Note:
These words are not for self aggrandizement or to critique what I see out in the world. I believe that I am affirming the strategies that are being taken by so many activists and change makers out in the world. This is my personal grappling with my own head and notions. Maybe it will be helpful.
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What is time now? We are constantly questioning what day it is? Where the entire month of May (and April went)? We are stuck in our homes and away from the weekly familiarities and seasonal celebrations that mark time for us.
And yet - we are in BIG TIME. We are watching and participating in big protests, conversations and actions around racism, public health, systemic oppression and political responses. We have given up the distractions of little t time and find ourselves with the attention, outrage and space to take on giant conversations and world changing endeavors.
Time is strange and times are strange.
We have experienced the collapse of chronos - the understanding of time as measurable resource.
Days. Minutes. Seconds.
And we have found ourselves smack in the middle of kairos - the understanding of time as an opportune moment or a due season, a harvest time.
The historic and daily cumulation of trauma, pain and racism that are foisted upon BIPOC every minute are finally being called to account in a way that is bigger than the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery murders. We are staring at RACISM and what Ibram Kendi calls “The American Nightmare” in the face.
Our solutions and our response and our outlooks have to take into account the specific tragedies and the larger and more devastating picture that systematically creates these events (murder, health disparity, police brutality, lack of secure housing, wealth disparity etc ad infinitum).
I hear the outcry of strategy and vote
I hear the wail of let us rage and let us be outraged and let us mourn
I hear the drumming of #abolishthepolice
I - steeped in my own whiteness and white supremacy’s desire to make sure everything is CONTAINED - want to pick a lane. I want to say - this is the right response. Let’s allocate resources here. Let’s get behind these messages.
That is not my decision
That is not my work
I can learn to live in the discomfort
Black voices get to lead the way
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And this to me feels like a stepping back - a shrug off. A way to escape my own work and the conversation by just waiting for someone else to tell me what a “good white person” should do. This is where my head went. This is not the right move or the move being asked of white people at this time.
So I kept thinking. And I kept thinking in the only way I know how to when I feel uncomfortable and confused and a bit hopeful and a bit scared of what may come from this.
I turned to thinking through my faith.
And I hear the two voices in my head so clearly:
The first one is strategic and wants a plan. The one that was so insanely proud to live in Nashville after the amazing 8 hour budget meeting where activists and regular tired people asked that we defund the police.
This one wants demands.
And
The second voice believes that this is could be a turning point. A time for the honest appraisal of generational trauma, histories of atrocities and the brutal and carceral state that keeps people silent and disempowered.
This second one is living into the prophetic imagining of a NEW WAY OF BEING in this country.
This is where I find myself. Stuck in the gap between Chronos and Kairos - the two types of time.
Chronos is the understanding that time is a resource - that we can leverage our energy and power strategically and specifically. That we have events to organize and elections to win.
Kairos is the understanding that this time is a resonance - that this moment or season is a trailblaze and a flare from the Kindom of God - here and not yet.
And I am praying that I do not choose one over the other.
That I do not fall into the either/ or trap.
Because as a Christian I worship Christ as the embodiment of chronos and kairos united.
Fully human, fully divine.
Chronos - the embodied God made human. The mortal life. The work of healing and the upturning of tables.
and
Kairos - Found in The Christ - the defeat of death and the promise of another encounter. The holy mystery unfolding in glimpses.
And I cannot be both as Christ is - but as a Christian I am asked to live in both worlds
In chronos - the material and the daily and the POLITICAL (aka embodied, the work of the people)
The work of:
Donate your time and money. Read books. Do your own dis-mantling of oppressive beliefs. Walk and shout and chant. LISTEN.
And in kairos -
The work of:
the faithful dreaming, the prophetic imagination of believing a new world is possible. The work of humming the tune that we cannot quite hear yet - but is slowly becoming louder.
This is the work of dreaming new public safety models, of believing that things do not have to be the way that they were, the larger work of healing and justice and reconciliation. The bravery to show up for the larger and more painful and more honest conversations. The courage to believe and act on the belief that things can change and now is the time.
We are called to stand with one foot in each world.
Stranding in the chasm of time - possibly hot footing back and forth - but not getting stuck in one place.
In the embodied work. Political work. Concrete demands. Policy change. Mobilization and organizing.
And in the spirit work - the mind work of challenging what we thought was true, dismantling our resistance and the resistance baked into our institutions, infrastructure and inter-personal interactions. The work of healing systemic trauma.
Dreaming, imagining, creating and supporting the work of those world and movement artists who have enough courage to draw us and be drawn into a better future.
This stance is uncomfortable for me. I think it should be.
To live in the both/and - to allow for the work to be multiple and varied and all encompassing.
To stand faithfully seeking the here and the not yet. To love both. To show up for both. When we lean into one - to still hold the other.
This too can be worship - this middle space can be a place where we meet the God Who Was and the God Who Is and the God Who Will be.
A faithful work found in the liberating stories of our past, the urgency of the moment and in the fullness of time.
Welcome to the chasm, welcome to the discomfort, welcome to the possibility.