treated by the US government informed by racism, and corporations having explicit, there for systemic backing by the state and US government. It is about the threat to water, our most precious communal resource. It is about power. The pipeline was originally supposed to go near Bismark, but the citizens, white citizens, would not have it. It is about Christianity. The Pope of the Catholic Church issued a bull in 1493, called the Doctrine of Discovery, shortly after the "New" World was discovered. This document declared that all land was to be claimed, and any people on the lands were to be converted to Christianity and enslaved or killed. This bull is the basis for court decisions to this day, regardless of what is written in the numerous treaties. Treaties that have been broken time and again, not by the Native Americans, but the white European Americans that greedily stole land. The protest is a Human Rights issue, the right to water and indigenous sovereignty.
Unitarian Universalists passed a resolution to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery at General Assembly in 2012. The Episcopalians preceded us in 2009. Our Unitarian Universalist Service committee has based one of their programs on the Human Right to Water. The UU Justice Ministry of California has centered work around water. We, as Californians, know or should know how critical water is too life, but are especially aware in a desert that has been stricken by drought. We're not out of the woods yet. Thich Nhat Hanh Plum Village Line Zen Buddhists' with concern for the Mother Earth have formed an Earth Holder Sangha, of which I am apart. The One Earth Sangha, a multi-Buddhist environmental group is concerned about Standing Rock.The Christian intentional community of which I am a friend, Urban Village, was concerned enough about Standing Rock that they and friends funded my trip. I went to Standing Rock, as one person, knowing that I represented the solidarity and well wishes of members of all of these communities, as well as the UU communities I am involved with. Those are JUUstice L.A. with whom I had a travel mate, Neighborhood Church, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship. Around sixty UU clergy traveled to Standing Rock for this particular call.
The group of over 500 church leaders met in the gymnasium the night before the event. I had weird a sense of deja vu having gone to non-sporting events in the gymnasium on the reservation. I began to feel like I was having an out of body experience observing. We learned about the history of the region from one man, and heard one of the women speak of the struggle. Native women are doing the lion's share of organizing and support in this struggle, much like women are doing the organizing for Black Lives Matter. One woman who spoke the night before, told the assembled clergy that the camp looks just like a camp to non-native Americans. She said those of Native American heritage would feel like they were coming home. When we drove over the rise the next morning and saw the camp bathed in the light of a truly spectacular sunrise I was overwhelmed with love and longing. Love for the land and people, and longing for their ill-treatment to be over. Metta prayers.
For the ceremony the next day, the priest offered a copy of the Doctrine of Discovery, in it's original Latin, to burn in the sacred fire that continuously burns in the camp. Those representing the tribe chose to burn it in an abalone shell outside the sacred fire. The water warriors did not want to contaminate their sacred fire with the ugliness of the source giving permission for European colonization. I liken it to the profoundly offensive practice when white people dump their loved one's ashes at the source of springs and rivers. These headwaters represent life and people come to that sacred space and pollute it with death. There is a long way to go for a cultural understanding of just how sacred the earth and it's elements are, and/or a respect for nature.
I saw the burned out vehicles, the planes and the helicopters circling overhead. Too, I saw the most beautiful sunrise in my life on the day of the protest ceremony. Yet, I also saw a ceremony that was ostensibly interfaith be performed with a profoundly Christian view. As that person who straddles borderlines, I had a hard time reconciling that the religion of the oppressing group, was also the focus as we walked behind a cross to the river. That people with other symbols were "welcome" to process in front as well, felt strange since it other faith's are not about elevating their symbol above all. This is a case where members of the colonializing dominant culture, while apologizing for the past sins of their faith, reasserted that faith in that Native American space.
Repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery is a step in the right direction. A young Buddhist asked if he should repudiate it since this was not his religion that issued the bull. I did not hear what the answer was, but my answer is yes. As a U.S. citizen, he is benefitting from the legacy of that papal bull. I, as a US citizen, am benefitting from that legacy. The Standing Rock Dakota Pipeline protest is emblematic of indigenous struggles against state supported corporations, U.S. supported corporations, up and down the American continent. I met a young Tinglet woman from Alaska. She was unlikely to be born when the Exxon Valdez ran aground; yet, she has grown up with the consequences. She came down from Alaska to protest in solidarity so that what happened in Alaska would not happen in North Dakota.
The struggle is just beginning if we, as UUs, are to do something more than symbolically repudiating. Clergy were asked to return and educate. I pledged to return and educate. We do not necessarily need more UUs going up to Standing Rock, unless it's to deliver supplies. We need people to use their skills. Fundraising? Social Media? Political Savvy? Legal? Communications? Too, the water warriors need warm clothes and sleeping beds to endure the winter to come. They are committed to saving the water, by continuing the protest and camp through the often brutal winter.
Meg Riley, the minister of the Church of the Larger Spirit writes, "Hope is born in the communion of struggle." Many struggles are and will continue to be upon`us in the coming days. Bill McKibbon reminds us: "History offers us no chance to completely erase our mistakes. Occasionally, though, we do get a chance to show we learned something."
There is something about Episcopalian services, or black church, or good music. Once a decade or two I experience that je ne sais quoi that puts me over the edge. Perhaps it is just my own intensely spiritual experiences have been in the Catholic and Episcopal churches.
Sunday, I went to a Lenten service held by the Union of Black Episcopalians. This service was held in the late afternoon in Inglewood, CA, once morning duties had been completed. This was a gathering of black clergy and a black choir at one of my great favorite social justice priest and fellow alum, Francisco Garcia's, Holy Faith Church. The theme of this service was Beatitudes, #Blacklivesmatter, and the Jesus Movement. An intimate number of folks showed up to participate. There were enough though, that two Caribbean dignitaries slipped in in cognito enough to be acknowledged at the end of the service once their presence was realized.
The second hymn was Kumbya. I'm thinking okay, Kumbya. This is probably not going to be my campfire Kumbya. The rendition is incredible, and I'm good until the lyrics "somebody's in despair, somebody thinks that no one cares," and we repeat it and repeat it like in the YouTube link below. Not only did my neck hairs stand up, the star spangled banner can do that, but my hair stood on end, every last one on the top of my head. Unbidden tears just streamed tears down my face. The last time that happened as a spiritual experience was at All Saints Episcopal Church, sometime in the mid 1990s. (Tears streamed down my face as I walked to the communion rail at that church, more than once.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S-a9Fk1PAu4
There are too many hurting out there. I have much brokenness inside that rarely gets activated at that deep spiritual level unless it is in a church space I feel safe in and the music is not from a short list of acceptable Protestant composers, arrangers, or songwriters. I was an Episcopalian for a few years before I decided they were not liberal enough, theologically or politically, and moved further left to Unitarian Universalism. That does not mean I do not love still the churches and services. At the time, my heart and mind wrestled weekly with the Nicene Creed in the service. There is something to worshipping body and spirit, however.
One thing I will say is that the outpouring emotion during Kumbaya was not about my grief, truly a first in recent memory. Of course the service was Black Lives Matters, but any sadness in recent memory would automatically tap grief. This was not about my fears and anxieties. The outpouring of emotion was not about me at all, but tapped into that dark place of despair and losing one's way. I have been there, but I am on the other side now. The community holding the lament, and the sense of the community's faith was strong, based on way too much experience, and tradition. The community carries the broken until they can move forward. That is something that is missing in so many white churches. They want to skip the pain, the lament, to happy, or at least numb.
The rest of the service was amazing. We invoked the ancestors. The Episcopal Chorale was beautifully directed. There was a lot of music, contemplative, mournful and uplifting, covering different styles of the diaspora. We remembered the lives stolen. What upset me was except for a few, Travon, Tamir, Freddy Gray, Sandra Bland, the Charlston Nine, I cannot keep track of the names, or the circumstances of so many dead. There are too.many.dead. This is a lament. No one person can keep track of so many names.
The collection plate was taken for the families of the man and woman, Marquintin Shandlin and Kisha Michael, who were shot dead by police just a few weeks ago right there in Inglewood. The couple was asleep or unconscious in the car. The policeman felt threatened. Between the two single parents out on a date, they left seven children. The church generously matched the collection.
The world is broken. For just a little while, in a loving strong cohesive faith community, can one feel whole again. Hopefully, those in pain will find some comfort. Perhaps there are those of us who found respite before we go back out with the foolishness we prayed for to think we can make a difference.
Image credit Brooke Anderson/KQED
I got it. I finally got it, and I had not yet written to help others understand. It is now time.
Black Lives Matter was important to me from the beginning. The city of Pasadena has our own young black man, shot dead by police, reports delayed and heavily redacted, and no indictment. He has a name: Kendric McDade. I went to a vigil for him after #BlackLivesMatter was established, and he was mourned in the context of men and women across the country being killed by police. I mourned with fellow citizens and members at the First AME church when nine people were murdered in cold blood in Charleston, South Carolina. The examples above, plus black person, after black person, after black person dying at the hands, or guns, of those sworn to “protect and serve” cemented my support for #BlackLivesMatter. To put myself in context, I walk the border, la frontera, between white and black as a queer multicultural, or mestizaje, Unitarian Universalist graduate of a Methodist seminary who believes showing up is an important part of ministry, and for those who do not show up, educating. So at this point in a blog, a typical progressive could write something like “I support them, but…,” or, “I supported them, but they…” Mine is more like, “I support you. Oh! (Face palm!) Of course!” With about a year between “you.” and “Oh!”
As for the tactics #BlackLivesMatter employ, I admire the courage it takes to shut down business as usual. This country’s citizenry is entirely too comfortable to have compassion for the true suffering of others, unless it directly affects their social circle. It is not until the pursuit of the dollar or the spending of that dollar gets interrupted that the bubble of comfortable ignorance is burst. Oh, and interrupting their driving will get most of their attention. Brilliant move.
Fellow liberals complained that emergency vehicles could not get through when roads were blocked. Although this was was untrue, fair weather liberals said they could not support #BlackLivesMatter as a consequence. People dying in the streets had their lives interrupted. Permanently. The families and friends of those victims had their lives interrupted by profound grief. Then the families had their lives interrupted by something utterly unfathomable when the justice system failed them not only by not indicting the perpetrator, but by blaming their loved one for their own death. Will not interrupting your ride cause you stop, think, have any kind of empathy or compassion?
The interruptions of Bernie Sanders’ campaign speeches were another tactic that even more older white liberals used to stop supporting #BlackLivesMatter. Yet, there was progress, too. Conversations began. The establishment opened a tiny bit to listen. Supportive liberal white people who continued started conversations with their friends, their families, their churches. Places of worship who supported all along became more overt by putting out signs. The women #who started #BlackLivesMatter started a chapter program so that there would be a unified voice, and those with other agendas would be less able to hijack local groups.
My only question was why #BlackLivesMatter did not work more with the leaders from the civil rights era. As I am not a black person, I cannot, nor will not presume to know better. Occasionally, I’d been dropping in on a Saturday workshop held at a church in Los Angeles on nonviolent resistance, with examples coming from from the Civil Rights Era. The tactics were adapted from Ghandi in India. It all sounded good. The bus boycott and the lunch counters were issues chosen by women, and worked on equally, we attendees were told. The workshop facilitator did not think #BlackLivesMatter would work because of the tactics, and that the appeal is not broad enough, that is to young and old alike, which is code for respectability politics. Yet the tactics chosen in the late fifties and early sixties were radical enough to shake the status quo, in that context.
To the North, Neighborhood UU Church in Pasadena, strengthens its commitment to racial equity with numerous events and meetings. At a film and panel held there, I was fortunate to see one of the founding members of #BlackLivesMatters, Ms. Patrisse Cullors on a panel. Without asking, my question was answered. Respectability politics. Again. I get respectability politics: the elders know from experience that the oppressed must approach those in power in an approved way in order not to offend them. Tone policing goes with that, modulating one’s voices as not to frighten or offend the one in power. I could understand why Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were refused when they swooped in to Ferguson. Sometimes one just does not need that kind of help. I had read certain words over and over related to #BlackLivesMatter. Once I heard the words: women, queer, Trans, agenda, from Ms. Cullors mouth in the context of being held back from talking in Church did I understand. I was gobsmacked! Of course! These are women leading. There are queer and Trans women leading. These women are about far from what the church civil rights leaders can handle.
Black Lives Matter is radically inclusive. I kept hearing Trans and queer but it did not register deeply until I, in my inner vision, saw the women of Black Lives Matter asking to speak, and being barred from talking in church about people dying in the streets because of their “queer agenda.” My heart hurt every time I learned yet another Trans woman was murdered this past year. Black Trans women, although a tiny minority, are the most vulnerable of black adults. Queer black women are not far behind. Black Lives Matter is based on the profound truth that all black lives matter, even queer and Trans black women, because they are the marginalized of the marginalized.
The older generation of Civil Rights and/or leaders still reduce the embodiment of the radical love of Christ to an “agenda.” In the wake of yet another Martin Luther King Jr. day the straight church civil rights leaders are being left behind in that journey towards restoring equity, civil rights, and sometimes basic human dignity to all those who are marginalized in this country.
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