no, prayer is not the answer

i am pretty disturbed by the number of times since trump was elected that i’ve heard variations on prayer being the solution. it has sounded like:

• “all we can do now is pray that it doesn’t get terrible.”
• “pray for him and his people.”
• “i’m praying that you stay safe and you do the same for me.”

if i’m honest, it’s crazy talk like this that made me run from church. although i realize that there are conflicting bible verses about whether prayer on its own is effective or whether it must be combined with action, it just doesn’t make sense to me that sitting or kneeling and thinking is itself going to have any serious impact on anything. i don’t want my friends to pray for my safety, i want them to actually do things that help keep me safe. and vice versa: i’m not just going to sit in my bed and think about my family and friends being safe. i’m going to take action that ensures they stay safe. and if those actions seem impossible, i’m going to encourage them like hell to get out.

last week, i found myself saying to ross, “i’m really hoping this doesn’t go as badly as it could…” he responded, “will be up to the righteous to ensure that.”

faith without deeds is dead. and so we go forward, with hope and action, both.

ps - i don’t often still refer to the bible, but i do remember that james 2: 14-26 used to really resonate with me. for the most part, that passage still does.

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good^[a] is that? ¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! ²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? ²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

mourning

i am still in mourning.

it’s slowed down a lot, but when i think about the work i was going to do over the next 3-5 years i still cry. i am in mourning for the future that i might have had. i believe and know that there is still plenty of good work to do; it’s just different work than what i thought i’d be doing.

the best analogy i can think of is trying to mow the lawn when a hurricane hits. before the hurricane, i had a plan that i was moving forward with. now that i know a hurricane is coming, it doesn’t make much sense to keep mowing the lawn. i need to shift my energy towards preparing for the hurricane: shutters need to go up, supplies need to be gathered, the backup generator needs to be tested, etc. like all hurricanes, it’s possible that it’ll be fucking nuts and destroy many things and it’s also possible that it won’t be that bad. but either way, pretending like a hurricane isn’t coming doesn’t make sense to me. and mowing the grass now feels of very little importance.

trump has basically stated that he wants to roll back the entire obama presidency. so now instead of advocating and fighting for people to have more rights, the work will be to help people keep the rights they already (barely) have. instead of thinking forward about renewable energy and health care and transportation, we’ll be fighting to keep things from rolling backwards.

i could go on, but the point is this: i am in mourning for the work and the vision of the country and world that we were on the way to.

last night, my friend dara mentioned the practice of shiva, which is the jewish practice of gathering in one place following the death and burial of someone for seven days of mourning and receiving guests.

i think i’m sitting shiva.

growth is betrayal: a play in five acts.

act i: john updike – rabbit redux.

“Growth is betrayal. There is no other route. There is no arriving somewhere without leaving somewhere.”

act ii: marie kondo – the life-changing magic of tidying up.​

“Every object has a different role to play. Not all clothes have come to you to be worn threadbare. It is the same with people. Not every person you meet in life will become a close friend or lover. Some you will find hard to get along with or impossible to like. But these people, too, teach you the precious lesson of who you do like, so that you will appreciate those special people even more.

When you come across something that you cannot part with, think carefully about its true purpose in your life. You’ll be surprised at how many of the things you possess have already fulfilled their role. By acknowledging their contribution and letting them go with gratitude, you will be able to truly put the things you own, and your life, in order. In the end, all that will remain are the things that you really treasure.

To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose… this is neither wasteful nor shameful.”

act iii: bell hooks – all about love.

“While forgiveness is essential to spiritual growth, it does not make everything immediately wonderful or fine. Often, New Age writing on the subject of love makes it seem as though everything will always be wonderful if we are just loving. Realistically, being part of a loving community does not mean we will not face conflicts, betrayals, negative outcomes from positive actions, or bad things happening to good people. Love allows us to confront these negative realities in a manner that is life-affirming and life-enhancing.”

act iv: reinhold niebuhr.

“Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.”

act v: bell hooks – all about love.

“Usually we imagine that true love will be intensely pleasurable and romantic, full of love and light. In truth, true love is all about work. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wisely observed: ‘Like so much else, people have also misunderstood the place of love in life, they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure was more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work…’ The essence of true love is mutual recognition—two individuals seeing each other as they really are.”

walls

when walls go up
it is hard to bring them down. 
even when you want to. 

berlin.

the media is already normalizing the hate speech.
the wall: reasonable.
banning muslims: reasonable.
extreme vetting: reasonable.
defunding sanctuaries: reasonable.

my hometown crew is team trump.
so i hear.
speechless. 

impressive, really.
love your neighbor.
build a wall between you and them.
lose no sleep. 
impressive.

not my home. 

where are the walls in us?
what are the walls in us?
each of us. 
all of us.
us.

what are they made of?
fear? distance? dislike? disbelief?

pain. 

what signals are we sending our children?
do not welcome.
they are not welcome. 
they must leave. 
they are hurting us.

ignore that we bomb their hometowns.
that we say ‘come’ with billboards and paychecks.

but how did we get here?
different paths. 
many forced.
many chosen.

but now, we are here.
and they cannot be.

so we kick them out.
and watch. 

as we destroy ourselves from the inside.

fight or flight

generally speaking, i think our most primitive reactions are of little use to us. evolution required us to need to be able to do things to survive that most (not all) of us don’t need to do anymore.

however, after living through yesterday, all i can think about is fight or flight.

on one hand, obviously, this is my country and fighting for it seems like an obvious choice. america is the only home i have ever known (even if my ancestors were almost definitely dragged here against their will).

one of my favorite quotes goes something like “you can’t truly change something unless you see yourself as a part of it.” so, here i am, an american citizen, and i should fight for this country to be what i know it says it can be, what it’s founding documents say it wants to be, but isn’t yet.

but then on the other hand, i’m like… fuck it. this country has perpetually treated the slave, the foreigner, the outsider, like shit. why stick around in a place that is so systemically unwelcome?

not only that, but some of us are more vulnerable than others. straight, white, cis-gendered men, regardless of where they stand, aren’t likely to have physical attacks on them go up over the next four years. sure, many attacks on them continue (because almost all violent crime is committed by and against people of the same race), but that’s not what i’m worried about.

what i’m worried about is being targeted as a queer, black man. i still have all sorts of privilege (cis-gendered, educational privilege), but all it takes is one person with a bullet and a gun to end me and right now, people who don’t like black people are feeling real bold.

yesterday, a friend posted this on facebook:

“‘we’re about to own you again.’

This was said to my black boyfriend as he left a business meeting last night.”

over the last many months, i have developed much stronger connections to the jewish community in boston. the shared histories of oppression between jewish people and black people (though there are some important differences) is something that often makes me remember that cross-boundary organizing is possible and necessary. but i can’t help but think about all the stories i’ve read and heard, in books, movies, and from peoples’ mouths. the “why didn’t they just leave earlier?"s and the "we knew it was crazy, but we just didn’t know how crazy it really was until it was too late"s and the "fighting was important, but now that entire branch of my family is gone"s and the "i wish they had just fled and lived to fight another day"s.

when is too much? when is too late? will i regret the moment(s) i had to get out and prepare safe spaces for family and friends?

i’m real torn, right now. america is all i’ve ever known and, on good days, i can genuinely imaging dying to make it the place it could be, not for its own sake, but for the sake of other humans, for the sake of people who shouldn’t have to die because of who they are. if we can’t figure this out in america, it’s not clear to me it can be done anywhere. i did used to always say that if i hadn’t found a cause to die for by the age Jesus died, i was doing something wrong. 

but still, is it worth my life? is it worth bashing myself against the rocks for something that was potentially well-intended, but rotten from the start? this land is stolen and we scarcely acknowledge it. black people, women, brown people, queer people, forever, have been told systemically and literally that they/we don’t matter. who wants to stay around to fix a system that tells you you don’t matter, that your life is worth less?

feeling real torn.