Christianity

Goodreads review for ‘Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning’ by Cathy Park Hong

www.goodreads.com/book/show/52845775

This book is a MUST read for those of us who are white.

“As the poet Prageeta Sharma said, Americans have an expiration date on race the way they do for grief. At some point, they expect you to get over it.”

“Patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it’s more than a chat about race. It’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Except it’s even trickier than that. Because the person has all of Western history, politics, literature, and mass culture on their side, proving that you don’t exist.”

“Of course, “white tears” does not refer to all pain but to the particular emotional fragility a white person experiences when they find racial stress so intolerable they become hypersensitive and defensive, focusing the stress back to their own bruised ego.”

“Suddenly Americans feel self-conscious of their white identity and this self-consciousness misleads them into thinking their identity is under threat. In feeling wrong, they feel wronged. In being asked to be made aware of racial oppression, they feel oppressed. While we laugh at white tears, white tears can turn dangerous. White tears, as Damon Young explains in The Root, are why defeated Southerners refused to accept the freedom of black slaves and formed the Ku Klux Klan. And white tears are why 63 percent of white men and 53 percent of white women elected a malignant man-child as their leader.”

White supremacy has become so defensive that it blatantly and violently denounces and denies experiences, feelings, and realities of communities of color. This book brilliantly depicts this to us white folks in an uncompromising way. It is up to us to pursue the daily and life-long process of change.

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‘Goodreads’ review for ‘The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery’ by Sarah Augustine

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55404509-the-land-is-not-empty

I had the honor and privilege to read 'The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery' by Sarah Augustine in advance and write a study guide for it. My life has been richly blessed by what Sarah Augustine teaches in this text and I highly recommend everyone read it!

First, Augustine spends some time defining the Doctrine of Discovery, both academically/historically and with personal/practical examples. If the title feels daunting because you are not familiar with the Doctrine of Discovery, never fear, Augustine will take the time to catch you up.

Second, Augustine takes care to elaborate her personal context and how that situates her within the work of Indigenous sovereignty and dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery. Through this contextual testimony, Augustine invites us into our own contextual work.

Third, Augustine documents and details her journey in solidarity and repair work through experiential examples. She challenges us to challenge, expand, redefine, and act upon solidarity and repair work in community together, being attentive to who is, and who isn’t, at the table.

Fourth, Augustine drives home the essential work and call upon Christians and the Church to be at the forefront of dismantling the doctrine of discovery and solidarity and repair work. Augustine invites us to interrogate our theology, our investments, our mindsets, how we spend/use our money/property, and challenges us to truly follow a ‘Jesus Way’ in our solidarity and repair work.

Part of this work is aided by Augustine’s detailed explanation of cosmologies and theologies from Indigenous lenses. White settlers/dominant culture are invited to recognize our blind spots, our idols, and our agency to be actively invoked in solidarity and repair work with indigenous communities. Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery starts in our personal lives, in our churches, and in our community politics/social work.

Finally, solidarity and repair work is active, ongoing, and relational. White settler/dominant western culture loves easy/symbolic gestures. However, solidarity and repair work is the ongoing choice of actively stepping out of the comfort of white supremacy and dominant western culture to be in relationship and resistance with oppressed communities. It is action. It is relationship. It is ongoing. And it demands that we rethink all mindsets and beliefs we take for granted. This is the work of solidarity and repair. This is the work of dismantling the doctrine of discovery. And Augustine lays all of this out in a powerful, relatable, and convicting way.

Start the work of solidarity and repair today by grabbing this book, hunkering down, and getting ready to start the journey of dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery with Sarah Augustine as your initial guide.

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‘Prophet:’

to claim one’s self in

Christ: to imagine God’s King-

-dom into being.

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Be Still…God is Our Refuge

God, you call me to

act for justice and mercy.

But teach me stillness.

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I like to do. I see following God as action. Faith as a verb. That is true. But what does it also mean to also ‘be still’ in God’s presence? To find stillness in God as my refuge (Psalm 46)?

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God,

I am called to act,

to do:

to advocate

to collaborate

to demand justice

to show mercy

to love profusely.

But what does it mean to be still?

To know that you are my refuge?

To find refuge

and strength

in the stillness

of God’s presence and power:

God’s love.

Lord, hear my prayer.

Amen.

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Sabbath Rest

God created and

it was good. Freedom from

perfection’s tyranny.

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George Floyd

George Floyd.

Say his name.

Honor his memory.

Murdered

by Officer Derek Chauvin.

Murdered

by a white supremacist

militarized police state.

Murdered

for being black

and living.

But now

some semblance of justice

through accountability.

Chauvin found guilty

on all 3 charges.

2nd Degree Murder:

40 years –

but George Floyd is still dead.

3rd Degree Murder:

25 years –

but black people continue to die.

2nd Degree manslaughter:

10 years –

but a murder each day of the trial.

While we await sentencing,

we sigh a collective exhalation of relief

at this brief respite of accountability.

But we cannot replace George Floyd,

God’s beloved child,

and God’s beloved children,

who have been lost –

past and present.

But the future

is present

and we are all called

to the Christ-modeled work

of dismantling white supremacy

and demanding

imagining

transforming

an alternative to

the death dealing

militarized police state.

Say his name.

Honor his name

And let’s get to work.

Rest in power,

George Floyd.

Amen.

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A Pigeon and God’s Presence

I scratch and crawl

through fatal attempts

at prayer perfection;

seeking the right words

and phrases to crack

the code of Divine Engagement.

But then, a glance

out the window –

the vibrant blue sky and

the awkwardly fluttering pigeon –

I found God

looking at me

deeply and desirously

with an audible hearty chuckle.

The pigeon landed on a telephone wire

and shit without shame

sure of its belonging and being.

And I laughed,

deeply and uproarously,

prayer punctuating the giggles

as I felt God’s gentle caress

to not take myself

too seriously.

But to rest in the seriousness of

God’s love and desire

for me; in my

most basic needs and desires,

without shame,

as with the bumbling and shitting pigeon,

God is present with me.

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What is ‘Basebuilding?’

Basebuilding:

Foundations built on faith, conviction, and justice.

Collaboration with community, church,

ancestors, prophets,

and future generations.

Unique in poetic and prophetic imagination

speaking and doing

an alternative narrative and

story into being.

Renouncing and denouncing

the narrative and

story of domination and supremacy

through a communal vision,

achievable and concrete,

grassroots grown,

in our ecclesial spaces

and beyond

for the queering and decolonizing

and expanding

and including

of Beloved Community.

Basebuilding:

Intentional connections and relationships,

with imagination,

as power

and wholistic transformation

for the well-being

of all people and creation.

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Citizenship in Heaven (Response to Philippians 3:20-21)

Our citizenship is in Heaven;

not in the systems and structures

that our societies value:

power maintenance,

economic control,

and resource exploitation,

by which people and creation are

oppressed and marginalized

for the comfort and supremacy

of a few.

Our citizenship is in Heaven;

in the Love and Justice of God

that transforms our hearts, churches, and societies

through the model of our Savior,

Jesus Christ,

and the power of

the Holy Spirit,

by power sharing,

economic jubilee –

equitable resource stewardship –

and communal creation caretaking.

Our citizenship is in Heaven

by co-creating Heaven on Earth –

this Earth –

here and now,

for all people

and creation.

Amen.

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