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May 28 - July 7, 2020
focus not so much on going out into the world and making disciples, but flipping the narrative on its head: to joyfully welcome the world as it shifts and moves ever forward,
Focus on welcoming instead of invading the world
solemn as a prophet—what if you woke up one morning and were . . . happy?
soldiers and PTSD. “They’re the ones with the normal response,” he once said. “It’s the ones who say absolutely nothing is wrong who we should be worried about.”
PTSD Is the normal response to war
more than anything, I wanted her—this talented, driven, complicated woman—to wake up sad herself.
It was the anniversary of his best friend’s death, and he was shaken up.
deep down I knew I wasn’t a good person. I wanted my seatmate to stop talking to me, to stop needing me to assure him it would all be fine.
am so tired of noticing,” I wrote. “I am so tired of not being able to shut everything down. If this is a gift from God, it often feels like a curse.”
biblical prophets are local, they have a divine imperative to critique the powers that be, they work to energize the people, and they live in anguish with the people.
How prophets live
reclaim the role of someone who critiques the powers of the world and sits in the anguish of the broken world. Someone
refuses to capitulate to despair and instead sees hope in a new vision for the world couched in the goodness of a God who restores.
Hope in a new vision
future where people do not crush each other for profit but work together for flourishing.
In the work of paying attention I can sometimes be overwhelmed by injustice. It is so systemic, so pervasive, and I have largely benefited from it.
Overwhelmed by injustice - and how it benefits me
their happiness for all to see on display wounds me. In it I see the threads of forgetfulness, of our human tendency to forget our responsibility to one another and of wanting to keep it that way.
Happiness as forgefulness
both pleased and miserable at my core longing.
will be a cup filled to the brim with despair and hope, constantly spilling onto everyone around me.
desire for my daughter to know she is loved.
If she doesn’t grow up feeling loved by God, then the rest of her life will be oriented around extracting and exploiting that love from others.
cannot save the whole world, I cannot heal it with my own two hands. But I can live in it, I can speak the truth about where it is broken, and where it is being repaired.
Live, speak truth, call out brokenness
world of fairy tales, of the stories we tell and retell our children, and there is also the world of suffering. Perhaps they are more closely linked than we would like to believe.
live into this tension
How do we cope with things not being right, when we are exposed to the underbelly of the American dream?
longings for self-care as really being deeper desires for true peace.
Peace is at the root of true self-care
taking care of oneself—by making doctor’s appointments, for example—will not always feel good.
Jamilla Ready; self care doesnt necessarily feel good
What dreamers are we listening to?
world where both devastating things happen (gun violence, abuse, parental neglect, systematic oppression) and also miracles are expected and celebrated constantly.
kinship. Father Boyle is not a fan of self-care; he, like many others, sees burnout coming from a position of the savior complex.
kinship—being intimately connected with another person—changes the equation.
relationships based on compassion, mutuality, and awe don’t lead to burnout.
Christians need to move away from charity and compassion work (individuals and communities giving out of their abundance) and toward community development and justice work, where oppressive systems and policies are changed.
Move from charity to community development and justice work
thought about what it means to thrive as a follower of Christ, even when by all accounts your religion has failed in the eyes of the watching world.
Thriving as a christ follower in a failed religion
the Israelites did something different from their peers: they fiercely held on to their stories and their belief in God, even as they lost their land, homes, and people.
Losing power doesnt mean surrendering belief in Jesus
All empires—both in the biblical times and now—have a few characteristics in common, primarily the consolidation of military, economic, political, and ideological power.
Characteristics Of empire
the beliefs that empires propagate to keep and retain power.
fractures both big and local in the American evangelical church, and still I won’t believe in an ending. American evangelicalism will live on, it will weather the storm of attaching itself to the pursuit of power at the cost of loving their neighbors. It cannot end. This
Evangelicalism As empire
America, and more specifically White evangelical expressions of Christianity in America, cannot die because it is inherently blessed by God.
Our central lie
convincing us there is no other path forward except the one where we are always victorious.
There is nothing in Scripture, nothing in Jesus, that says my proud and terrible and interesting country is particularly blessed, has some special favor, has some special reason for existence.
America is neither blessed nor ordained by God
tangled up in the same pull toward greatness, toward power, toward viewing ourselves as specially anointed by God to rule the world, to hold and be in charge. This leads to a sense of scarcity, a hallmark of pharaohs throughout the centuries: the all-consuming fear of losing power.
Scarcity. Fear of losing power
slouching toward Jesus
the locus of fresh and vibrant Christianity is found Latin America, Asia, and Africa, those of us who have been influenced by Great Men and Great Books and Great Theology of the mostly Western civilization kind will be experiencing a death of sorts.
Losing our primacy in Christianity. We will be the illiterate and the underdeveloped.
They need to know what they believe and why, because there are no cultural forces supporting them—in
prayer for a death in the neighborhood. “For the unbearable toil of our sinful world, we plead for remission. For the terror of absence from our beloved, we plead for your comfort. For the scandalous presence of death in your Creation, we plead for resurrection.”
the two legacies to be dealt with were the plantation owners and the pioneers.
Opressive legacies to lament
the pioneer mythology is more complex, more discreet, less likely to be challenged with an uproar.
you can’t have a God-ordained pioneer without the idea of “savages” to be conquered.
Pioneers need 'savages'
who pays for our myths? I want to ask myself that question nearly every day.
Joe Coors went on to help fund and form the Heritage Foundation, the most influential conservative think tank in American politics (from Nixon to Trump; Trump leans heavily on nominations from Heritage to staff his White House).
Coors + heritage foundation
he is not responsible for his own death.
simmering both under and over the surface of our supposed progressive utopia.
When I feel the fear rise up, I pray it away. I pray blessings on those men, and I pray the same thing for both of us: Lord, take our fear and replace it with love.
Response to fear
