Breathe: A Poem
Breathe, said the wind.
How can I breathe at a time like this,
when the air is full of the smoke
of burning tires, burning lives?
Just breathe, the wind insisted.
Easy for you to say, if the weight of injustice
is not wrapped around your throat,
cutting off all air.
I need you to breathe.
I need you to breathe.
Don’t tell me to be calm
when there are so many reasons
to be angry, so much cause for despair!
I didn’t say to be calm, said the wind,
I said to breathe.
We’re going to need a lot of air
to make this hurricane together.
by Lynn Ungar
12/4/14
www.lynnungar.com
Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/uucollective/2014/12/breathe-a-poem/#ixzz3MkFuxZzd
Seeing is Believing
In the wake of Ferguson, in the wake of Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant and the 12-year-old boy with a pellet gun who was recently shot by a police officer in Cleveland and all the other young Black men killed because a White man found them threatening, it’s hard to know what to say. It’s hard to know what to say to my Black teenage daughter as we take the long way home from downtown Oakland to avoid protests that have started to turn violent. It’s hard to know what to say to Black friends who are grieving publicly on Facebook, who feel assaulted once again by a system which has betrayed them over and over. And it’s hard to know what to say to a good,
kind-hearted White friend who feels that her police officer son is being defamed by complaints against the police, and says that we all experience racism, and that we should just all be nice to one another.
It’s hard to know what to say, and it’s hard not be impatient with people who seem hopelessly out of touch. I have to start by remembering that we all speak from what we know, what we experience, what we see. We speak as eye-witnesses to our own lives. Which means that for a lot of White people, racism doesn’t really exist, or exists only as a few isolated instances. After all, what most of us who are White see in our daily lives is that the police are there to keep us safe. What we see is that our walking down the street or driving a car is not a subject for police investigation. What we see is that the folks who turn to look at us in stores are wondering if we need help. That’s reality.
And if that’s your reality then rage against the police seems misplaced, unreasonable, unjustified. If the justice system has always looked to you like, well, justice, then protesters on the streets are threats to the public safety, not advocates pushing for public safety. We know what we see. Who we imagine the public to be are the people who look or dress or talk like us.
I suspect that everyone who drives has been in the position of wanting to tell off the idiot who has come to a complete stop in the middle of the street in front of us. Maybe we honk our horn, or just sit there grumbling about the rude, clueless twit blocking our way for no reason—until we finally see the pedestrian crossing past the vehicle that was blocking our view. It turns out that the driver in front of us could see something that we couldn’t, was acting on information that we didn’t have.
It isn’t easy. The folks with the privilege have every habit of assuming what they see is the “real world,” and every incentive to stay in that comfortable world. The tricky part is that it’s really the job of the White people to help other White people see around the corner. There are many terrific books and blog posts and articles by people of color about their experiences, and White folks would do well to read them. But ultimately it is the responsibility of the White people who’ve caught a glimpse of the pedestrian in the road to help other White people see what is beyond their field of vision. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when you don’t quite know how to do it. Even when you’re pointing toward something that’s not altogether clear to you.
Maybe it’s enough to just ask everyone to enter the conversation aware that the fact that you don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
The Beginning is Now
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The beginning is now,
and will always be….
There’s another train.
There always is.
Maybe the next one is yours.
Get up and climb aboard
another train.
—Pete Morton
The first time I heard those words was in seminary. I’d just agreed to sing with a newly formed a cappella group, and this song, Another Train, was on the practice CD I’d been sent home with after our first rehearsal. Thinking back, I’d guess I played it at least a hundred times the first few days I had it in my possession—in the shower, on my way to classes, when I went for walks, even when I was washing dishes at the sink and doing my laundry. I nearly drove my housemates crazy, but there was something about the lyrics that really grabbed me.
In the Beginning . . .
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“In the beginning….”
What inviting words with which to begin a text that is to serve as an explanation and guide for a life and a religion!
The human mind is naturally drawn to beginnings, with an urge to trace things back, and back, and back—to try to get to the root. There’s a sense that if you know the beginning of something, then you know what it is, and where it might be headed, and how you might deal with it. You have ground upon which to stand. Read more →
Unexpected New Year
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I write this, and you will read it, at the start of a “new” year. I say “new” because that is how it has been parceled out in the proper number of days and weeks and months to make a year. One is over, one is beginning. For the next couple of weeks we will all persist in writing the wrong year on checks and letters. Quickly, the new year will become simply this year, and the old year will become attached to all that’s past.
In the Beginning
From Your Minister
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One of my favorite tricks when I am frustrated, bored or stuck is to consider where things have begun. For instance, during the awkward social situations into which pretty much all of us are periodically thrown (like standing in clumps of strangers at receptions and coffee hours), one easy path into conversation is to ask about beginnings.
REsources for Living
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Have you recently started up something new? Even if you haven’t, you probably remember a time when you did. I certainly have very clear memories from several years ago when I decided for the first time to take an aerobics class. I’d joined a gym for the first time in my life, and it quickly became clear that running on a treadmill was way, way too boring to keep doing on a regular basis.
Where it Starts
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The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, Lao Tzu said in the Tao. But a better translation of this familiar passage is to say the journey begins beneath our feet—not in the first step but in the stillness that precedes it, in the place where we stand before we move, in the very ground of our being. Read more →
Preparing the Warrior Spirit
It is the middle of the night and my unit has landed at Bangor International Airport, in Maine, for a short stopover before we leave American soil for Afghanistan. We will not be home for many months. We hope we will all come home alive, but in war, as in life, there are risks, there is uncertainty, there is the real possibility of death.
Before we left our mobilization site in Texas I brought a self-selecting group of my soldiers on retreat—a Spiritual Fitness Retreat. We did this to prepare our souls for war, drawing from the wisdom of warrior cultures in earlier times and adopting and adapting spiritual disciplines, rituals, and rites of passage, to serve the needs of the soul.
War is a Rite of Passage—I have learned this from my mentor Ed Tick—and this rite in history has included several key components: time apart in a sacred space, guidance by elders, trials that recreate the war experience, blessing and gifts from the community in whose name the warrior serves, and initiation into the warrior path. At our retreat we did all these things, and in some mysterious and beautiful way the community came together around us.
Ascension Mena, who established the Holy Trinity Retreat Center in eastern El Paso, hosted our gathering; local ministers, including Sabine Green and Sarah Heartsong, lead the gathering in a drumming circle and Warrior Rite; Hugh Scanlen, a purple heart recipient from two combat tours in Vietnam and elder mentor on the Warrior Path, offered wisdom and guidance; Mahonri Telles and Matt Hopper, both Iraq combat veterans, drew from Native American and Nordic traditions respectively to teach us to activate our shadow with the “warrior cry” and create meaning with Norse Rune symbols; others too many to name came and provided healing through Reiki and gifts of medicine pouches for us each to carry.
Now is the time to depart, but we leave with the blessing of the community, our souls cared for by the ancient wisdom rituals and rites of warrior cultures in earlier times.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
