"Hope is a discipline." Dr. Rev. Willie Jennings
Today the world watched as there was an insurrection within the United States. I spent a great deal of time being with people who were fearful, anxious, and angry. With so many wonderful seminary resources on which to draw, I found myself using a few ideas repeatedly.
No matter what happens, our work remains the same.
There is a lot we can't control, but we can control our response to things. Do we want to add to the frenetic energy or can we choose to add energy based in love? Can we carry energy that is determined and grounded?
"Hope is a discipline."(Jennings) Choosing our responses, and choosing what energy we contribute to the world are spiritual practices. It takes discipline to practice leaning towards hope and love.
There is strength in being comfortable with uncertainty.
There is strength in community. Systems of oppression thrive when we believe we are alone and powerless.
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1967, of "unregenerate segregationist who have declared that democracy is not worth having if it involves equality." I could not stop thinking about that as I watched people swarm the Capitol. Over Winter Break I read Isabel Wilkerson's Caste. She used the example of swimming pools. When there were attempts to integrate public swimming pools, communities responded by draining the pools so that no one could use them, rather than allow Blacks the opportunity. MLK's words say it best, "[t]he great majority of Americans...are uneasy with injustice but unwilling yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it."
Julie Todd's book, Struggling with (Non)violence
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