Words don't protect pre-existing conditions; laws do
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Millions of people in the United States, myself included, have medical conditions that have been deemed “pre-existing” by insurance companies.
Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, it was entirely legal to deny insurance coverage to those of us with pre-existing conditions.
Since the passage of the ACA, there has been a decade of attempts to overturn it, led primarily by Congressional Republicans and more recently by the current administration, without any real attempt to create an alternative that could protect those of us with pre-existing conditions.
At the same time, it’s become very clear that protecting coverage for pre-existing conditions has become very popular, which has led to the bizarre reality of a certain group of political figures claiming that they care deeply about protecting pre-existing conditions coverage while pursuing policies that do exactly the opposite.
I saw this on full display in the Senate debate here in North Carolina, where incumbent Senator Thom Tillis waxed eloquent about healthcare after building a political career on denying the expansion of Medicaid and attacking the ACA. NBC recently ran an article about the way other Republican Senators are falsifying or misrepresenting their positions on pre-existing conditions on the campaign trail. The President was challenged on this very topic by both a voter and the moderator at an ABC News Town Hall. He’s sought to obscure the issue by issuing an executive order about pre-existing conditions, but the order basically recommends that someone, anyone, figure out the issue (which, to be clear, hasn’t been figured out in a decade of attacks on the ACA) and of course does not have the force of a law.
Words — in a book or in an executive order — don’t protect pre-existing conditions. Laws do.
But here’s the thing: Words don’t protect pre-existing conditions. Laws do.
Obfuscating words on a campaign trail don’t do it. Vague words in an executive order don’t do it. Interrupting words spoken over voter concerns at a town hall don’t do it. Passionate words in my book about the topic don’t do it. Laws do.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans just voted to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, with no Democrats voting in favor, in a rushed process that took place while millions of Americans have already voted. One of the first cases she will hear will be a case to overturn the ACA and its protection of pre-existing conditions, a case that the current administration has been fully supportive of. As NPR reports, if the Court overturns the ACA, “protecting preexisting conditions could be harder than it sounds.”
In Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition, I wrote this:
“When I hear reports about threats to these protections, the fear and anxiety I felt when I first tread that letter from the insurance company come rushing back. It makes me scared. And it makes me angry.”
That fear and anger, the tightness in my chest I’ve carried around with me for years, is back in full force right now.
And I’ll be honest: words won’t soothe that anxiety.
Laws will.
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If you haven’t already, make your plan to vote and then go do it. If you need some helpful guidelines for how to vote for mental health, you can check out a free excerpt from Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition. Need help figuring out your voting plan or voting laws in your state? Visit votesaveamerica.com
"Vital Vocation, Promised Presence, Real Rest" -- A Sermon for First Pres of Wilson
I was honored to guest preach this morning at First Presbyterian Church here in Wilson, NC. The text was a story of Moses from Exodus 33, and I was struck by God’s promise to Moses: that God would be with him and give him rest. Thanks to the author of Matthew’s Gospel, Parker Palmer (as usual), and the Rev. Ellen Jennings for lending their words to this message as well.
Here’s a video of this morning’s worship; the message begins around minute 14:00; and I’ve shared the written sermon below as well:
“Tired.”
That’s the most common response I get these days when I ask our students at Barton College how they’re doing. It’s replaced more traditional answers such as “Fine” and “Good,” answers that perhaps we are used to hearing and giving, especially when we suspect that the question, “How you doing?” is being asked more as a form of greeting than as an honest, searching inquiry into the state of another’s well-being.
“Tired.” Our students our tired. And honestly, while our faculty and staff might be a bit more trained at covering it up – a few more “Fine”s and “Good”s and “Blessed”s from them – we’re tired, too. You may already know this, but Barton has been in person this semester, and in an attempt to shorten the semester and avoid the COVID-19 exposure risks of long weekend holidays, we haven’t taken any of our usual breaks from classes or workdays. No Labor Day holiday, no fall break, nothing like that. We’re pushing straight through this semester, so it is understandable that people are feeling tired.
I think there are different types of tired. There’s that tired you feel when you didn’t get much sleep the night before. There’s that good kind of tired after a hard day of work, well done. There’s that tired when you haven’t taken a break or a vacation and so you’ve just been pushing through. There’s that kind of tired you are feeling when you say something like, “Man, I’m tired of this,” or, “Man, I’m tired of you.” There’s the tired my wife Leigh and I felt on Thursday after we’d stood in line for several hours to vote, weary but excited and grateful for the opportunity to make sure our voice, and the prophetic voice of the Church which should always speak up for the care and protection of the most vulnerable among us, was heard in the public sphere. There’s the tired I understand we are about to feel when a new little member of our family joins us in a few weeks, and the needs and sounds and schedule of a newborn become our life. There’s a lot of different ways to feel tired.
The global and national realities in which we live bring about their own forms of fatigue. I, for one, am a bit tired of Zoom meetings – in fact, there’s been some research into some of the reasons why remote meetings drain us in a different way than in-person meetings. There’s the tiredness brought about by anxiety over health and well-being in the midst of a pandemic. Some people are tired of political ads on their TV. Others are worn out from the work they’re doing to try to make the country a more just and equitable place for everyone to live. Crisis after crisis – pandemic crisis, healthcare crisis, climate crisis, racial justice crisis – can wear us down and lead to a condition called “compassion fatigue.” There’s a lot of different ways to feel tired.
And if there’s a lot of different ways to feel tired, it stands to reason that there are a lot of different ways to feel rested, as well. There’s the kind of rest we feel after a good night’s sleep. The kind of rest when we take a vacation and turn off our computer or our phone. The kind of rest when a stressful situation or crisis has been resolved. The kind of rest when we are able to spend quality time with the ones we love. The rest we feel when a newborn infant falls asleep in our arms. The kind of rest we might feel when an important project has been completed to our satisfaction. And if the realities of this present moment give us plenty to feel tired about, it becomes so important to make sure we are getting good rest.
I say all of this because when we turn to our scriptures today, in search of good news, in search of the promises of God, we hear God speaking to Moses. “My presence will go with you,” God tells Moses, “and I will give you rest.” God speaks words of promise, not only to Moses, but to God’s people – a promise of rest.
When I read God’s words in this passage from Exodus, I am reminded of words spoken in a different scripture – the 11th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, in which Jesus says to the gathered crowd: “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” It is no surprise that Matthew’s Jesus echoes so closely these words from Exodus – the author of Matthew’s Gospel very intentionally narrates Jesus’s life and ministry as a reflection and reinforcement of Moses’s prophetic example. The gospel of Matthew is a new Exodus; Jesus, a new Moses; the Sermon on the Mount, a new law being given from Mount Sinai.
In both Exodus and Matthew, we hear a divine promise – the divine promise of rest. And in both of these scriptures, we as people of faith are given a hint to what divine rest is like. And it appears to be something a bit more, a bit deeper, than just getting some sleep. Don’t hear me wrong. I think God’s all about us getting enough sleep. In fact, in a different Bible story, the story of the prophet Elijah, God makes Elijah take a nap on not one but two different occasions. And of course there’s Jesus who, much to the disciples chagrin, is fast asleep in a fishing boat while they’re all panicking because of a major storm. So I’m pro-nap, and I think Jesus is, too. But in today’s reading from Exodus, and in the resonating words of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew, rest is about more than sleep.
In Exodus, we see Moses, showing characteristic chutzpah, arguing his terms with God. Moses says, “Look, God, you’ve given me a pretty hard task to do, here. So who’s going to help me? It’s not exactly a one-person job.”
And God says, “Me. I will help you. My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
But that’s not quite enough assurance for Moses. Because Moses says, “Ok, but if you’re not going to show up for us, don’t send us out there at all. You say you want to favor us and bless us, God, but don’t go making promises you can’t keep. You’ve really got to be there for us.”
Again, the chutzpah! But God doesn’t rebuke Moses for this, doesn’t say he lacks faith or should just be content with the first time God promises presence and rest. Moses keeps asking, and God really does show up – but not before God explains that Moses will not be harmed in this exchange, that he will be safe, that God will show up in a way that accommodates for the limits and the weaknesses of the human condition before the Divine Maker of the Entire Cosmos.
So in the story from Exodus, rest is the result of God’s presence with God’s people, in all their limits and flaws, their demands and uncertainties. Rest is brought about by God’s fundamental solidarity with the human condition. And, rest is a promise that comes along the way of doing the very thing God has called us to do. Rest, here, isn’t the avoidance of a task – rather, it’s the sure knowledge of God’s presence with us in the work that God gives for us to do. Our vital vocation plus God’s promised presence creates real rest.
I hear a similar dynamic between vital vocation, promised presence, and real rest in Jesus’s words to the crowds in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus promises rest to the weary and the heavy burdened, yes; but his promise of rest comes hand in hand with a promise about work. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest,” Jesus says. And then goes on: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” A yoke, of course, is the crosspiece that allows multiple draft animals to pull a wagon or a plow – it’s something that allows heavier burdens to be lifted and moved than otherwise would be, by sharing the load. If you come to Jesus, you can set your burdens down, but there’s also going to be some burdens to carry – each others’, in fact. But Jesus promises that his gentle and humble heart is with us in this work, that he is carrying these burdens with us, that the work we are about as disciples of Christ (don’t worry, I mean the term generically, I’m not trying to convert you Presbyterians) is good work, well shared, carried together. We have a calling as Christians, a vocation, and that vital vocation, in the promised presence of Christ whom we call Immanuel, God With Us, grants real and genuine rest.
When we discern who God has made us to be and the work God has called us to be about in the world; and when we can lean into the promises of God, even, in the way of Moses, hold God accountable to those promises of presence and solidarity; then we experience assurance, restoration, and peace. Vital vocation. Promised presence. Real rest.
These two stories remind me of words written by my favorite author, the Quaker educator and advocate Parker Palmer. Palmer writes about that particular kind of exhaustion that we call “burnout,” and says this: “One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess — the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have: it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.” Palmer goes on to say, “When the gift I give to the other is integral to my own nature, when it comes from a place of organic reality within me, it will renew itself — and me — even as I give it away. Only when I give something that does not grow within me do I deplete myself and harm the other as well, for only harm can come from a gift that is forced, inorganic, unreal.”
What Palmer is saying is that there is a difference between being tired, or even being overworked, and being burned out. If we have worked too much, or have not gotten enough sleep, then the solutions present themselves clearly: we need to take a break, get good sleep, rest and rejuvenate in the obvious sense of the terms. But, if we have been trying to do work that is not ours to do; if we have been violating the divine image in which we have been created and the vocation to which we have been called; or, if the very nature of our work or the societal expectations around work deny the possibility and the importance of rest and rejuvenation, something, by the way, that is all too common in a society that values people not by the reflection of the divine image in them but rather by their ability to work, to produce, to prosper financially; then we find ourselves trying to give water out of a well that not only has run dry but was never full to begin with. To find balance between rest and work means discerning what work is ours to begin with, the kind of work – the kind of calling – in which we are met by the very God who makes us and calls us and sends us.
Vital vocation – the work to which we have been called. Promised presence – God with us, expressing a fundamental solidarity with the human condition. Real rest – not only catching up on sleep, but knowing that we are giving out of the abundance of the gifts we have been given. Vital vocation. Promised presence. Real rest.
But how? How to discern what the work is that we are to be about in the world? Not all of us get direct messages from God like Moses does, or even messages thrown over God’s shoulder at us as God passes, making sure we aren’t burned up by God’s face. The task of discernment is, in and of itself, one of the ways that work, presence, and rest go together, hand in hand. When we pause for prayer;
when we silence our phones and silence our racing thoughts
in order to quiet down and hear the whispers of God’s voice;
when we reflect on our day and on our life in the presence of God-with-us;
we are practicing the very thing for which we are searching,
walking the way of Christian vocation.
And so my words to you today end, not with a grand flourish, not with the thundering voice of a preacher talking about a God who can burn our faces right off if we look too closely, but rather, in quiet and rest. I end with a prayer that the Rev. Ellen Jennings, the pastor of the church Leigh and I were members of when we lived in Washington, DC, used to pray with us every Sunday. It’s a prayer that gives us time to pause; to reflect; to listen to that voice of vital vocation, promised presence, and real rest.
I now invite you into a time of silent reflection. Remember, when we take time for worship, we heed God’s call and honor our need for Sabbath and rest. When we enter into silence, we attune our hearts and open our minds to a Presence greater than our own. As you begin this short period of meditation, please bring your full self to this present moment: set aside any distractions, lay down your burdens, and take a deep, life-giving breath… God is with you.
This is your time to reflect upon the week that has passed. (pause)
What are the joys you have celebrated? (pause)
And what concerns have you endured? (pause)
Are there things you have done that you should not have done? (pause)
—or things you have left undone that you should have done? (pause)
As you look forward to the week ahead, what help will you need from God or neighbor? (pause)
And what can you do to nurture love of God and love of neighbor in the world? (pause)
Source of Life, for the joys we have celebrated, we give You thanks. God of Compassion, for the concerns we have endured, please tend our hearts. Spirit of Justice, for those things we have mis-done, transform us with Your love. Companion God, as we look forward to the week ahead, be ever present with us. And, Great Lover of All, as we seek to nurture love of God and neighbor in the world, guide our actions and our prayers. Amen.
Tragedy, Vocation, and the Common Good: A Pastoral Message to Barton College on 9/11:
"I cannot help but wonder: how will this moment of tragedy and loss shape all of our senses of vocation and call?
Particularly, how many of you, our current students, will look back on this time and say: ‘
It was hard, and painful, and it also inspired me to work for the common good.'"
Dear Barton College Community,
On this day, 19 years after the horrific events of September 11, 2001, I join with many of you and many around the nation in pausing to reflect.
I have vivid memories of that day. A junior in high school at the time, a child of a military family, living in an area where many families had connections of employment or history with the Pentagon in D.C. and with nearby Fort Meade, I remember the fear and uncertainty, the strangeness of blue skies empty of airplanes, and a budding sense that the world was not exactly what I had thought it was just 24 hours before.
Many of you have your own memories of that day, and your own ways that it impacted you. For first responders, the day holds special significance. For members of our military, including currently serving troops who may not have even been alive in 2001 but nevertheless are deployed as a direct result of the events, different types of memories may arise. For many of my Muslim colleagues and friends, an entirely different set of associations can be brought up by remembrances of that day. For longtime residents of New York City and Washington, D.C., and for friends and family members of those who died, a personal sense of grief and loss can flow into the communal stream of tears. For so many of us, the memories and associations we have with 9/11 are part of who we are and where we are coming from.
Of course, many of you do not have memories of that day -- some of you, our current students, were not yet alive. Nevertheless, as we live through another moment of national tragedy and pain, I think it is worth pausing to reflect -- to reflect on this moment, and to reflect on the way that, in the midst of pain and tragedy, there is nevertheless an invitation to new ways of seeing and knowing.
Recently, I attended a conference on the teaching of vocation -- a sense of purpose, meaning, or higher calling. An interfaith panel of speakers, ranging in age from slightly younger than me to nearly twice my age, spoke on the reason they had first gotten involved in interfaith dialogue and community building. Every single one of them mentioned the events of September 11, 2001, as one catalyst for their involvement in the work of building communities that could be stronger, more compassionate, and more accepting of human difference. A moment of violence and pain had become, for them, the motivation behind their work of peace and healing.
I resonated deeply with the panelists: my vocational journey, too, was impacted by that day, as I left for college soon after to focus on international studies with concentrations in the Middle East and peacebuilding, and then worked for my church for a year and a half in Jerusalem and then a year and a half doing human rights advocacy in Washington, D.C. For myself and many others, a day of pain and fear became a commitment to working toward a better world.
Today, worldwide deaths from the coronavirus have surpassed 900,000, with the figure in the U.S. steadily approaching 200,000. I cannot help but wonder: how will this moment of tragedy and loss shape all of our senses of vocation and call? Particularly, how many of you, our current students, will look back on this time and say: "It was hard, and painful, and it also inspired me to work for the common good."
Moments of national and international tragedy, even of violence, create a choice: do we succumb to the forces of fear and pain, of vengeance and death? Or do we choose a better way, a way of peace, of justice, and of a commitment to the common good?
We have been faced with such choices before. We are faced with such choices now. My prayer, for all of us, is that our choices, together, can make for a more healthy and beautiful world.
Light and Life,
Chaplain David
A Brief Post for World Suicide Prevention Day
I shared this yesterday on various social media accounts to honor World Suicide Prevention Day, and thought I would share it here as well. NOTE: This post is about suicide and self-harm.
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Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. As a survivor, I want you to know that you are not alone and that help is available. I keep a list of resources and helplines available on my website, including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255). Please know this: we need you. We need your story.
Here's a brief excerpt from Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition to mark this day:
"A palimpsest is a parchment that has layers of writing on it. The older layers have been erased to make room for new writing, but the erasure is never quite complete. Evidence of the old writing remains. My tattoo ends with a semicolon, a reference to Project Semicolon, whose founder, Amy Bleul, claimed as a symbol of a sentence that could have ended but continued. The semicolon represents a story that is not over. My arm is a palimpsest. When I look at it, I read the grace and the enough-ness before I encounter the old scars."
Re-post: Charlottesville, Supremacy, and What's in Our Eyes
Three years ago, Leigh and I drove to Charlottesville in response to call for volunteers from Congregate Charlottesville. Leigh wrote an account of the day on her blog; a few days later, a wrote some thoughts down on my old blog, in a post called “Charlottesville, Supremacy, and What’s in Our Eyes.” Here is a re-post of that reflection:
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"The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" -- Jesus, in Matthew 6:22-23
"Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while the log is in your eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."
-- Jesus, in Matthew 7:3-5
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Saturday, August 12
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I recognize their eyes.
I don't have many details about what happened, at least not yet. A car has driven into a crowd of counter-protestors, we assume deliberately, murderously. Now, people are stumbling into the church where we are volunteering, being helped into the medic station or further along the hallway where mental health and trauma specialists are waiting, only to be quickly overwhelmed by the need.
Later, I will see the video, recognize some of the people we talked to, handed water to, gave rides to, tried in some small way to help.
But at this point, I don't know how close they were to the attack, what exactly they saw.
I don't really need to know, though.
I recognize their eyes.
I don't make the connection consciously, not in the moment. But I've seen eyes like that before. In faces covered in the dust of homes destroyed by an occupying military. Or staring blankly at the halls of the psych ward, concealing brains that, for some reason, have decided to turn against themselves.
I think I've probably had those eyes, before. Its hard to know. There's not usually a mirror on hand, and those eyes aren't much interested in checking in on themselves, anyway.
Those eyes have seen something they shouldn't have had to. Those eyes are not seeing the world as an integrated picture, but as a series of fragments, fragments with sharp edges that can cut you if you're not careful, and often even if you are.
Those eyes are what fresh trauma looks like when its reflected in our ocular system.
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Today
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"The eye is the lamp of the body," Jesus says. The way you see the world illuminates or distorts your bodily reality. The white nationals and fascists and literal Nazis who marched through the streets of Charlottesville, I have to believe, have a distorted view of reality, an angry and fearful view clouded by hatred and tinted with lenses of violence. I looked into some of their eyes on Saturday, and was terrified by what I saw. Not surprised. But terrified. I've seen those eyes before, too. The light in them is darkness.
But I'm not thinking about their eyes right now. I'm thinking about the eyes of the people who limped or jogged into the church. I'm wondering what this attack does to their vision of the world. I'm wondering how we care, not just for people's bodies, but for the lamps of their bodies, and for the souls those lamps seek to illuminate.
How do we care for people who have looked through the fragments of a reality that seems whole, have seen beyond it, to something terrifying, and broken, and hurtful.
There are communities, whole communities, whole generations of communities, who have been staring through those violent fragments for a long, long, time. Look close enough, and their eyes tell the story. Their bodies tell the story. Their bodies reflect the reality they have seen through the shards.
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Saturday, August 12
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Leigh and I are driving a chaplain to UVA Hospital to care for people being brought in with physical injuries and psychic trauma. On one corner, a group of white nationalists have gathered. Many have their shirts off so that we can see their swastika tattoos. They are armed with guns and clubs. They are chanting, "White Power! White Power! White Power!"
We are at a stop sign, and I cannot avoid making eye contact with them. In a moment of complete surreality, one of them stares at us, then turns to the street, looks both ways, and waves us out into the intersection, as if to say, "It's safe. Go ahead."
It is not safe to be here, not even close to safe, but of course we are white, and our skin disguises our reason for being there. We drive past the group as they continue waving their flags -- Nazi flags and Confederate flags and American flags, all together. I cannot avert my eyes.
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Today
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I've been thinking a lot this week about eyes. About those eyes. And about specks and logs in eyes. To be clear, I don't think white nationalism is a "speck" -- it's a hell of a lot more serious than that. We saw a lot of swastikas and a lot of guns and heard a lot of chants of "White Power" on Saturday, and we weren't even in the thick of things. If that's a speck, it's a doozy of a goddamned speck. I use the profanity advisedly and not, I think, in vain.
But it's easy for me to condemn white nationalism. Not easy for people to put their bodies on the line to resist them, but easy to condemn with my keyboard, here in the nice air conditioned student center next to my apartment at Georgetown. Easy to say, "Nazis are bad."
Harder to look at the white supremacist log in my own eye. Harder to see the ways I benefit from systems that advantage folks with my skin color, or with my gender identity, or with my religious beliefs, over other folks. Harder to look in the face unflinchingly at the way this country was built for me and people like me, on the backs and over the spilled blood of black people and brown people.
I shared this on Facebook already, but I'll share it again here: one role I have at Georgetown is facilitating bystander intervention trainings. During those trainings we do an activity where students collectively arrange different types of behaviors on a spectrum, from "Low Visibility (i.e. tends not to make the news)/High Occurrence" to "High Visibility/Low Occurrence." The activity gets us thinking and talking about the ways that behaviors that are easy to ignore can create the context for more overt interpersonal violence. Positive bystander intervention means not only waiting until the more overt, high visibility end of the spectrum to intervene, but thinking critically about what intervention looks like at the low visibility end of the spectrum.
This graphic communicates a similar idea re: white supremacy. It's not perfect -- I don't know that "socially acceptable/unacceptable" is exactly the right language, especially since there are plenty of social contexts where, for example, racial slurs are considered socially acceptable. (One of the benefits of the spectrum activity is that students discuss why they put different activities on different parts of the spectrum, which can be very illuminating for the whole group.) But it communicates an important idea that is worthy of your consideration. In Charlottesville, we saw overt, (literally) unmasked white supremacy's dangerous, violent face. But we all participate, albeit often unknowingly, in allowing the less overt contexts -- the silent majority -- that lets the overt stuff continue.
All of which is to say: there are things we white people can do, actions we can take, to remove this white supremacist log from our eye, or at least to whittle it down, piece by piece, speck by speck.
So by all means, let us begin. It's far past time we see clearly.
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Saturday, August 12
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We are driving home. A few minutes ago, we gave two women, one black, one white, a ride to their car. They, too, have come from D.C. together. One of them has her knee wrapped in a thick bandage. Later, in the video footage, we would recognize her screaming, screaming, screaming. But we don't know, then.
Well, we know. But we don't know.
Perhaps we still do not.
I am driving. Leigh is in the passenger seat. She is looking out the window, but her question is directed to me.
"Where do you think Jesus would have been today?"
I keep my eyes on the road, rapidly blinking tears out of my eyes.
"I don't know," I say. "I don't know."
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Today
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I still don't know, not really. Somewhere surprising, I suspect. But I do have some suspicions about where Christ was that day.
The Body of Christ was there in the clergy who sang as they held the line, against tear gas and pepper spray and clubs and hurled insults and death threats.
The Body of Christ was in the churches who opened their doors to those who needed water and medical assistance and a space that was safe, whether they were white or black or brown or Christians or Jews or Muslims or atheist anarchists who would never step into a church on a Sunday.
And the Body of Christ is in the bodies behind those eyes. I believe that with all of my being. I believe that because I've read a story in my Bible in which Jesus asks why God has abandoned him, and those eyes, whether or not the mouths beneath them are familiar with words about God, are asking that same traumatized question.
It has been strange, this week, trying to put the finishing touches on my book about mental illness when my eyes and my body and my heart have wanted to be in Charlottesville. "Why am I writing about this right now?," I've muttered to myself, several times.
But I've kept writing, because the book at its core isn't about mental illness, not really. Here's a quick excerpt from the introduction:
This book emerges from my journey with mental health struggles, but, ultimately, vulnerability is what this book is about. Sharing my story is an exercise in vulnerability. Just as importantly, the images, reflections, and fragments of thoughts about God and faith and ministry that have stumbled their way out of the labyrinth of my personal story are tied together, not by a particular diagnosis, but by the theme of vulnerability. What my story reveals, if it reveals anything at all, are hints of a more vulnerable understanding of God and faith than much of what has been common in the mainstream Christian discourse of our present age. When I look at the Christian story, I see at its center a vulnerable God, a God in tension with the ways we have classically described the divine, a God far too susceptible to suffering and surprise to fit too comfortably into the clothing of omniscience, omnipotence, or omnibenevolence. The God whom I have met along my journey with mental illness, disguised often in a stranger’s face, a community’s embrace, or the long and lonely darkness of a sleepless night, is a God whose vulnerability creates the conditions for solidarity with those struggling, hurting, and wondering why.
That God, I could add, is the one disguised behind those eyes that stare through the fragments of trauma.
And that God, present in weakness and hurt, is the opposite of the God of supremacy--white supremacy or male supremacy or Christian supremacy or supremacy of any other sort you can muster.
That God has no desire to restore some imaginary greatness to our nation or any nation. That God has no interest in such "greatness," because it always has and always will manifest itself in violence to those deemed not-great.
Those eyes. Those eyes have seen what that "greatness" really looks like.
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Saturday, August 12
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We are in the church, after the attack on Water Street.
Someone yells, "He's got a gun!"
People begin to panic.
I try not to bolt, try to remain calm, but move with the crowd. Leigh keeps her cool behind me. For a terrifying moment we are separated. I think to myself, "I can't believe I left her behind."
I look around at the frightened people around me as one of the mental health volunteers speaks in a steady but loud voice: "I need everyone to stay calm. I'm going to need everyone to take a breath and calm down."
I look around, and I look into the eyes around me, and I see the fear I am feeling reflected in their eyes.
In those eyes.
The church is on lockdown, but the immediate aggressor has left. I work my way back to Leigh, feeling nothing but shame. She hugs me and whispers, "Non-anxious presence."
Where is Jesus, right now?
In the Spirit, who is breath. In hands that offer healing. And hidden behind those eyes.
---
"We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." -- John 1:1-3
A Few Recent Podcast Conversations
Looking for some new podcast suggestions?
A little while back, I had the blessing of being a part of a sacred conversation about mental health, faith, and paying attention with the Rev. Rob Lee, the Rev. Tuhina Rasche, and actor and activist Chase Masterson, on Rob’s Beloved Journal podcast. I was grateful to be a part of this and grateful now to be able to share it with you! You can listen in by clicking here, I hope it’s as much of a gift for you as it was for me!
I also realized I hadn’t shared this conversation I had with Mason Mennenga on A People’s Theology, which also includes music and an interview with the band Tigerwine.
And Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition got a brief shoutout on a recent “reading list” episode of the What the Hell is a Pastor? podcast.
Have a listen!
My Interview with Rev. Angela Whitenhill-Shields, Mental Health Initiative Manager for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
I had the cool opportunity to interview the Rev. Angela Whitenhill-Shields, who serves at the Mental Health Initiative Manager for the National Benevolent Association, the health and social services ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). This was a ‘keynote’ for the summer youth programming of Camp Caroline, which of course had to be moved online this summer because of the coronavirus. The youth submitted some truly insightful questions for Rev. Whitenhill, and this was a fun and meaningful conversation I was grateful to be a part of. Take a look!
Masks, Care, and Courage
A few years ago, I spent 6 months as a Chaplain Intern at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Clinical Center is a unique place — every patient there is participating in a research protocol. Often, they have either a very rare condition or a disease that has been resistant to treatments, and so they’ve made the voluntary (and courageous) decision to be a part of an experimental treatment with the hope that their participation will lead to a healthcare breakthrough. Some vital treatments have emerged from the research at NIH, including the use of lithium to treat bipolar depression, a breakthrough in mental healthcare to which I have a particular and personal relationship.
At the NIH Clinical Center, Winter 2018
Nobody at the Clinical Center is there for something “routine.” They are often far away from home, and our role as the Department of Spiritual Care was to be part of the holistic care NIH provides, visiting patients, lending a listening ear, giving people space to process their experiences, and seeing if they had particular religious needs that we could either provide directly or facilitate their connection and continuation.
One of the floors I was assigned at NIH was dedicated primarily to stem cell transplants. Folks getting stem cell transplants had to be in the hospital for a loooooong time — 100 days — while their immune systems basically rebooted completely, and while the doctors and nurses tried to keep their immune systems from rejecting the new stem cells. (Please understand as you read this that I’m trained in theology and spiritual care, not in medical research, so please forgive my inaccuracies in language here).
All of which meant that, in order to sit with folks, talk to them, and literally meet them where they were — often in rooms with closed doors marked with contact isolation signs — I had to adopt some practices that are not usually part of my pastoral care routine in my more ‘usual’ role as as a campus minister and college chaplain: hand washing and sanitizing before and after entering each room, donning a thin yellow gown and gloves, and, often, putting on a mask.
We masked up before going into rooms, not to protect ourselves — the patients I was visiting did not usually have any kind of contagious condition — but, of course, to protect the patients I was assigned to care for, whose immune systems were severely compromised by the experimental procedures in which they were participating. We wore masks to prevent us from passing germs to a patient, germs which might not have much of an impact on me but could have major health impacts on our immunocompromised guests.
Wearing a mask, in addition to being a requirement, was also an expression of care. It was one part of an integrated approach to caring for the whole-selves of people who had made the difficult decision to leave homes and families to come to NIH. They had made sacrifices in order to be a part of efforts to increase medical understanding and find new, lifesaving treatments.
Wearing a mask was an adjustment for me. It felt alien. It felt difficult. It made me worry that I wouldn’t be able to connect as well with the folks I was visiting, that they wouldn’t be able to read my facial expressions, that it created a barrier between us.
I didn’t like wearing a mask.
And of course, I did. I did because it was required, yes, but also because it was the caring thing to do, the loving thing to do, the thing that, though it felt like a barrier, was actually what facilitated the ability to meet the people whose well-being was entrusted to us exactly where they were. In this way, the mask and gown were “good boundaries,” rather than barriers, allowing beneficial connection and preventing harmful interaction.
I’ve been thinking about this experience of mask-wearing recently, in the midst of this pandemic and the politicization of mask-wearing in our country. (I thought this overview at Five Thirty Eight was helpful in cutting through some of this oddly polarized debate, and reminding us what we do and do not know about the efficacy of simple cloth face masks). And I’ve been trying to remember a few things:
While wearing a mask became routine while I was at NIH, for me it was a break from the norm. Especially at first, if felt weird, alien, and constricting.
Because I had to wear a mask, gown, and glove, those things were provided to me. They were available outside of every single room in which I would need to don them. If we require things, we need to supply them.
I was given specific training and guidance in how to take the mask and other protective equipment on and off, which may seem basic but in fact taught me many things I hadn’t instinctively known. If we require things, we have to teach them and learn them.
I wore a mask both because it was required for my job and also because it was helpfully connected, not just with ‘the rules,’ but with the provision of care
The mask wasn’t to protect me, but to protect others.
Leadership in the organization modeled mask wearing and other good hygiene practices, very intentionally avoiding any hint of a “do as I say, not as I do” mentality
At a recent vigil and march in Wilson. Photo by Drew Coleman of 24K Empire LLC.
The evidence available to us right now suggests that, in this very-not-routine situation that we find ourselves in, the healthy and caring thing for us to do is to wear cloth face masks, while also practicing appropriate distancing, staying home when possible, washing our hands regularly, etc. Perhaps new data will emerge which will suggest differently in regards to masks, but that seems to be the general consensus at the moment. (In the words of that FiveThirtyEight article I cited earlier, “Do cloth face coverings work? Probably, to some extent. But just how much they work depends on the material, how they’re used, and what you’re expecting them to accomplish. And we definitely don’t know enough to say that wearing these kinds of coverings will reduce risk of transmission by a specific percentage, let alone a high percentage.”)
So yes, do please wear a mask. And also: it’s ok that it feels weird. It’s ok that it feels alien. Messages along the lines of “suck it up and just do it” aren’t likely to be very effective, and I think skip over the necessary acknowledgement that this is an unusual and scary situation we’re all in and that the point of all this is to care for and about each other.
Wearing a mask at NIH was, for me, an acknowledgement of the bravery and hard, painful work of the patients who had chosen to entrust themselves to our care. And I think there something important about acknowledging that this is hard, painful work that we’re collectively engaged in.
I was not very good at hospital chaplaincy. The internal, emotional effort it took me to knock on a door, walk in, and sit with someone in an often painful situation did not come naturally to me. So for me, putting a mask on was my own small act of courage, an internal bow of acknowledgment to the courage of people who were often literally giving their lives for the advancement of medical understanding.
I am certainly not the hero of this little NIH story, but still: what if we remind each other that, in its own small way, wearing a mask is the brave choice?
- - -
A blessing for putting on a mask:
O Lord, Great Giver of Life,
You remind us that to love you, we must love our neighbors.
Bless this simple, loving action, that life may be preserved and your love shown forth.
Amen.
"Prepared Beforehand": A Sermon for a Shared Worship Service on Medical Debt
This past Sunday, I had the blessing and joy to share in worship with a coalition of congregations working to relieve medical debt in the Washington, D.C. area. Here is a recording of this truly inspiring worship service; my contribution, a reflection on Ephesians 2:1-10, begins around minute 43:00. If you want to learn more about this coalition’s work, check out congregationsagainstmedicaldebt.org.
Why This Mental Health Advocate Is With the Poor People's Campaign
This Saturday, June 20, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, will hold a Mass Digital Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington, endeavoring to be the largest online gathering of poor and low income people and allies of conscience in the nation’s history.
I’ll be joining in this historic event, and thought it worth sharing why I see participation in this event as a form of mental health advocacy. On its face, the Poor People’s Campaign doesn’t seem to focus on mental health. Why do I promote their work and advocacy, perhaps seemingly more than I promote the work of more traditional mental health-focused organizations?
When I finished my first book tour after the publication of Christ on the Psych Ward, I reflected on what I’d heard and what my next steps would be. At the time, I wrote about how much I had learned about the lack of resources and access for mental healthcare in many communities, and about the ways in which chronic homelessness and mass incarceration stand-in, in a harmful way, for a functioning mental healthcare system for far too many people in this country. In Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition, I write more about systemic inequities as well as my own experiences with crushing medical debt caused by a lack of insurance coverage for my “pre-existing” mental health condition.
My experience of mental healthcare is in many ways a privileged one in this country. Even so, the mental and emotional wear and tear of my experience with lack of insurance, medical debt, and reliance on social safety nets gave me just a small window into the detrimental impacts of unjust healthcare systems, not only on the economic health but on the mental and physical health of millions of my poor, uninsured, and underinsured neighbors.
I strongly believe that the Poor People’s Campaign is creating the kind of multi-faith, moral fusion movement that can address these inequities, while connecting the dots between these and other ways in which we, as a society, so often fail to uplift the very people which the gospel compels us serve. The Campaign’s demands include many of the priorities that I emphasized in Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition, including:
Medicaid expansion and the just and equitable provision of healthcare for all
Equal treatment and healthcare for people with disabilities, including mental illnesses such as the bipolar disorder I’ve been diagnosed with
Voting rights and the accessibility of the ballot, which will allow us to truly vote for mental health
An end to the system of mass incarceration
What’s more, the Poor People’s Campaign understands that all of these and many more are not isolated issues but are rather part of a larger system of injustice, one constituted of systemic racism, poverty & inequality, ecological devastation, militarism & the war economy, and false narrative of religious nationalism. As I write in Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition:
By naming these systems, we begin the process of diagnosing them, treating them, and caring for the people impacted by them. And if it is true, as a psychiatrist one said to me, that diagnoses are stories we tell about a complex web of symptoms and experiences and treatments, then diagnosis and care involves telling a story that leads us toward wholeness and healing.
We have to ‘think systems’ in order to diagnose systemic pathologies. We have to look at the many different systems impacting a particular person or situation. And then we choose where to intervene, where to put energy, where to try to affect the system, while being mindful of the intersections and interactions between our interventions and other parts of the system (pg. 65)
These past few weeks have driven home for me, in an even more intense way, that mental health advocacy cannot be narrowly focused. Read Britney Wilson’s powerful article in The Nation, or simply peruse the #BlackDisabledLivesMatter hashtag on Twitter, and you will very quickly learn about the relationship between police violence, race, and mental illness. Read any platform related to ending said violence, and you will see calls for alternative forms of mental health crisis response. Examine the inequities of our health insurance and healthcare systems, and you will soon find yourself learning about racial inequities and their very real health impacts.
We cannot be mental health advocates in this moment in history without also speaking up and speaking out on matters of racism, police violence, mass incarceration, and the spiderweb of systems which surround all these. That’s why I wrote Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition. And that’s why I’m joining the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, for their June 20 Digital Mass Gathering and Moral March. You can join, too. Just go to www.june2020.org to learn more and RSVP.
Care about Mental Health? Believe #BlackLivesMatter? Some resources and links
Follow me because you care about faith and mental health? Take a look at these resources:
1) Campaign Zero's recommendations on ending "broken windows" policing, which include establishing alternative approaches to mental health crises:
joincampaignzero.org/brokenwindows
((Edit: Since I created this list, some important critiques of Campaign Zero’s most recent initiative have come out, including the way they utilized data around their highlighted reforms. I don’t think its my place to adjudicate debates between pro-reform and pro-abolition movements, but the point about alternative approaches to mental health crises still stands. Here’s another framing of this matter from a pro-abolition group: 8toabolition.com/invest-in-care-not-cops))
2) CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) in OR is one example of this model:
whitebirdclinic.org/cahoots
3) Britney Wilson (Esq.)’s article in The Nation, #BlackDisabledLivesMatter, on intersections between race, mental illness, and police violence:
thenation.com/article/archive/blackdisabledlivesmatter
4) Particularly if you’re a therapist or other form of practitioner, check out my friend and colleague Hayden Dawe’s article, “An invitation to White therapists”:
medium.com/@hcdawes_32629/an-invitation-to-white-therapists-a04cc93b1917
5) TRACC 4 Movements provides trauma care and trauma education for movements and in movements, with a particular focus on supporting BIPOC activists and organizers:
tracc4movements.com
6) Add Monica A. Coleman's book, Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman's Journey with Depression and Faith, to your reading list
7) Add Tonya D. Armstrong's book, Blossoming Hope: The Black Christian Woman's Guide to Mental Health and Wellness, to your reading list
8) Add Romal Tune's book, Love is an Inside Job: Getting Vulnerable with God, to your reading list
9) Particularly if you're a clergy person or a scholar-practitioner with access to a library (or a church credit card!), order Cedric C. Johnson's book Race, Religion, and Resilience in the Neoliberal Age
10) A list of Black Mental Health resources from the Mental Health Coalition: thementalhealthcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Black-Mental-Health-Resources-MHC-2.pdf
11) “44 Mental Health Resources for Black People Trying to Survive in this Country,” by Zahra Barnes:
self.com/story/black-mental-health-resources
12) Want to order some books? Check out a black-owned bookstore and see if they'll ship!
publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/83495-black-owned-bookstores-to-support-now.html
Overall, remember: being mental health advocates also means advocating for alternatives to policing and incarceration, standing against racism, and educating ourselves about intergenerational trauma. I know it can feel overwhelming -- my bipolar brain gets easily overwhelmed, too! But that's ok! Pick one place to start!
"Except By The Holy Spirit" -- Sermon for Pentecost
I guest preached (remotely) for First Christian Church of Fayetteville, NC, on Pentecost Sunday, the same weekend as protests broke out nationally after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Mr. Floyd was born in Fayetteville.
While we read the story of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2, I was drawn to preach on the passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians about the gifts of the Spirit.
I hope this sermon may be a helpful resource for folks looking to engage spiritually with the work of anti-racism, social justice, and systemic change. With that said, I think it’s really important right now to be listening to, centering, and amplifying the voices of people most impacted by systemic racism. So if you’re going to listen to my sermon, please first take the time to listen to this sermon from friend and colleague, the Rev. Rondesia Jarrett-Schell, titled "We Say 'I Can't Breathe,' Jesus Answers 'Receive My Breath.'"
Also, the text of my sermon is included below the audio file, and includes a number of additional voices who I’d encourage you to listen to. Here are some of the relevant references form the sermon for you to follow-up with:
- Definition of white supremacy from Alicia T. Crosby: patheos.com/blogs/aliciacrosby/2016/10/whitewashed-christian-space
- Rev. Dr. William Barber II differentiating between “cultural racism” and “systemic and policy racism” at the 34:30 mark of this video:
c-span.org/video/?c4804117/user-clip&start=2032
- Video message from the Rev. Terri Hord Owens, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ):
facebook.com/christianchurchdoc/videos/245137780079570
- Morning Devotion from the Rev. Bishop Valerie Melvin, Regional Minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in North Carolina: facebook.com/CCinNC/videos/2771894283047822
With that said, here is audio and text of my sermon, entitled “Except by the Holy Spirit”:
“Except By the Holy Spirit”
Sermon for FCC Fayetteville – May 31, 2020
Well, we come to the celebration of Pentecost, one of the sacred holy days of the church. You can’t see me but I’m wearing my bright red shoes, and I don’t really have a red shirt so I’ve got kind of a pink-ish shirt on, because red is the color of Pentecost, the color or Spirit and Wind, of Breath and Flame.
Now Pentecost comes from an old word that just means “Fiftieth,” and originally referred to the fiftieth day after Passover, the Jewish celebration of liberation and freedom from Pharoah’s rule in Egypt. This fiftieth day after Passover is itself a Jewish Holy Day, the Feast of Weeks, which marks the giving of the Torah to God’s people at Sinai, similar to how, for Christians, this day marks the giving of the Holy Spirit. And unless you are a relatively recent member of the Christian community – which, if you are, welcome welcome welcome! – you have probably read and heard read the story of Pentecost as told in the Book of Acts, and which I just read to you again, many times. You may have had occasion to reflect on the many wonderful aspects of this story – the fact that all of those gathered can understand each other even as they continue to speak in their native tongues, for example; or the way that this story explicitly names that God’s Spirit brings about an intergenerational community, where the young see visions and the old dream dreams; or the funny part where the disciples get accused of being drunk and Peter defends them by saying, “No, they’re not drunk, it’s only 9 o’clock in the morning!,” Peter having obviously never served for any length of time as a campus minister.
It’s a wonderful story, and always worth the re-telling. But this week, it wasn’t the reading from Acts that caught my attention, but rather another passage, this one from Paul’s Epistle to the Church in Corinth. In it, Paul writes about the Holy Spirit, and the gifts of the Spirit which each of us is given in order to work for the common good. And this passage begins with one of those great Apostle Paul lines that seems so simple, so stark, but which opens a door into the depths of our faith. Let me read it for you:
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13: No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
“No one,” writes Paul. “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” Except by the Holy Spirit, none of us can say that Jesus is Lord.
And Church?
We need the Holy Spirit today.
I don’t want to preach today about the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples 2,000 years ago, because Church? We need the Holy Spirit. Today.
We need the Holy Spirit, today, because no one, no one, no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ without it. And we need to say ‘Jesus is Lord today,’ Church, because there are a whooole lot of other forces and powers and spirits out there right now trying real hard to convince us that they, and not Jesus, is Lord.
Now remember, Church – ‘cuz I know you know this, I know I am not the first preacher you’ve endured saying this to you – remember that statement, “Jesus is Lord,” was some dangerous, revolutionary stuff when the early Church made it their primary proclamation of faith. Because unlike us in the 21st century United States of America, who don’t really go around calling people “Lord Such-and-Such” or “Sir Such-and-Such,” Jesus’s contemporaries were pretty used to calling someone “Lord.” But it wasn’t Jesus that they were used to calling Lord, it was Caesar. The Emperor. The Guy in Charge. The guy who had the heavily armed and armored Legions at his disposal. Caesar was in charge, and you called him Lord. In fact, saying “Caesar is Lord” was the loyalty oath you took to be a citizen of the Roman Empire. It was how you pledged your allegiance to Empire. And when you said, “Caesar is Lord,” one thing you were saying is that you didn’t have any other Lords. There could only be one Lord, and the Emperor was it. So it wasn’t easy to say, “Jesus is Lord.” It was a scary thing to do. A risky thing to do. So risky and scary that there was, according to Paul, absolutely no human way to do so….EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
To say “Jesus is Lord” was, and is, subversive stuff. It’s subversive in the historical-political dimension. It’s subversive in the theological dimension. And it’s subversive in the spiritual dimension. Historically-politically, it subverts the proclamation that “Caesar is Lord,” and should continue to have that same subversive effect in our contemporary contexts. Theologically, saying “Jesus is Lord” subverts our understandings of God, emphasizing vulnerability and solidarity rather than coercive power and dominance. And spiritually, saying “Jesus is Lord” speaks to the unity of the church in the power of the Holy Spirit, subverting the tendency of Christian communities to model their lives on the powers of the world rather than the vulnerable love of God. It would be easy to read Paul’s words as saying that anyone who just says the words “Jesus is Lord” is therefore moved by the Holy Spirit and thus, naturally, is in the right. But that’s not what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying that it is only when we are open to the work of the Spirit in our lives that we are able to properly claim Jesus as Lord.[1] To proclaim “Jesus Christ is Lord” is to proclaim that the Church, with its many diverse gifts, is brought together by the Spirit for the common good. This understanding of Christ’s Lordship subverts our human tendency, even within the church, to organize our common life based on dominance or self-justifying rightness rather than the unifying and other-empowering Spirit of God.
So it wasn’t easy to say, “Jesus is Lord,” and it still isn’t. It was a scary thing to do, and it still is. A risky thing to do. So risky and scary that there is seemingly no human way to do it….EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
Now today, Church, there might not be anyone saying that we have to call them “Lord,” literally. We’ve left that kind of language in the past, at least outside of the walls of the Church. But there are plenty of things that are demanding our allegiance and our loyalty that aren’t Jesus. And they are powerful forces, powerful voices. And their lure is hard to resist. In fact, you might even say that it is humanly impossible to resist them….EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
There are forces demanding our allegiance, forces like racism which subtly lure some of us with false promises of supremacy and security. But Church, white supremacy is not Lord. Jesus is Lord. And if we’re going to proclaim that, to be the anti-racist and pro-reconciliation Church that we are called to be as Disciples of Christ, then we are going to need the Holy Spirit today.
Now I just used some charged terms, terms like “white supremacy” and “racism.” And sometimes when we hear those words, maybe we think of really specific things, things we don’t associate with ourselves at all, things like the KKK or lynch mobs or certain offensive slurs. But here’s a definition of white supremacy from my friend and colleague and justice educator Alicia T. Crosby. She says, “White supremacy establishes whiteness as superior to other racial identities through the elevation of the needs, wants, concerns, perspectives, feelings, and desires of white people over that of people of color. This includes the centering of the theological, rhetorical, aesthetic, and economic priorities and preferences rooted in whiteness as well as the appropriation and rebranding of cultural expressions sourced from people of color.” Now that’s a bit more subtle, isn’t it? Maybe a bit more insidious. Maybe hits a bit closer to home for some of us. And that makes it even harder, even scarier, to deconstruct and to stand up against. So we are going to need the Holy Spirit.
Fellow North Carolinian and Disciples of Christ clergy, the Rev. Dr. William Barber, draws a contrast between what he calls "cultural racism,” those overt words and symbols which we most often associate with racism, and “systemic and policy racism like voter suppression, mass incarceration, resegregation of high poverty schools, attacks on immigrants, attacks on native people,” things which reinscribe racism with the structures and systems of power. Those things and structures are powerful things. They are hard to deconstruct. We’re going to need the Holy Spirit today.
This week, our Disciples of Christ General Minister and President, the Reverend Terri Hord Owens, shared a message with all of our churches, reminding us, “Disciples, If we say that we are a pro-reconciliation, anti-racism church, we must choose every day to do the things that are necessary to be who we say we are. That means not only standing up, but speaking up and acting in solidarity without fear.” And let me tell you, Church, if we are going to do what we need to do, if we are going to speak up and act in solidarity without fear, we are going to need the Holy Spirit. This week as well, our Regional Minister, the Reverend Bishop Valerie Melvin, shared in one of her morning prayers, “Race is a spiritual disease in this country. It is a construct of humanity, not God. Race is a system that was built by humanity, and not God.” But Church, that construct, that system? It’s gonna try really hard to convince us that is of God. So if we are going to deconstruct that construct, we are going to need the Holy Spirit today.
Now yesterday, I learned that George Floyd, the man who was killed in Minneapolis this past week, was born in Fayetteville, NC. What does it look like to mourn the death of a native son, whose life was taken from him by violence? What does it look like as a nation to mourn, to mourn all that has been on our conscience to mourn this week? Church, I spend a lot of my time as a chaplain and a minister reminding folks that Breath and Spirit are the same word, across languages and across centuries; that when we breathe in we are breathing in the breath of the Holy Spirit; that our spirituality begins with our breath. So when the breath of sacred children of God is stolen from their lungs, by violence or by disease or by environmental degradation, than that is a Spirit concern. When more than 100,000 people in this country – that’s more Americans than died in the Vietnam War, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, combined – and more than 370,000 people around the world die in just a few months of a virus that takes the breath from their lungs, that is a Spirit concern. And when we learn that the deaths from coronavirus in the United States disproportionately impact black communities and communities of color, that is a Spirit concern. When tear gas, which attacks the breath in the lungs, replaces, listening, that is a Spirit concern. When George Floyd cried out, “I can’t breathe,” that is a Spirit matter. That is a concern of the Holy Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit wants to be here in our midst today, Church. Because nobody can say “Jesus is Lord,” without it . There are forces demanding our allegiance, forces like greed and fear which tell us that we must make a false choice between the economic and physical and spiritual well-being of ourselves and those neighbors whom we are called to love and care for. But Church? We can’t serve both God and Mammon. Because Greed is not Lord. Jesus is Lord. And if we’re going to proclaim that, then we are going to need the Holy Spirit today.
There are forces demanding our allegiance, Church, forces that want to steal the breath out of the lungs of precious children of God – which is blasphemy against Holy Spirit, because according to the ancient Church the Spirit is the breath of God and the Lord of Life. There are forces demanding our allegiance, so many forces, like hatred and division, violence and injustice, forces that are out to trick and seduce God’s children into diminishing the image of God which is indelibly imprinted in each and every one of us. But not a single one of those forces is Lord. Jesus is Lord. And it’s hard, hard, hard to resist those forces, so hard that Paul seems to think that it’s humanly impossible. But everything is possible with God. It’s humanly impossible EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
So Church, I want us to call on that Holy Spirit today. I want us to call on the Holy Spirit to enable us and empower us to proclaim, today, that Jesus is Lord. And not just to proclaim that in word but to proclaim it with our hearts, with our souls, with our bodies. With. Our. Very. Lives. We need you, Holy Spirit. We need you here, today. Transform us. Give us new life. Make us whole.
Now I don’t know about you, Church, but for me, in these times we are living in, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. It is easy to feel disempowered. It is easy to feel like there’s nothing I can do, that I’m too small, that I’m too unimportant, that there can’t possibly be anything I can contribute to the work that the Spirit is trying to do in this hard, scary world of ours. But as Paul’s words remind us today, that kind of thinking is a subtle kind of temptation. For each of us, each and every one of us, is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Each and every one of us. We are each gifted, each called, each empowered by the Spirit. Each of us has the ability to live out, in our own, unique, God-given ways, the Spirit-empowered reality that Jesus is Lord, and that we are made in the image of God, that we are saved by grace for those good works which God prepared to be our way of life from time immemorial. We are baptized in the Spirit and, no matter where we are, no matter how far away we may be from one another, we are gathered together in that one Spirit which activates our gifts so that we may all do and be what God has called us to do and to be.
And so Church? I don’t want you to be afraid.
I know you’ve got some tough decisions to make. And I’m just a guest, so I’m certainly not going to tell you what to do or what to think. But I don’t want you to be afraid. And when I say I don’t want you to be afraid, I don’t mean that I don’t want you to be cautious, that I don’t want you to be wise, that I don’t want you to allow for complexity and discernment and care. I mean I don’t want you to be afraid. Because the Spirit of God that gifts us and calls us and empowers us to proclaim Jesus is Lord? Can I say something hard, Church? That Spirit has never had much regard for our buildings. That Spirit has never had much regard for private property. That Spirit hasn’t ever been able to be contained by any of the boxes or big box stores that we’ve tried to shove Her into, because the Spirit is a Fire and a Wind and no matter what that Spirit is going to come if we ask for it. That Spirit is going to come to us if we pray for it. That Spirit is going to pour out on us, young and old, and make us see visions and dream dreams, and open our mouths and loosen our tongues and get us saying, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord, not race, not class, not gender, not greed, not politicized divisions, no, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord, and thank you God that you have given us the Spirit because there’d be no way to say it, there’d be no way to tell the truth, there’d be no way for us to do the kind of work that is in front of us, the kind of work that needs to be done, there’d be no way, there’d be no way, there’d be no way…..EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
But the Holy Spirit is no exception. The Spirit truly has come to us. The Spirit truly calls us into being and into community. And that means there’s a way. That means there’s a way. That means there’s a way. A way to live in the Way of Jesus.
And that’s the Day of Pentecost.
And that’s some good news.
Amen.
[1] James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (New York: Crossroad, 2001), 147ff.
"Just Breathe"
I spend so much of my time
inviting people to breathe.
Teaching that breath and spirit are the same word,
across languages,
across time;
that God breathes the Spirit that is Life,
the very breath of our lungs.
I spend so much of my time
reminding myself to breathe,
that my body can do this,
that my mind can do this:
Breathe.
But now,
we must be careful with our breaths,
not knowing what they might carry.
And now,
another voice gasps out, "I can't breathe."
Another spirit silenced.
And I tell myself,
"Just breathe."
And I worry about what the word means.
And I wonder at this call:
To take the next breath,
so that our breaths may be the Spirit,
the Spirit that makes a world,
a world where everyone can breathe.
Something My Father Once Said
My dad, Lt. Cmdr. Gary Hosey, showing off his gold medals from the Greensboro Senior Olympics
My father once said that, for him, Memorial Day is a sad day.
He wasn’t speaking just to me. He, and several other veterans, were addressing a group following the screening of a documentary. He told the group that, for him, Memorial Day is sad, because it’s a day he remembers friends and classmates and acquaintances who didn’t make it, who died in war or in the internal war that awaited them when they returned home, the war with their own memories, their own minds, and sometimes with the drugs or alcohol that they thought could keep them out of those wars but just pulled them further in.
Veteran’s Day, he went on to say, is a happier day. That’s when he celebrates those who have have survived.
My dad is one of those who has survived. It hasn’t always been easy. We’ve had a tough relationship, at times. I’m grateful he made it home.
I remember the first time my dad took me to the Vietnam Memorial. We were in D.C. to protest against another war, because my dad, like many other people who have seen war, doesn’t think others should have to fight and die in more wars. It’s not the people who decide to go to war who fight and die in them. Seldom has been.
We were in D.C. to protest against another war, and he walked with me down to the Memorial, and we walked its dark, reflective lengths, and he paused at names he recognized, people who hadn’t made it back home.
His act of remembrance is now gifted to me, part of my memories.
To remember means more than "to think back on." It means to bring back into connection, into community, to call into the present the events, the relationships, and yes, the sacrifices, of the past. Remembrance requires of us an element of attention and mindfulness. We pause to remember because, in the rush of our lives, it is easy to forget.
In my Christian faith tradition, we have a weekly practice of remembrance, in which we gather at a table and recall into our present lives the grace and liberation offered to our faith ancestors in years long past. It's one of the most sacred acts of our faith, because how we remember matters for how we imagine ourselves as a community and how we act in the present moment.
I’ll call my dad, today. I always do, on this day. And he will tell me that he worries about how this day is used, that he worries it becomes about glorifying war rather than mourning it. And in our own way, we will remember — remember those who died in wars, those who have been victims of wars, those who have survived wars.
Because for my dad, Memorial Day is a sad day.
Recent Media and Upcoming Event
Greetings all!
Grace is a Pre-Existing Condition got some recent attention by way of a great review in Read the Spirit Magazine. Here’s editor David Crumm on why churches need this book:
David Finnegan-Hosey’s new book should be in the hands of clergy and small-group leaders in congregations nationwide, right now. There is not a more timely—and uniquely focused—book for congregations this spring. [Finnegan-Hosey] is known nationwide as an advocate specifically for the millions who have fallen through the fragile mental healthcare safety net—but he is well aware that spiraling medical debt will spring up in many families, this year, for a wide range of conditions.
I was also published in the United Church of Christ Mental Health Network’s blog, The Journey, with some reflections on Ascension Sunday, the letter to the Ephesians, and the mental healthcare system:
Many congregations observe this coming Sunday as Ascension Sunday, recalling those stories in scripture in which Jesus, having spent time with his closest friends and followers after his resurrection, disappears from their earthly view. In the letter to the Ephesians, this Ascension is interpreted as God’s elevation of Christ above the powers – the language which biblical authors use to grapple with the reality of unhealthy systems, and with the way that God’s grace made manifest in Jesus Christ challenges, upends, and ultimately heals these systems. What does this have to do with mental health? The vulnerability needed for authentic storytelling is hard to muster up when the powers seem to be on the prowl, waiting to strike.
And finally, join me for an online book discussion on Wednesday, May 27, at 7:30pm Eastern, hosted by a coalition of congregations working to end medical debt in the DC-area. You can learn more and RSVP on the Facebook event:
Mental Health Sunday Sermon: On Debt, Forgiveness, and a Prayer that Keeps on Praying
I recorded this service for a joint Mental Health Sunday worship service, organized by a coalition of congregations in the DC area who are working together to forgive medical debt. Unfortunately, there was a massive East Coast Zoom crash this morning (2020 problems, amirite?), but you can check out the efforts of this coalition at congregationsagainstmedicaldebt.org.
The service has been postponed until June 21, which means I’ll be sharing a different message live — so I figured I’d go ahead and share the recorded sermon that was going to be included this past Sunday:
Examen Prayer for Barton College
Here is a recording of an Examen prayer — a way to review your day or, in this case, your semester, with God — that I made for the Barton College community, but which perhaps will be meaningful for you as well. It’s about a two minute explanation followed by about a nine minute guided prayer.
Live Wild Goose Event Today, Podcasts This Week
Greetings all,
I’ll be speaking with Bec Cranford of the Wild Goose Festival Community today at 4pm (Eastern); you can register and sign-in to be part of that conversation by following this link.
I’ve also been recording podcast interviews with friends and colleagues, some of which will be available for you to listen to this week.
Keep an ear out for a Beloved Journal panel on mental health, hosted by the Rev. Rob Lee and also featuring the Rev. Tuhina Rasche and actor and advocate Chase Masterson, which will be available today; and a chat with Jason Evans of A New Thing that will be published on Friday. I also spoke recently to Mason Mennenga of A People’s Theology, that conversation will be up for your listening pleasure soon!
Body Scan for Barton College Finals
I recorded this body scan/body prayer for my Barton College community during finals week. Perhaps it will be meaningful for you, too:
One of our stained glass windows in Howard Chapel at Barton College, with our College motto: Habebunt Lumen Vitae, or They Shall Have the Light of Life.