Well, I’m sitting at a table just in view of gate A10 at Seatac, with about an hour until boarding my flight to Chicago, then on to Michigan to spend time with kids I’ve known for their whole lives while their parents go…. somewhere? Israel maybe? I don’t remember the details- I said yes to this last November or so. I said yes to a lot of things this summer, most of them having no idea what the summer would be when I did the saying yes.
It’s good. It’s just a lot.
I have this hour to sit, because in a serendipitous accident, Terry, my friend who is borrowing my car for the next two and a half weeks, ended up flying back home at 11am instead of 8pm, and we swapped the car at the United curb and saved me trying to navigate getting into his building to leave the key, and both of us an uber ride. So now I have an hour to sit and reflect.
This last week has been full. Full of catching up the end of month things, two birthday celebrations (one an 8 course meal, one a pizza party), a comedy show, a safe lot conversation, being quoted in a newspaper article, and a new executive director at work. Tucked into all of those spaces were conversations about the trip I took the week before- little bits of processing, bite sized ideas, thoughts as they came to me. When I went to pack my backpack last night, I saw the folder that Dr. Waters had given us right at the very beginning, and realized I had forgotten about it and all that it contained, and at the same time was glad to be bringing it with me on this next trip, determining to make time to sit with what is inside of it.
All of that to say, it’s easy for life to get in the way of dedicated time to process, and sometimes you have to grab it when it comes, and hope it all comes together. I hope these thoughts come together. I guess we’ll see.
The immersion, for me, was a bit of an existential crisis. As I’ve shared often, information feels like it will keep me safe, and to be faced with the fact that nearly all of the information I’ve been given about history, society, faith, the economy- about everything- has been structured to keep me comfortable and calm and participating nicely, but definitely was not truth or reality, well, that undid me. It caused inner-rage, which usually seeps out as snark and sarcasm. It was dibilitating, almost paralyzing- but I am thankful that I was in it with this group, and that we had done the prep work beforehand to expect some things to crumble. I just didn’t expect it ALL to crumble- to feel at a point of starting over.
I do appreciate that on the very first night with John, my notebook was on another table, and I left it there- and in doing that decided to engage the trip with impressions and feelings and concepts rather than collecting facts and knowledge (to keep me safe). Little did I know, that would be my struggle the entire trip- letting go of rebuilding the facts-card-castle, and aiming for something stronger. something deeper. something that requires all of me, rather than just my head. Truth.
Truth.
Truth is bigger than facts, although it does involve facts certainly. Truth is heart and soul and courage and motives and reasons. Truth is sometimes brave, and sometimes cowardly, and always unvarnished (which I am not good at- I love a varnished statement). Truth is ordinary. I am leaning in to the ordinary today, and maybe also tomorrow. I want to see the truth there. The truth of the injustices. The truth of those who take power. The truth of how power is used. The truth of who is objectified. The truth of who is angry. The truth of who is resilient. The truth of who isn’t. I want to feel with those who feel. I want to see the truth.
This week I also got to be in conversation with Dr. Brenda as she prepared her sermon. It was on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and God has been working on her all sorts of ways to get her there. She reached out to me, because we have been in an ongoing conversation over the last several years about homelessness, as it’s an area she feels very out of her depth. She has named that she feels unsafe and uncomfortable, and wants to examine the biases she holds. She asked me to be her mentor in seeing our unhoused neighbors. I feel WHOLLY unqualified to be Dr. B’s mentor, but said yes, and that I hope she will walk with me in the reconciliation and peacemaking things. I share this not to brag (ok, a little bit to brag, but only because I feel so honored and want to share with people I care about), but to say that she’s such an incredible model to me. She saw a bias that she’s holding on to, and can’t seem to get past on her own, and found someone who seems to have a grasp on it and asked for help. She preached a sermon today not from a place of expertise or mastery of the skill, but from a place of recognizing her need for growth, and leaning in. There were so many ways she could have taken the easy way out- picked a different parable, taught from the racial reconciliation angle, NOT asked me to enter in- but she wants to truly grow, so she did the brave and harder thing. I want to truly grow, so I am doing the brave and harder thing.
I am working on the relearning, because I really do need to relearn so much of my foundation. But I’m not hiding there. My friend Alton has been asking me every time he sees me how my processing is going, which is a gift that he does not owe me as a Black man. Dr. B has offered to “chop it up” with me regularly as I work out how to invest locally. Brandon has shared a resource about learning about Seattle, and the racial incidents that have happened here.
In Dr. B’s sermon today, she named that we all go to Quest because we LIKE going to a “woke” church. That’s why we picked it! But going to the right place isn’t enough. We’ve got to do the work of “waking up” ourselves. It is high time I stopped pressing snooze (not to push the metaphor too far) and got up and got to work.
Right now, I need to get up and go to the gate, because boarding is starting soon, and it’s on to the next thing. I am glad to carry this, and each of you, with me as I head into the ordinary- in ways that I hope to channel my outrage into organizing.
4 comments
Jen,
I noticed myself feeling kinship, feeling less lonely, as I read your process. The LIFE that gets in the way, the familiarity of processing having to come in bits and pieces sometimes and the courage it takes to not press snooze again, but do the frightening work of relearning. I am struck by your description of truth as so dimensional, not just a cognitive realm.
I’ve been reflecting on stories of friends who have done the process of deconstruction and have been left feeling like nothing was left in the unraveling. I don’t hear that from you, which takes faith and resilience and humility and yes, courage. Your processing is courageous. I see in you such bravery to name what keeps you safe (facts, information) and to lean into the process of that very safe-space crumble around you. I am struck by your leaning into feelings and embodiment as you reorient to the new Truth as you understand it. And most of all, I am struck by the people around you who support and ground you in the process. What a gift (and props to Dr. B seeking you out. Wise woman indeed)!
I want to know more about the “leaning into the ordinary” like Hannah noted. What does that look like, how does your intentional and bit-at-a-time processing fit into that leaning? What is the relationship between your waking up to the work ahead and the leaning into the ordinary, because that I think is the key to not being lulled back to sleep by the organized Lie that keeps us comfortable and compliant, especially as white women.
In a bit of a continuation of my comment to Hannah, these two days with Rich and Becky have been full of conversations of how we’re working to navigate the world, each in our unique contexts. They were just home in San Diego with both of their families (who I know most of the players of) and we were talking through the different dynamics at play, where they were able to push and challenge things, and where there just didn’t seem to be inroads. (and also how counseling has helped each of us process through the road blocks that are just too close to us to see objectively around). We were scheming a bit on how to “organize” and develop conversations with their different family members from each of our unique relationships with them (I’m real life and online friends with several folks on both sides, and because of Rich and my old jobs working together at the gap year, have traveled with 5-6 of them, and been invited to family gatherings on both sides. I’m basically bonus family). We’re’ conspiring on who is ready for next conversations, and that sometimes my being a bit more distance gives me more freedom to enter in with them.
This friendship, Rich, Becky and I, has always been a safe place to wrestle with things. They have always been more conservative than I am, but have followed me as I progressed more, and are always willing to challenge and push back on my ideas so we can think through them together. I think having people like this in my life is part of why the unraveling doesn’t feel… desolate. I was taught with certainty that faith/the Bible/all of it was an all or nothing proposition, and if that JUST ONE THING isn’t true, then it’s all wasted, but I haven’t found that to be true. Once I began to realize that, it all became so much less scary. I know people who have deconstructed all the way out of faith, but that is not where I have landed yet. I’m not afraid of landing there, but I’m not there now, and it doesn’t seem like that’s where I’ll land. I have too much love, admiration, and awe for Jesus and how he lived his life, and think that even if I let go of everything else, I would hold on to that.
Jen, I absolutely love this! This leaning into the ordinary is so you, and it’s so like God to be leading you into it. What does that look like for you right now, in this early stage of transformation?
This is a great question. I think I am paying attention- more deeply observing- the power structures and systems most immediately around me. At work, noting who holds power, who doesn’t, how people use their power or don’t- both in the office culture, where I’m part of a larger team of mostly peers, and with my team where I am the leader. I’m trying to be intentional about creating space for story and processing and sitting with and laughter and tears, and not just moving on to the next thing in efficiency. Connecting happens inefficiently. I am working to build trust with the newest member of my team, and it is taking time. it is inefficient. He likes to explain… everything, and doesn’t yet read social cues as to when something is explained enough (which probably bugs me because I am prone to do this). And connection is inefficient, so I remind myself that it is ok to wait, and in the listening I reduce the power gap a little bit.
Currently, I’m staying with my Ferreira friends in Michigan. Tomorrow I drop the parents off to head out to Greece and Istanbul and Israel (and maybe Jordan? I’m not clear on all that’s happening), but for the last two days I have been intentional about how observing how they parent each of their 4 kids uniquely, and how they each bring their unique selves to it. I notice the power plays the kids make, and when Rich and Becky choose to lay down their “power” rather than require compliance.
This is really where I’m at- looking around at how the systems I am most immediately involved in function. Understanding the dynamics and why they work or don’t. I don’t have solutions or even ideas toward solutions really yet, but more wanting to really understand the “why” things happen first.