An Infusion of Hope

We are facing realities today that are stretching us, breaking us, and birthing us. What is being asked of us is deeply challenging and, for most of us, unprecedented in our lifetimes. 

On the one hand, the evil that is being unveiled —its breadth and depth, its brutal pounding insistence combined with its casual tone and stride—is blowing our minds, breaking our hearts, and challenging our nervous systems.

If this is impacting your ability to function normally, you are not alone. You are an awake human witnessing the underbelly of the depths of human depravity. 

On the other hand, we are also bearing witness to absolutely incredible human and beyond human networks of divine generosity, mutual aid, love, creativity, courage, joy, and deep resolve. Fresh discoveries of our own, others' and the capacity of Life itself blows the lid on what we previously thought was possible and on even our best visions of who we might become together. We are collectively ripening toward a participation in a healing and a beauty beyond our imagining.

We cannot have one discovery without the other.

For the last three decades my inner work and my work in the world has been grounded in the practice of welcoming whatever is coming into view. The parts I like, and the parts I don't. The parts I fear and the parts for which I long. The parts I agree with and the parts I don't. The parts I feel worthy of and the parts which evoke my shame. 

This is a practice. I'm not good at it, but I am dedicated. I keep practicing. Some days I feel stronger in the practice, some days weaker. Some days I feel I have succeeded in welcome. Other days, I mostly notice how I am slamming doors shut, one after another. All of this is part of practice.

Some realities particularly challenge my willingness to welcome. These realities, I've noticed, are the ones that touch on my most intimate wounds and my most poignant desires for healing from those wounds.

Facing into the extreme evils unveiled through the Epstein files is a double whammy for me. On the one hand, it touches the intimate wounding of sexual abuse and formation in a deeply patriarchal familial, religious and social context.

In addition to that, it challenges all the decades-long healing work of reclaiming my own —and humanity's—inherent goodness, work that was made so difficult through a theological upbringing that centralized the personal —rather than collective— salvation and a doctrine of original sin, all the while refusing to accept the radical truths Jesus announced to the motley groups of people who gathered around him. Truths like, "You are the light of the world,"(Matt. 5:14) and, "You shall do the works I have done, and greater." (John 14:12)

I don't know about you, but I've met very few Christians who have really taken these statements to heart and sought to integrate them bodily. Recognizing and integrating the reality of the evolving Christ life in and through us can be as challenging as recognizing and accepting the breadth and depths of evil unveiled right beneath our eyes. [Hot tip: if you are looking for support for such integration, I heartily recommend you check out Integral Christian Network. Don't miss their resource page of guided meditations...my favorite is called "Sitting with Jesus."]

And for good reason. Both extremes threaten our stories about who we are, who others are, what this world is, and what is possible. These edges of reality show us both our capacity for evil and greed, naivete and delusion, and also our capacity to usher in radical healing and a realm in which all can flourish.

Both extremes of reality threaten to shatter us, and sometimes actually do. Awakening in my 20's to an experience of childhood sexual abuse threatened to shatter my concept of myself and did shatter my concept of the abuser in whom I had placed my childlike trust.

Decades later, listening to the story of a woman I met through my anti-human trafficking work, I experienced similar shaking and shattering. She described how a network of Christian Reformed elders in West Michigan —Jenison, to be specific—sexually abused her and other little girls. I grew up in Jenison, in a Christian Reformed Church. A hard truth to welcome, indeed.

Similarly, just a few months ago, a client of mine shared her story of growing up in a West coast Christian Reformed community, attending the CRC church of her mother who was a high priestess in the church of Satan and who sold her daughter for ritual abuse by night and sent her to the CSI Christian school by day. Another hard confront with evil in my own community.

All of these were realities that seemed too terrible to be true, except for the survivors. As a young woman awakening to her abuse, I initially trusted my own knowing. That is, until I was gaslit by my abuser and my abuser's community. Naively I thought this person, and certainly the community, would want to make things right with me. Understanding his need to protect himself over protecting our relationship was one thing. Understanding the community's disbelief of me and their denial was another. Confronted with this denial, I then began to question myself. Was I just making things up? For me, the abuse itself wasn't as upsetting as the denial of it.

Other realities seem too good and too audacious to be true. Encountering theologies based on humanity's inherent goodness challenged me. Could I really trust that at the very center of each of us lies a part that cannot be defiled or damaged, and that we can learn to live from the ground of this being? Could I really trust Julian of Norwich's audacious claim about sin: First was the fall, and then the recovery from the fall. Both are the grace of God. 

Empire seeks to block our trust of our own experience, teaching us not to trust our own eyes and bodies, and prevent us from broadcasting our truth. And if we do, Empire discredits us. It especially casts doubt on the most vulnerable: people of color, the poor, children, and women.

If you question this, consider the fact that it took a forced release of a dead man's files to even consider believing the testimonies of a thousand women and that the only person in prison is a woman. Consider that the identities most highly protected are those of the abusers and not the abused, and that we have an administration now claiming that the abusers are the victims, that this is all a "hoax," and even Ted Cruz suggesting that, "we all come together and stop attacking pedofiles."

Let that sink in. 

While I never doubted the experiences these other women shared with me —their own courageous healing journeys and resulting grounding made that impossible— I did note my own repeated, "I can't think about that, I can't think about that," reflex and a repeated sense of my mind being blown. It was a lot to take in.

If you are struggling to take in either of these poles of what I have shared, just pause a moment. Connect to your breath. Be in your body. Observe what comes up for you.

If you aren't able to do that now, can you return to this later and try?

Disbelief, denial, and distraction are just a few powerful defense mechanisms to protect us from what we  have not yet developed the embodied capacity to welcome, accept, or integrate. We consciously and unconsciously summon these defense mechanisms to avoid being shattered. We should be thankful for them and the ways they help us survive and function. Until they don't. Until they get in the way of our own and everyone else's flourishing.

Newsflash: we are not yet all flourishing.

But we could. It's what we've been made for. 

You may wonder, how can I say that so confidently? 

I can say it so confidently because it is an observable truth about about how creation works. And we are part of creation. Consider the phenomena of the mycelial network, the microscopic underground network of fungi that allow trees to communicate and support one another across vast areas. Via this network they share resources, communicate needs, alert neighbors to dangers and act as an immune system to keep the whole healthy.

Sounds a like like the people of Minneapolis, doesn't it? These people are functioning according to their deepest nature. They have launched their organic mycelial network into our darkness like new constellations guiding us and reminding us what we are, as Ada Limon writes so beautifully in her poem, "Dead Stars." 

Or, consider the phenomena of trophic cascade. This one really blows my mind. In the early 20th century, fueled by public fear and the desire to protect livestock and favored big game animals, the wolves of Yellowstone were removed (i.e. killed) with government sanction. The loss of these oft-maligned creatures, however, resulted in loss of diverse plant and animal species and an increasingly unbalanced ecosystem, overpopulated by elk herds. When in 1995 wolves were reintroduced, not only did wildlife populations in the park rebalance, but the very shape of land and rivers in the park began to change, creating an environment which allowed even more animals to flourish. You won't regret watching this 4-minute video that reminds us that we actually have very little idea about what amazing goodness is possible when we do our part to undo the harm we've done.

Philosopher Bayo Akomalafe languages the invitation to us perfectly: The planet is a vocation. The earth is a practice, not a place.

Consider how often empire sanctions the removal of life that seems only threatening, especially to bottom lines, but really serves to sustain harmony for the whole. Consider how the dynamics of empire we've introjected operates this same way within us, with us trying to kill off in ourselves what threatens our addictions to status and productivity.

God's kin-dom is different. Meister Eckhart says it this way: God does not ask anything else of you except that you let yourself go and let God be God in you.

When was the last time your leader encouraged you to "let yourself go" and trust the goodness that resides in you? When was the last time your own inner manager did so?

It seems too good to be true, doesn't it?

I believe there is yet another natural phenomena that is in the process of unfolding, the Bannister Effect. In 1954 Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile. Prior to this, running a sub-four-minute mile was considered physically impossible. Doctors warned it could kill you, scientists argued the body would break down. But Roger Bannister trained, with focus and lion-hearted resolve. On May 6, 1954 against brutal winds on a torn up track, Bannister ran a mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds. Only 46 days later, another runner beat Bannister's record. Within two years, dozens of runners achieved sub-four-minute miles. 

Similar phenomena has repeated itself over the decades in sports history. So much so that we now have a name for it: the Bannister effect. When one person breaks what is considered to be an "impossible" barrier, others suddenly are able to achieve the same feat shortly after.

While this is considered to be a psychological phenomena, I wonder if it may also correlate to an evolutionary ripeness. 

In the face of freezing temperatures, compromised nervous systems, demanding life schedules and circumstances, threats of persecution and death, Minnesotans are surging like a healing life force to the people and places of greatest vulnerability and deepest wounding. They are protecting neighbors, co-workers, complete strangers with their own bodies. They are sharing food, money, creativity, voices with those who have lost their freedom to fully access or use their own. Minnesotans are showing us how a healthy system behaves, and it is more marvelous and inspiring than what most of us have ever witnessed in such a networked and sustained way. 

They are showing us what is possible. And perhaps they are seeding something in the earth of our bodies or they are shining a light and warmth on seeds already within us waiting for just this moment in our evolution.

ICE may well already or soon be swelling into our own communities, but I believe a Minneapolis Bannister effect can be, too. The growing light of our collective consciousness and resulting claim on our agency is going to be unstoppable. Epstein survivors continue to speak out courageously. Amplify their voices. Use your own. This is what democracy sounds like.

Be encouraged:  "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

If you get quiet, I bet you can, too.