Professionally, my trenches for peacemaking involve trauma and palliative care work. I have the sacred privilege of coming alongside community in vulnerable moments to bear witness and be in their/our pain, powerlessness, hopelessness and distress. What grows hope for me is laughing, crying, breathing, dancing, singing, and humming through it. The hope is found in experiencing rest, safety and healing in community that uplifts, empowers and reclaims space and place. What is a real anxiety for me within this work is the vicarious trauma— knowing that entering into pain inherently means that you will feel it and live a version of it… experience the oppression, violence, and death. It’s a heaviness that can be hard to shake, particularly when I am unaware of what I already carry from my own journey. I’m very fortunate to have community that holds this work with me and reminds me that we need one another to repair, connect and thrive.

I think what can be tricky in my life is to see the work ONLY as facing and overcoming barriers; meaning, sitting IN the conflict is not something I’m practiced in.  I have enough experience now in the world I negotiate at work that I tend to immediately move to solutions and resolutions rather than sitting with and understanding the barrier.  Even with the teams I am working with, when they call for advice or answers, I would like practice sitting with them in the moment and hearing their thoughts and answers before solving it or offering mine.

The upcoming election definitely brings me anxiety.  Working with populations who don’t hold power has given me new perspective on the impact political choices have.  My station in life and identities have allowed me to stay fairly oblivious, as elections rarely had impact on me, but I am learning the domino effect of even simple tax bills have on the folks I work with.  I have been finding hope in, ironically, learning about the atrocious ongoing history of the United States- in each era that seemed hopeless, there were people unwilling to give up, and they made all of the difference. I have been listening to Sharon McMahon’s book, The Small and the Mighty, and it’s been a helpful encouragement to continue doing the good in front of me.

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.

To frame that fear, it helps to have a basic understanding of rural Ohio. Rural Ohio is a little more purple than people sometimes give it credit for, but even amongst more liberal folks, there is a noticeable chip on our shoulders. Resentment for progressive city types is common. There is definitely this sense that city folks view us as backwater hillbilly projects—as people who have to be taught how to speak, how to act, how to vote, and what values to hold. Furthermore, there is a general feeling that for all of their instructing, the progressive city types don’t want to be instructed. They don’t want to know, for example, why a rural Ohioan who is for gun control might own a hunting rifle. They just want to tell you guns are bad. They don’t want to listen to a person who comes from a dying coal mining town where the jobs all left when the mine went out of business talk about how they want the mining industry to be reinvigorated. They just want to tell you about how fossil fuels are killing the planet. So, any time that I want to talk about a social issue in my meeting that is more aligned with the left side of the spectrum, I have to be careful. If I want to reach people, I can’t come in righteous and yelling like the city people so often do. And while I wish that this was not the case, racial justice is seen in my community as a progressive, left-wing issue. I knew on Sunday night that much of what I experienced on the immersion would have to be repackaged to make it digestible, and as the trip stretched on, I became more and more certain of that fact. After all, how does one talk about something as important to discuss as lynching when the people listening don’t want to believe that systemic racism caused lynching—not one or two bad apples?

Honestly—and I guess that maybe this was the second part of my fear—by Thursday morning, I was pretty certain that I was just going to have to go back home and shout into a bullhorn about racism. I couldn’t see any other way around it. I was thinking that perhaps that would be my transformation—that I would lose some of my gentleness and that I would become an activist who didn’t care who I alienated if it meant that I could tell people the truth. But while we were at The Legacy Museum on Thursday, in one of the theaters, I watched a clip about Anthony Ray Hinton, who served 28 years on death row for a crime that he did not commit. In that clip, Mr. Hinton said that after being released nobody ever apologized to him. Nobody ever said that they were sorry. And right then and there, God did something in my soul. I had an epiphany of sorts. I realized that my transformation in regard to racial reconciliation was not the same sort of transformation that perhaps an activist would undergo. I am a pastor in rural Ohio, and therefore, the transformation that I was undergoing was one that worked in harmony with my call to pastor a Quaker meeting in rural Ohio. Rather than asking me to alienate my congregation with my new-found knowledge and my calls for justice, God was asking me to shepherd them through the confession, repentance, and repair process, and to help them grow in resilience.

I don’t know what this looks like yet. Or maybe, I’m still riding high from the rush of the trip. I don’t know. I have some discernment to do. But I do know that confession and making amends have been a game changer in my own life. And I know that they can be a game changer in the larger world. That’s why that “sorry” matters to Mr. Hinton. Its why restitution matters to Mrs. Collins Rudolph. Its why is matters that every museum, memorial, or tour we went on during the immersion started with the fact that African people were kidnapped and enslaved and brought to the United States. The truth will set us free if we tell it. And that truth will liberate us and enable us to make things right and to go forth and to make a better world. It will be painful, but it is necessary, and it is just the right call for a pastor like me in a meeting like mine. My two choices are not to be silent or to drive away everyone I know and love and to get myself fired. I can help people recognize the truth. I can lament alongside them. I can help them push through the guilt. I can discern with them on how to make amends. And I can help them stay rooted in hope and walk with them toward God’s Shalom. I can be a partner in resilience and in restoration.

This feels like a long-winded, out-there way of reflecting on transformation, but that’s it—this is my transformation. Let’s see what God might do!

Reflect on what causes you to “other” another. Here’s a very recent example. As many of you know I recently decided to leave ministry after 22 years and figure something else out. Right now I find myself at Costco. And something unique about the Costco I work at is that we have large populations of Indian and other Asian communities – due to being the home of Microsoft and Amazon, who hire tech workers from these areas. Where I’ve found myself othering folks lately – to be bluntly honest – is in their shopping habits. These populations seem to like to shop at night. We close our doors at 8:30pm on a weeknight and will begin to get a rush about 8pm that can last for quite awhile. Especially in the tiredness of a closing time rush I find myself thinking thoughts I’d rather not.  Now, I’m guessing this phenomena could be cultural or due to other circumstances (like Amazon’s work culture) but I definitely have found myself seeing people as others in both weak moments, but admittedly in not the weak ones either.

How do you reinforce your “othering”? This is easy. I continue to other people when I listen uncritically to people around me, like my co workers. Or when I tune into media and its underlying tones of othering. My othering is reinforced when my critical thinking is turned off and when my compassion as seeing each and every person as made in the image of God is lost among louder thoughts.

What are your challenges to expanding your circle of human concern? It’s those louder thoughts that I just referred to which challenge me. Some of examples of the things flowing through my head that get in the way of seeing people through Christ’s eyes are things such as the desire to be liked or welcomed, the desire to tune out the world and its issues, and the fear of sacrifice that comes might come with standing up for the other.

What have you learned that may be helpful for all of us? Seeing people as distinctively unique creations rather than as others is a lifelong journey and an everyday practice.

As we’ve gone through the sessions about “othering” the Spirit has pricked me and opened my eyes to see how I am doing this just about every Sunday. My othering targets those who I think should “know better” because of what I assume is some shared base of beliefs and approaches to the world. I work in a leadership role in my congregation and in that capacity council frequently with leaders of the different organizations within our congregation. When someone expresses an opinion or idea that is different than mine, I become frustrated (most often internally, though sometimes it shows) and later am very dismissive of them in conversations with my wife or even other leaders. I look for reasons to “other” them, and dismiss their opinion and experience as not relevant. I feel justified in doing so because I’m clearly speaking on the side of the marginalized and forgotten – their view is just interested in preserving their comfort (tough to communicate the sarcasm here). What really opened my eyes to just how much I was doing this was when Ben McBride talked about being willing to step into another’s shoes, not to affirm or agree with their perspective, but to acknowledge it as lived human experience, and to take that as an invitation to be curious about where they are coming from. Rather than valuing their lived human experience, my desire for unity means I can dismiss them because they should know better (i.e. how I see it is clearly how Jesus meant it).

Perhaps two examples will help. One brother in the council is over 60 years old and is the only person in the room over 45. He has been in leadership in our congregation for 30 years and often seems perturbed by the younger and newer members of our council who don’t understand the history of the congregation. Recently in one conversation I asked a question about why we were continuing a particular program that didn’t seem aligned with our mission or the way that we were doing things in general. This particular program is designed for the older members of our congregation and he immediately jumped in with defense about why it was needed. He kept going and said something to the effect of “But if people want to just dismiss me and leave this group behind that is fine.” 

I was stung. I see myself as a voice on the council that speaks for inclusion and doing things to specifically benefit those people or groups who feel unseen or unheard. My question was in no way meant to dismiss the group or this brother. I felt attacked. I snapped back that I wasn’t trying to dismiss anyone but simply raising a question. The air was tense and the conversation moved on, but I did not.

I came up with all the reasons I didn’t need to listen to him. I told myself that he was throwing an emotional fit to get his way, that as an older white man from a profession that gives him standing and clout in our community and as a long standing leader in the congregation he was used to getting his way. I told myself that he is more interested in maintaining what was and what he is comfortable with because changing things or asking questions is too uncomfortable. I put myself in a position of moral superiority and found every reason and opportunity to “other” him. I realize I’ve done the same thing with others on the council.

In my desire to widen my circle of human concern – and to widen the circle of human concern within our congregation, I fear I’ve simply shifted it. It is embarrassing to admit, but I have felt justified in it because I’m speaking for progress, inclusivity, and truly loving people instead of programs. Instead of building bridges, or even using already existing bridges, I’ve isolated myself as a crank who can’t play nicely with others. I feel like I’ve lost voice and influence within the council and all of this leaves me feeling frustrated, angry, stressed, and ready to give it up.

I recognize that I could build bridges with this brother, and others, and they may not want to cross them. I may “do everything right” and still end up frustrated, angry, and stressed. I’m realizing that, at least for me and my discipleship, the result isn’t the most important. This is God’s church, His work, and His children and He will make things right. How I show up in these councils and conversations will do a lot more to carry His light and love then what I specifically do. I guess what I mean is that what you do is important – it is our work to reconcile and try to make things right. But we are so limited in our understanding and abilities – especially when compared to God! – that our contribution is largely HOW we show up. Do we show up with love? Or do we show up to be right? When I try to be right or certain is when I other people. When I show up with love and curiosity, I widen my circle of human concern and invite others to do the same.

I don’t like to think of myself as a person who “others” my neighbors. I like to think of myself as a person who is open and inclusive—as a person who really lives into that story from Acts 8 where the Ethiopian eunuch asks Philip what is keeping him from being baptized, and Philip baptizes him. I’d like to believe that I embody the sower in the parable of the sower in the gospel of Matthew—that I indiscriminately throw out seeds—regardless of the soil in which those seeds are landing. And yet, that isn’t true. I “other” people, and frankly, I “other” people for the truly stupidest reason. There is nothing noble or justice-y about my othering. I “other” people when their values or actions or words come into conflict with mine because I am super conflict averse and I want my relationships to be easy, and it is more comfortable for me to “other” people and to pull away from them than it is for me to get curious and to draw closer to them.

As I have reflected on this bothersome truth, I think that the lie that I have been telling myself is that in doing this, I am drawing boundaries. I have fooled myself into believing that I am not “othering” people by pushing them away because there are things about them that are problematic or harmful, and that I am just trying to protect myself or others. The thing is, though, that there is a difference between harm and discomfort, and most of the time, when I “other” people, it is not because they have actually harmed me. It is because I am uncomfortable. It is because I seem to think that peace is an absence of conflict, when actually, it is a transforming of conflict, and a working through of conflict. So, that’s part of my challenge. To expand my circle of human concern, I must stop trying to escape from conflict, and I must learn how to enter into it.

I shared with my peer group that last week, I had a conversation with a pastor at another church in the town where I work regarding a billboard that they had up for “Bible Bootcamp” VBS. The billboard had guns and tanks and soldiers and all of this military imagery that I found troubling. My first thought was to complain about the sign to my more like-minded pastor friends—to further draw that divide between “us” and “them”—or to put something about how theologically incorrect it was on social media. Instead, I decided to enter into the conflict and my discomfort about it and to attempt to put some of what we have been learning into action. I emailed the church’s pastor and asked him questions about why “Bible Bootcamp” appealed to the church, and what the military imagery meant to them.

The conversation that we had was good. It didn’t change any minds, but it gave me a better understanding of where the church was coming from. He also seemed to appreciate that I shared my concerns without crapping all over him. It felt like a bridge building moment, and I am super excited about it, because it so easily could have been an “othering” moment. Truthfully, it was almost an “othering” moment, and only wasn’t because of JOH. I have no illusions that I am suddenly going to become a successful bridge builder because I did it one time, but I am hopeful that perhaps, “othering” will become less and less of a reflex as I keep pushing myself to get comfortable with conflict. I think that God is on the move in my heart.

I find myself most often othering who I once was; judgmental,  certain, smug, and all of that with less information than I have now.  I worry that I might still be those things, and I don’t see it, just like I didn’t see it so much then.

One of the things I have learned through my work with people in recovery is that when you overreact or under-react to something, there’s something else that it’s about, so the work is to figure out what that something else is.  I have found that to be true when I react strongly in general- it’s usually about something else.  So when I react strongly to someone and put them in the category of other, after I’m done trying to justify it to myself, I try to figure out why.  Most often, it’s something I recognize in myself and dislike, and so I’m pushing it away in them as a way of pushing it away in myself.  The reality is I need to acknowledge it, root it out, lament it, and make amends.

So what does this mean for me today.  Literally this week.  Well, Bill, the person who currently pushes my buttons in all sorts of ways, provides me all sorts of opportunities for self examination, which is a task that I have been avoiding, when it comes to Bill, until pretty recently.  With Jer’s challenge to get curious and move closer, to seek understanding, I went into this week and my multiple meetings in groups with Bill ready to lean in and try to understand some of Bill’s values, and then he was pleasant.  In both meetings.  He was polite, and humble and deferred to others’ expertise.  I was disoriented.  I wondered if merely changing my disposition to Bill changed how he interacts with meetings.  I don’t think that’s the case, but maybe I was just seeing him with more charitable eyes.  Which makes the next few weeks of meetings less… dread inducing.  So, while I haven’t had a conversation with Bill about the values that are behind some of his more infuriating traits, I am committed to it, and sooner rather than later.  And I will hopefully have better phrasing in the asking by the time I get to it.

As a teenager and as I moved into early adulthood I would classify myself as a conservative the most narrow sense, meaning that the values we used to have were under attack and we must protect them. This defensive posture meant I, as a person of faith, and the values I hold as part of that faith, are under deliberate attack by forces that want to strip society of any moorings or social values. I searched scripture, looking for examples and parallels to make my case. While I would not cite those examples publicly in terms of my politics, it was certainly there in my thoughts and motivations. 

To be clear, I do believe, firmly believe, that people of faith should and can bring their faith to the public square. My understanding of the nature of human beings, our rights and responsibilities on this earth, and where we are going are all deeply informed by my theology and faith. These are just as valid as any theory, philosophy, or understanding in the public square as motivation for how I want to operate in, and help to shape, society. What changed for me is that my faith became positive rather than negative. Rather than a defensive, fearful, and reactionary posture, I decided I wanted to take a constructive, faith-filled, and proactive posture to the world’s problems.

Since Dr. Gushee’s presentation I’ve felt both that I’ve been awakened to how ARC informed my development, but also very disoriented. First, I felt that Dr. Gushee’s framework puts words to ideas, concepts, and thoughts that have been bubbling around in my mind. White Christian Nationalism, as a concept, seemed too broad and vague. Authoritative Reactionary Christianity clarifies the political aims and tools of such a movement. ARC framing helps me to understand the reactionary fear that I’ve seen expressed by many in my faith community and helps me make sense of political patterns that seem so out of step with what I understand a follower of Jesus Christ to be. It has been a truly eye opening experience!

At the same time, I feel very disoriented. Or perhaps frustrated. There are elements of my personal and faith formation that are important to me that seem to be woven into ARC. Must I reject them? Can I hold them and reframe them? As an example, I do believe the United States plays a role in God’s plan for the redemption of His children. That role is very specific and narrowly defined in my view, and has less to do with the United States as a nation state than it does with the ideals supported by the American founding. Before these sessions I think I would have said I recognized the irony and the tragedy of a nation founded on the notion that “all men are committed equal” but that, nearly 250 years later, still can’t deliver on that ideal. However, after these sessions, I am realizing that it is more than just an ironic tragedy, but a serious and severe flaw in the structures we have built. The flaw continues and affects millions of individuals each and every day, for many of them it shapes every day of their life. 

I don’t know what to do next. My awakening leaves me feeling obligated to help awaken others, primarily through the way that I talk about and live my faith in today’s world. The disorienting feeling leaves me wondering how I can point to the language and concepts of authoritarianism in the name of Christianity that pervades the politics and, sadly, devotional lives of many in my faith community.