going out on a limb...

Time to go out on a limb: not ever person of faith is called to be a public activist - especially not as we current understand activism in liberal circles. Back in December, I was fortified and encouraged when Fr. Richard Rohr posted this confession:

I don’t think most people feel called to activism; I myself don’t. It was initially humiliating to admit this, and I lost the trust and admiration of some friends and supporters. Yet as we come to know our own soul gift more clearly, we almost always have to let go of certain “gifts” so we can do our one or two things well and with integrity. I believe that if we can do one or two things wholeheartedly in our life, that is all God expects. The important thing is that we all should be doing something for the rest of the world! We have to pay back, particularly those of us born into privilege and comfort.

Clearly some of us are not only called into social action that transforms an unjust status quo, but also blessed with the charism to do so. Reading this morning's NY Times OP ED on Mrs. Rosa Parks highlights her unique and abiding commitment to taking on injustice with all her heart and soul. (Take a few minutes here https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/opinion/rosa-parks.html) I, however, was not given this gift by God. My witness has been quiet and often personal. I have, of course, participated in a variety of social justice actions and movements. I've been a community and boycott organizer, too. Like Diana Butler Bass wrote recently, there's long been a tension between a deep disposition for small acts of tender compassion and solidarity, and, what the Spirit is saying to the Body of Christ in culture, art, and politics. She writes:

This month, I’ve been thinking a lot about silence — and longing for it. Perhaps because of the January 6 madness, the screaming of the rioters, the QAnon lies. But partly because of the breathless, continuous outrage on social media and in the news. There’s a continual demand to take sides, speak out, prove one isn’t “complicit” with whatever structural injustice has become viral on any given day. Yet, when I long for silence, two familiar quotes come to mind, both by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” And others as well remind me that speaking out is a necessary part of the work of justice: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” — Elie Wiesel. “Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.” — Thurgood Marshall

It has been my experience over nearly 40 years that the liberal/progressive cadre of the American church often confuses silence and contemplation for acquiescence - or collaboration. Shame has become a foundational resource for enlisting participation and patience can be in short supply. "Calling out" another is normative and considered exemplary behavior in the quest for accountability. (Please see YES Magazine

https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2017/10/19/6-signs-your-callout-isnt-actually-about-accountability/ ) Dr. Bass and Fr. Rohr both suggest that perpetual motion activism and a rush to judgment is NOT always what the hour requires. In the same column, "Words That Matter," Bass continues

Right now, our public culture is marked by a sense that every single thing is a world-historical crisis to the nth degree. We are living in a time with multiple, demanding crises — climate change, economic inequality, the structural injustice of hierarchies of race and gender, and the challenges of technological society and globalization. Few generations of human beings have had to face such a set of interlocking challenges, and these difficult times demand insistent, passionate, and clear voices — those who point to the problems and offer possible solutions. But understanding these problems and leading toward solutions isn’t about viral tweets, jumping on the cause of the day, or public shaming of those who resist the latest bandwagon. The things that matter are often a matter of discernment, research, creativity, empathy, and innovation — the things that matter aren’t always entirely visible, and the things that matter are something just beyond what is immediately obvious. We sometimes think we know what matters only to learn later that we were wrong. (read more @ https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/words-that-matter-and-things-that)

Rohr compliments this writing: "I think there are three basic levels of social ministry, and none is better than the other. I believe all are the movement of the Holy Spirit within us for the sake of others. I like to imagine a river flooding out of control—symbolizing the circumstances and injustices that bring about suffering—overflowing its banks and sweeping those in its path off their feet."

At the first level, we rescue drowning people from the swollen river, dealing with the immediate social problem right in front of us: someone hungry comes to our door and we offer them some food, or invite them inside. These are hands-on, social service ministries, like the familiar soup kitchen or food pantry. Such works will always look rather generous, Christian, charitable, and they tend to be admired, if not always imitated. At the second level, there are ministries that help people not to fall into the swollen river in the first place, or show them how to survive despite falling in. In general, these are the ministries of education and healing. Most of the religious orders in the Catholic Church in the last three hundred years went in that direction, filling the world with schools, hospitals, and social service ministries that empowered people and gave them new visions and possibilities for their lives.

Finally, on the third level, some ministries build and maintain a dam to stop the river from flooding in the first place. This is the work of social activism and advocacy, critique of systems, organizing, speeches, boycotts, protests, and resistance against all forms of systemic injustice and deceit. It is the gift of a few, but a much-needed gift that we only recently began to learn and practice. It seeks systemic change and not just individual conversion. (https://cac.org/participating-in-movements-for-justice-2020-12-04/)

Clearly there are times when as many people as possible must put their bodies on the line and be counted. I think of the protests taking place in Russia right now. Or the masses of women challenging the current restrictions on reproductive rights in Poland. Or the BLM mobilizations this summer. Each and all were designed to name a clearly defined evil and enlist broad public support for well articulated redress. These acts, however, are relatively few and far between and far less often than some would have us believe. Further, as Rohr has written elsewhere, the chosen witness of resistance born of Jesus is much less about confrontation than non-cooperation. In an article from October 2020, he puts it like this:

Jesus does not directly attack the religious and institutional sin systems of his time until his final action against the money changers in the temple (see Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46). Because of this, Jesus’ primary social justice critique and action are often a disappointment to most radicals and social activists. Jesus’ social program, as far as I can see, is a quiet refusal to participate in almost all external power structures or domination systems. His primary action is a very simple lifestyle, which kept him from being constantly co-opted by those very structures, which I (and Paul) would call the “sin system.”

As Fredrick Buechner observed about an individual's calling or vocation - "Our vocation is our deepest gladness meets the world's greatest need." - Rohr adds:

The important thing is that we all should be doing something for the rest of the world! We have to pay back, particularly those of us born into privilege and comfort. We also must respect and support the other two levels, even if we cannot do them. Avoid all comparisons about better or lesser, more committed or less committed; those are all ego games. Let’s just use our different gifts to create a unity in the work of service (Ephesians 4:12–13), and back one another up, without criticism or competition. Only in our peaceful, mutual honoring do we show forth the glory of God.

Bass amplifies this insight. This is a time for wise discernment - not rash over-reaction. The time-tested adage born of the 70's is doubly true right now: "Let us hurry up and DO nothing!" At least until we are grounded - willing and able to listen both to the Spirit and the voices of those all around us who are hurting - and committed to the counter-cultural practice of silence. "Not all silence is the same." Bass writes, "Knowing when to speak, knowing when to hold silence — this is a spiritual practice. And it is wisdom."

Mystics of all religious traditions have known this. So many of history’s greatest activists for justice have also been history’s most profound contemplatives. Silence and justice are not opposing energies, but part of a single fabric of our inner and outer lives. Silence is not quietism. Instead, silence is guide and path toward the world envisioned by our gurus, prophets, and God... the work of transforming the world — comes into being when words that matter and things that matter converge. And, I know from experience, that doesn’t happen without blanketing silence.

You can’t force someone into or out of such a silence. That silence is an enveloping cloud, the hush of the snow storm — it just is. It is like Jesus’s forty days in the desert or his refusal to speak before Pilate; Paul’s three years of contemplation and learning; Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Silence should be welcomed for its generative power, not condemned as a moral failing. America needs to wake up in silence.

Silence. To hear. To see a different landscape. Wait in silence until the snow melts. We need the counter-cultural practice of silence. Perhaps if we keep more silence instead of less, we’ll be able to speak words that matter and understand the things that matter to face the crises that threaten our neighbors and our future. We are in desperate need of the right words about the right things.

https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/words-that-matter-and-things-that?t

This is fundamentally why I am devoting so much time to the "foolishness of God" live streaming series. It is my conviction that when we practice and live into the call to be "sacred clowns for God" we step outside the busyness of even our self isolation. To listen to what is stirring within. To hear the still, small voice of the sacred beyond. And to trust a love greater than ourselves.