Lord,  
plunge me deep into a sense of sadness  
at the pain of my sisters and brothers….
that I may learn again to cry as a child 
until my tears baptize me 
into a person who touches with care 
those I now touch in prayer….  
Amen. —Ted Loder, “I Remember Now in Silence,” Guerrillas of Grace  

Almost twenty years ago, Richard Rohr wrote an essay for CAC’s newsletter Radical Grace to articulate the Center’s position to stand at the margins in solidarity with others.  

Jesus consistently stands with the excluded: outsiders, sinners, and poor people. That is his place of freedom from every local culture, his unique way of critiquing all self-serving culture, and his way of standing in union with the suffering of the world—all at the same time. That is his form of world healing. 

It’s rather obvious that Jesus spends most of his ministry standing with the ones accused of unworthiness, the so-called bad people, the demonized. It is actually rather scandalous how the only way he tries to change them is by loving and healing them, never accusing anybody but the accusers themselves. His social program is solidarity. As Jesuit Greg Boyle, the street priest in Los Angeles, says, “Jesus stands with the demonized until the demonizing stops.” Father Greg insists this is Jesus’ primary form of justice work, which is why Jesus’ “strategy” is always so hard to pinpoint and name. His justice strategy is solidarity—even more than working or fighting for justice per se, which disappoints many activists. Mary does the same by standing at the foot of the cross. He and she stand with the pain, to call us all to lives of communion with the world’s suffering. This is so much harder than merely trying to fix it, understand it, control it, or even localize it. Only love can do this, and really only God’s love.  

I am sure you see how Jesus’ insight has led us to our emphasis on contemplation and spiritual conversion here at the CAC, over pure and simple activism. If universal kinship, solidarity, communion with God, with ourselves, and with the rest of the world, is daily experienced and lived, we do have a very grounded plan and runway for peacemaking, justice work, social reform, civil and human rights—but now from a very positive place, where “I and the Father are one” [John 10:30]. 

This demands our own ongoing transformation, our changing places, and even a new identity, as Jesus shows in his great self-emptying (Philippians 2:6–7). He stood in solidarity with the problem itself, hardly ever with specific answers for people’s problems. This was his strategy and therefore it is ours. It feels like weakness, but it finally changes things in very creative, patient, and humble ways. Such solidarity is learned and expressed in two special places—contemplation and actions of communion with human suffering.  

This is our name and our task, and it comes from watching Jesus.

_______________________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Listens

Majestic Jesus, I come joyfully into Your Presence, my Prince of Peace. I love to hear You whispering the words You spoke to Your fearful disciples: “Peace be with you!” I rejoice that Your Peace is always with me because You are my constant Companion. When I keep my focus on You, I can experience both Your Presence and Your Peace. You are worthy of all my worship—for You are King of kings, Lord of lords, and Prince of Peace. I need Your Peace each moment in order to accomplish Your purposes in my life. I confess that sometimes I’m tempted to take shortcuts—to reach my goals as quickly as possible. But I’m learning that if the shortcuts involve turning away from Your peaceful Presence, I must choose the longer route. Lord, please help me to keep walking with You along the path of Peace—enjoying the journey in Your Presence. In Your worthy Name, Amen

ISAIAH 9:6; For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

JOHN 20:19; “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. ”

PSALM 25:4 NKJV; Show me Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths.

LUKE 1:79; to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” 

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 197). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Divine Solidarity with Suffering

Father Richard believes that Jesus’ cross reveals God’s solidarity with suffering:  

When we try to live in solidarity with the pain of the world—and don’t spend our lives running from necessary suffering—we will encounter various “crucifixions.” Many say pain is physical discomfort, but suffering comes from our resistance, denial, and sense of injustice or wrongness about that pain. I know that is very true for me. This is the core meaning of suffering on one level or another, and we all learn it the hard way. Pain is the rent we pay for being human, it seems, but suffering is usually optional. The cross was Jesus’ voluntary acceptance of undeserved suffering as an act of total solidarity with the pain of the world. Reflecting on this mystery of love can change our lives.  

I think the acceptance of that invitation to solidarity with the larger pain of the world is what it means to be “a Christian.” It takes great inner freedom to be a follower of Jesus. His life is an option, a choice, a call, a vocation for us, and we are totally free to say yes or no or maybe. We do not have to do this to make God love us. That is already taken care of. We do it to love God back and to love what God loves and how God loves! We either are baptized “into his death” and “resurrection” (Romans 6:3; Philippians 3:10–12), or Christianity is largely a mere belonging system, not a transformational system that will change the world.  

The “crucified God” as personified in Jesus revealed that God is always on the side of suffering wherever it is found, including the wounded and dying troops on both sides in every kind of war, and both the victims and the predators of this world; frankly, this pleases very few people. Our resistance to suffering is an entire industry now, perhaps symbolized by the total power of the gun lobby and the permanent war economy in America, the fear of any profit sharing with the poor, or the need to be constantly entertained. Maybe that is why some have said that the foundational virtue underlying all others is courage (cor-agere, an action of the heart). It takes immense courage to walk in solidarity with the suffering of others, and even our own. [1] 

If God is somehow participating in human suffering, instead of just passively tolerating it and observing it, that changes everything—at least for those who are willing to “gaze” contemplatively. All humble, suffering souls learn this from God, but the Christian Scriptures named it and revealed it publicly and dramatically in Jesus.  

We can’t do it alone at all, but only by a deep identification with the Crucified One and crucified humanity. Jesus then does it in us, through us, with us, and for us. Then we have become a “new creation” (Galatians 6:15) and a very different kind of human being. [2] 

[52] The Body

It is by the body that we come into contact with Nature, with our fellowmen, with all their revelations to us. It is through the body that we receive all the lessons of passion, of suffering, of love, of beauty, of science. It is through the body that we are both trained outward from ourselves, and driven inward into our deepest selves to find God. There is glory and might in this vital evanescence, this slow glacier like flow of clothing and revealing matter, this ever uptossed rainbow of tangible humanity. It is no less of God’s making than the spirit that is clothed therein.

Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald (pp. 28-29). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The Spirituality of Solidarity

Barbara Holmes reflects on solidarity and this year’s Daily Meditations theme The Prophetic Path:  

I’m reminded of the power of the prophetic path to create solidarity where it least seems possible, and to enhance compassion for the suffering of others and the suffering of the world. But what are we to do about the troubles of the world? Well, Jesus calls us—his brash and troublesome disciples who question, doubt, and continually fail him—to take up the mantle of prophecy, to discern the signs of the times, and to be an ever-present balm in a troubled world.… 

Physicist Neil de Grasse Tyson reminds us that our solidarity is not a choice, it’s a reality. He says we’re all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the rest of the universe atomically. Our solidarity is a scientific fact, as well as the salvific act of a loving Savior and a wise and guiding Holy Spirit. Even our call to solidarity is exemplified by the Divine…. Because Jesus has come, and truly overturned and overcome the systems of the world, he beckons us to do likewise.  

The systems say that change can’t come, that gravity wins, that religion is of no use except to placate the people, that you’d better put your trust in growth mutual funds. But Jesus says there is another way—the prophetic way—and even now he beckons for us to step out on the Word, to come together as one, and to exercise our gifts. Only then can we make peace with our neighbors, end the gun violence, and stop our addiction to division. Solidarity and compassion is love in action. [1] 

Author Margaret Swedish considers a spirituality of solidarity that begins with honoring the divine presence in each human being: 

“I believe that God gave us the greatest example of solidarity when God sent his son Jesus to live with us,” [Salvadoran refugee] Ernesto Martell says. “God gave us the dignity of living with Jesus among us.”… This is one of the pillars of a Christian spirituality of solidarity—belief in a God who became human like us and in so doing revealed the true dignity of each human being.  

What this means is that we must, first of all, be able to see the other, the human being next to us, or in a Salvadoran village, or in a refugee camp in Rwanda, as a person with value equal to our own. My life is no more valuable and worthy, of no greater or lesser significance, than that of this other human being. I am no more or less deserving. My rights are not more important than those of this person.… 

This spirituality starts in a painful place—with an acceptance of the fact that the world is broken and that we are broken. In this we find our deep bonds with the wounded ones of our world. And in that vulnerable place we find the heart of solidarity: compassion. [2]

[51] Love and Justice

Man is not made for justice from his fellow, but for love, which is greater than justice, and by including supersedes justice. Mere justice is an impossibility, a fiction of analysis…. Justice to be justice must be much more than justice. Love is the law of our condition, without which we can no more render justice than a man can keep a straight line, walking in the dark.

Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald (p. 28). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Solidarity Not Judgment

Father Richard Rohr understands the heart of Christianity as God’s loving solidarity with all people and with reality itself: 

Through Jesus Christ, God’s own broad, deep, and all-inclusive worldview is made available to us. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the point of the Christian life is to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This is the full, final, and intended effect of the Incarnation—symbolized by the cross, which is God’s great act of solidarity instead of judgment. This is how we are to imitate Jesus, the good Jewish man who saw and called forth the divine in Gentiles like the Syrophoenician woman and the Roman centurions who followed him; in Jewish tax collectors who collaborated with the Empire; in zealots who opposed it; in sinners of all stripes; in eunuchs, pagan astrologers, and all those “outside the law.” Jesus had no trouble whatsoever with otherness. 

If we are ready to reclaim the true meaning of “catholic,” which is “universal,” we must concentrate on including—as Jesus clearly did—instead of excluding—which he never did. The only thing Jesus excluded was exclusion itself. [1] 

Transgender priest Shannon Kearns provides an example of God’s inclusive solidarity with eunuchs, sexual minorities in the time of the prophet Isaiah:  

In Isaiah 56:3b–5 … the prophet says, “And don’t let the eunuch say, ‘I’m just a dry tree.’ The Lord says: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, choose what I desire, and remain loyal to my covenant. In my temple and courts, I will give them a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give to them an enduring name that won’t be removed.”  

It’s a word of comfort and hope. A word of healing…. Eunuchs are told they will be given an enduring legacy. This piece about being given an “enduring name” rings loudly for many transgender and nonbinary people, especially the ones who have claimed new names…. This also rings loudly for the many people who have felt excluded and cut off from entry into religious spaces because of their gender diversity.…  

The message of the eunuchs is that the boxes don’t work. They aren’t fit to live in. They will likely kill us if we stay there. The freedom to move between spaces and worlds, the freedom to claim all of who we are, the freedom to be is what we are called to. The message of the eunuchs also calls us to look around and ask: Who is being excluded? Who is not welcome? Who is there no space for? That list of people and those names that come to your mind? The message in Isaiah 56 and from the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 says, “There is space for them in the kingdom of God, too.”… They don’t need to change to be worthy; they are made worthy by wanting to be included.  

Anyone who desires the water is welcome.

Solidarity Works Shoulder to Shoulder 

Author Renny Golden writes about the biblical meaning of solidarity and her involvement in the sanctuary movement of the 1980s, which provided hospitality for Central American refugees fleeing violence.  

Solidarity as a word does not appear in the Bible. As a practice of faith, however, it captures the essence of the [Jewish and Christian traditions]. The Bible is a multithousand-year story of Israelites trying to maintain solidarity with their God and with the poor…. 

When God first called Moses to lead the people from bondage, he balks and gives excuses [Exodus 3:13, 4:1,10]. But God promises, “I will be with you.” That is the basis of the relationship of solidarity. It is not paternalism or pity; it is working shoulder to shoulder in the act of liberation.…  

The birth of Jesus, the incarnation of God into the world, is the paradigmatic act of solidarity. God so loved the world that God took human form. It was total identification with the human condition, total solidarity with human history. God embodied love in a stable in the midst of the most imperialistic empire in the world, and from the very beginning Jesus had to flee the excesses of [imperial] power. From the beginning Jesus was a threat to the established order and so had to flee the death squads of the Roman government [Matthew 2:13–14]. Jesus began life not as one of the elite but as a refugee, homeless, living on the run. Thus, the love of God for the world meant very specifically solidarity with the persecuted, the fugitive, the outcast. 

Scholar Robert Chao Romero describes the solidarity of Jesus’ ministry, which embodies good news for the poor and excluded:  

God became flesh and launched his movimiento [movement] among those who were despised and rejected by both their Roman colonizers and the elite of their own people. Jesus didn’t go to the big city and seek recruits among the religious, political, and economic elite.… He started in what today would be East LA, the Artesia Community Guild, or Spanish Harlem. To change the system, Jesus had to start with those who were excluded from the system.…  

Although the good news of Jesus is for the whole human family, it goes first to the poor and all who are marginalized. Like a loving father [or mother], God loves all [God’s] children equally, but shows special concern for those of his [or her] children who suffer most.…  

Riling under the double burden of Roman colonialism and economic and spiritual oppression by the elites of their own people, [the underclass of Jesus’ day] needed first to hear the announcement of God’s liberation. Though they were seen as weaker in the eyes of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and ruling elite, Jesus considered them indispensable; though they were thought to be less honorable, Jesus gave them greater honor. Jesus gave greater honor to those who lacked it (1 Corinthians 12:22–25). He went first to those “outside the gate” of institutional power and authority. [2] 

[50] What Cannot Be Loved

But how can we love a man or a woman who…is mean, unlovely, carping, uncertain, self-righteous, self-seeking, and self-admiring?—who can even sneer, the most inhuman of human faults, far worse in its essence than mere murder? These things cannot be loved. The best man hates them most; the worst man cannot love them. But are these the man?…Lies there not within the man and the woman a divine element of brotherhood, of sisterhood, a something lovely and lovable—slowly fading, it may be—dying away under the fierce heat of vile passions, or the yet more fearful cold of sepulchral selfishness, but there?…It is the very presence of this fading humanity that makes it possible for us to hate. If it were an animal only, and not a man or a woman, that did us hurt, we should not hate: we should only kill.

Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald (pp. 27-28). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Barbara Holmes emphasizes how the arts are an integral part of crisis contemplation and healing communal wounds.  

The artists are the prophets. They say what can’t be said in ways that can be heard. They dance it, rap it, and write it in dramas. They are the forerunners for the community. During the Civil Rights Movement, what stitched the movement together was the art and the songs. Everybody did not agree on the process and strategies, but they all agreed on the old songs. Everybody knew them and could sing them. Art knit a community together without having to do a lot of talking about it. The poetry and rap rhythms offered survival to people who were marginalized into poverty. Through art, they could take that poverty and turn it on its head. In our communities, we offer graffiti images of folks who are slain. We dance. We let our bodies reveal our suffering and our persistence. When all else fails, we sing ourselves sane.  

Art opens portals to new realities…. Art is prophetic. Art is humanizing. It speaks truth to power, and so it is another way in which a community can come together and express themselves in ways the power structures can do nothing about. What do you do about a rap song that speaks of the brutality of the system?…  

Art is an expression of Spirit. A lot that comes out of artists is not coming from them. It’s coming through them. The reason art is so powerful is that when you have expressions of art coming through a group of people, a village, a community, you have a great deal of creative and strategic power that’s available to everyone for their use. Making art together is an act of creation that I find invigorating. My communities of choice are artistic communities because they’re always on the cutting edge. They’re not leading with what they think. They’re leading with what is coming through them and that’s always so healing. [1] 

CAC staff member Drew Jackson writes poetry inspired by the Bible. In this poem, he writes of the angel Gabriel and the prophets that confront injustice with God’s healing power. 

The Spirit of Elijah 

Luke 1:14–18 

I’ve been told that God shows up  
on shores, in boats, with Bibles  
and swords. 

I’ve been told that God does  
the bidding of kings  
seeking to plant their flag on my soil. 

I’ve been told that God snuggles up to  
power that delights to  
kill bodies like mine.   

But that’s not what Gabriel said.  

Gabriel said that God’s prophet  
will have the spirit of Elijah,  
bringing life to widows’ households.  

Gabriel said that God’s prophet  
will possess the power of the Tishbite,  
tearing down monuments to the god of domination.  

Gabriel said that God’s prophet  
will be filled with the Holy Spirit,  
committed to speaking out against Ahabs and Jezebels.  

Thus saith the LORD. [2] 

_______________________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Listens

All-satisfying God, My soul thirsts for You—for the living God. The deepest yearnings of my heart are for intimacy with You, Lord. I’m thankful You designed me to desire You, and I delight in seeking Your Face. Help me not to feel guilty about taking so much time to be still in Your Presence. I’m simply responding to the tugs of Your Spirit within me. You made me in Your image, and You hid heaven in my heart. My longing for You is a form of homesickness—a yearning for my true home in heaven. I realize my journey is different from that of other people, and I need courage to persevere. Yet I trust that the path You have called me to travel with You is exquisitely right for me. I’ve found that the more closely I follow Your leading, the more fully You develop my gifts. In order to follow You wholeheartedly, I need to relinquish my desire to please others. Still, my closeness to You can be a source of blessing to other people—as You enable me to reflect Your Glory in this dark world. In Your bright, shining Name, Jesus, Amen

PSALM 42:1–2; As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

1 CHRONICLES 16:11 NASB; Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face continually.

PSALM 34:5; They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed

2 CORINTHIANS 3:18; And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image with intensifying glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 189). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Retired Episcopal bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston draws on his Native American experience to navigate collective crisis. 

We inhabit a period in history that seems to be filled with conflict. The world has become an uncertain place, a dark place, where we cannot see what may happen next. All we know, based on our recent experience, is that things could—and probably will—get worse.…  

For millennia, my ancestors followed a spiritual path that was respectful of the earth, inclusive of all humanity, and visionary in its transformative power. That tradition has survived. It is one of the oldest continuous spiritual paths on earth. My ancestors’ faith continues to this day despite every hardship and persecution it has been forced to endure…. I was asked to write a brief commentary about the Christian theology of the apocalypse: the final, terrible vision of the end of the world. I said my Native American culture was in a unique position to speak of this kind of vision, because we were among the few cultures that have already experienced it. In historic memory, we have seen our reality come crashing down as invaders destroyed our homeland. We have lived through genocide, concentration camps, religious persecution, and every human rights abuse imaginable. Yet we are still here. No darkness—not even the end of the world as we knew it—had the power to overcome us. So our message is powerful not because it is only for us, but because it speaks to and for every human heart that longs for light over darkness. [1] 

Charleston takes inspiration from the hope embodied by his ancestors during crisis and displacement.  

My ancestors did not survive the Trail of Tears because they were set apart from the rest of humanity. Their exodus was not a sign of their exclusivity, but rather their inclusivity. In their suffering, they embodied the finite and vulnerable condition of all humanity. They experienced what the whole tribe of the human beings has experienced at one time or another throughout history: the struggle of life, the pain of oppression, and the fear of the unknown. Their long walk was the walk of every person who has known what it means to be alone and afraid. But they walked with courage and dignity because they had the hope of the Spirit within them.… 

Hope makes room for love in the world. We can all share it, we can all believe in it, even if we are radically different in every other way. We no longer need to fear our differences because we have common ground. We can hope together—therefore, hope liberates us. It frees us from our fear of the other. It opens our eyes to see love all around us. It unites us and breaks our isolation. When we decide to embrace hope—when we choose to make that our goal and our message—we release a flow of energy that cannot be overcome. Hope is a light that darkness can never contain. [2] 

_______________________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Listens

Triumphant God, Your Word poses the rhetorical question: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” I trust that You are indeed for me since I am Your follower. I realize this verse does not mean that no one will ever oppose me. It does mean that having You on my side is the most important fact of my existence. Regardless of what losses I experience, I am on the winning side. You have already won the decisive victory through Your death and resurrection! You are the eternal Victor, and I share in Your triumph because I belong to You forever. No matter how much adversity I encounter on my journey to heaven, nothing can ultimately prevail against me! Knowing that my future is utterly secure is changing my perspective dramatically. Instead of living in defensive mode—striving to protect myself from suffering—I am learning to follow You confidently, wherever You lead. You are teaching me not only to seek Your Face and follow Your lead but to enjoy this adventure of abandoning myself to You. I rejoice that You are with me continually and You are always ready to help me in times of trouble. In Your magnificent Name, Jesus, Amen

ROMANS 8:31; What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

PSALM 27:8 NKJV; When You said, “Seek My face,”. My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

PSALM 46:1 NLT; God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 188). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Dancing in the Darkness

United Church of Christ minister Otis Moss III reflects on joy’s availability even in difficult times. During a harrowing period when his church received violent threats, Moss woke late one night to unexpected sounds in his house. Fearing an intruder, Moss instead discovers his daughter dancing in her room. 

Her movements were so jubilant, her spirit so free of worry or fear that I couldn’t even stay mad at my baby girl.

She’s dancing. The darkness is all around her as it’s all around you—but she’s still dancing….  

Instead of seeing Makayla as just another addition to the night’s problems, I glimpsed her as a fellow traveler…. Like her frightened father, this six-year-old fellow traveler was awake in the night.  

Even so, there was a difference. I was caught in a cycle of worry and anger. I was not just walking a dark path; I had let the darkness inside me. Evil always seeks to obscure the light, because once it has you living in darkness, that which should not be painful becomes so….  

What we forget, faithwise, in our fear—what I was forgetting that night in my daughter’s room—is that even in the darkest night, when we see no light at all, the light is still there. The sun is still shining over Earth even when our side of Earth rotates away from it. The stars still shine above us, no matter … how thick the clouds above our heads. What we need in the darkest nights is to keep walking along the path until we can glimpse the stars again. What we don’t need is to panic and run blindly into the woods.  

Makayla was just a child, but on this night, she had moved ahead of me on that path. By dancing in the dark, by doing one of the things she most loved, she was making her own light.…  

The enduring words of Psalm 30 struck me afresh: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning…” The eleventh verse of the Scripture made me shout: “You have turned my mourning into dancing.” 

Seeing his daughter dance inspired Moss to share the message with his community:   

Sunday, I told the congregation that we must meet the threats in our lives. We must fight for justice, for our safety, and for the right to live in a world where we can thrive. But even in the darkness of midnight we can maintain a connection to the light. When we cannot survive in darkness by using visual tools of sight, we still have internal tools of memory to remind us of our terrain. Until dawn comes, we need more than the determination to fight for justice. We need love to keep us from getting lost in distraction, love to keep us from falling into despair, love to help us restore ourselves, get back into harmony with ourselves, so we can last through that dark night.  

“Dance,” I urged them. “Dance in the dark!”  

[49] The Same

The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dungeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe.

Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald (pp. 26-27). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Impasse and Opportunity

There is not only the so-called dark night of the soul but [also] the dark night of the world. What if, by chance, our time in evolution is a dark-night time—a time of crisis and transition that must be understood if it is to be part of learning a new vision and harmony for the human species and the planet?
—Constance FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night” 

Catholic theologian and Carmelite Sister Constance FitzGerald uses “impasse” to describe facing an extended experience of crisis:  

By impasse, I mean that there is no way out of, no way around, no rational escape from, what imprisons one, no possibilities in the situation. In a true impasse, every normal manner of acting is brought to a standstill…. The whole life situation suffers a depletion, has the word limits written upon it. Dorothée Soelle describes it as “unavoidable suffering”…. [1] Any movement out, any next step, is canceled, and the most dangerous temptation is to give up, to quit, to surrender to cynicism and despair, in the face of the disappointment, disenchantment, hopelessness, and loss of meaning that encompass one.  

Despite the potential for despair, FitzGerald finds the possibility of hope and transformation amid both personal and societal impasse: 

Paradoxically, a situation of no potential is loaded with potential…. While nothing seems to be moving forward, one is, in fact, on a homeward exile—ifone can yield in the right way, responding with full consciousness of one’s suffering in the impasse yet daring to believe that new possibilities, beyond immediate vision, can be given….  

The psychologists and the theologians, the poets and the mystics, assure us that impasse can be the condition for creative growth and transformation … ifthe ego does not demand understanding in the name of control and predictability….  

Our experience of God and our spirituality must emerge from our concrete historical situation and because our time and place in history bring us face to face with profound societal impasse. Here God makes demands for conversion, healing, justice, love, compassion, solidarity, and communion. Here the face of God appears, a God who dies in human beings and rises in human freedom and dignity.  

We close off the breaking in of God into our lives if we cannot admit into consciousness the situations of profound impasse we face personally and societally…. The “no way out” trials of our personal lives are but a part of the far more frightening situations of national and international impasse that have been formed by the social, economic, and political forces in our time….  

It is only in the process of bringing the impasse to prayer, to the perspective of the God who loves us, that our society will be freed, healed, changed, brought to paradoxical new visions, and freed for nonviolent, selfless, liberating action, freed, therefore, for community on this planet earth. Death is involved here, a dying in order to see how to be and to act on behalf of God in the world.  

[48] My Neighbor

A man must not choose his neighbor: he must take the neighbor that God sends him…. The neighbor is just the man who is next to you at the moment, the man with whom any business has brought you into contact.

Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald (p. 26). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald (p. 26). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The Spirit Comes in Crisis

I’m cracked open now / No longer drifting 
Running past their hate and mine / Tipping past “Come here, gal!”…  
I’m cracked open now / looking for myself,  
Maybe I spilled into the cleft of the rock / Hiding from the slave catching dogs 
Maybe I died trying too hard / To birth myself sane 
I’m cracked, not broken / Still searching for me 
Amid the shards of God’s broken heart.
—Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable 

In season four of The Cosmic We, Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes and co-host Rev. Donny Bryant discuss “crisis contemplation.” Holmes believes contemplative experience can emerge in times of collective crisis. 

Donny Bryant: Crisis contemplation begins with what you call the communal, village, or tribal experience of crisis. Many times, we tend to deal with crisis at the individual level. We tend to look at what’s happening to me, what I have lost, what I feel, how this impacts me … or my emotional stability. Experience of crisis at the individual level is critically important, and we don’t want to discount that. But you are inviting us to frame and understand how crisis can be experienced at the communal, tribal, national, and global levels.  

Barbara Holmes: When you’re experiencing crisis as an individual, that’s what St. John of the Cross calls “the dark night of the soul.” You’re wrestling with God. You’re doing what you need to do to handle what’s coming up out of you that you don’t understand. It’s personal. You’re getting a divorce, your child is ill … or you’re just having the catastrophe of everyday life.  

But that’s not the same thing for a group of people. I use three categories to talk about crisis contemplation—the event is without warning; the people upon whom it is inflicted can’t do anything about it. There is no recourse. You’re caught. There is no place to go in the hold of a slave ship. There is nothing to be done when you’re walking from North Carolina as a Native American to Oklahoma. Something else has to arise to keep you going, to enliven your spirit, to help you survive—if survival is in the cards.  

Crisis contemplation is that spirit that emerges when the breaking occurs. We find it in every single culture. The Chinese call this spirit chi (qi), the Egyptians call it Ma’at, and Hindus call it prana. Kuzipa Nalwamba writes of the concept of Mupasi, which is an African description of a spirit that dwells within all of us. [1] It’s individual but also communal…. When you are all suffering, Mupasiis that vital spiritual voice that weaves the lives of all of us into an inseparable bond. It makes reality one whole. It gives kinship to all of us. When you think about it, that means that loving our neighbors is not just a little anecdote or possibility. With the moving of the Spirit, it’s inherent to our being, for where the Spirit abides there’s always unity.  

Slowing Down Is the Solution

It’s in the darkness, it’s in the moment of crisis when you have fallen through all of your own expectations that there is the opportunity for rebirthing.
—Barbara A. Holmes, “Contemplation,” The Cosmic We  

CAC teacher Barbara A. Holmes calls contemplation “a soft word in a hard world.” In this episode of The Cosmic We, she differentiates between crisis contemplation and contemplation as it’s usually considered:  

Most of us think of contemplation as something we do voluntarily. It’s an entry into deep and sometimes sacred places. We’re usually safe and comfortable, and this type of contemplation is more personal. But when we’re talking about crisis contemplation that has communal impact, we’re talking about a completely different type of contemplation. For me, it’s a breaking and a shattering of expectations. It’s the experience of your worlds colliding. Everything is happening that shouldn’t be happening. So the question becomes, how do you contemplate when you’re devastated? When you’re under siege? When you’re beleaguered by ecological catastrophe, injustice, and oppression? How do you contemplate then? 

Crisis contemplation begins, Barbara Holmes shares, when we relinquish our usual approaches to problem solving:  

When we’re in a crisis situation, the question becomes, “What’s the answer?” and “How does contemplation help, if it can?” No one is going to like the response because there isn’t a response in the ordinary ways. Everyone is going to want a clear process to resolve something. What do we do? How do we do it? What’s going to make us all feel better? There aren’t any answers like that. When there is nothing to do, some of the things that can be done are things we don’t want to do. Philosopher Bayo Akomolafe says it most clearly. He says the first thing you do is slow down:  

To ‘slow down’ … seems like the wrong thing to do when there’s fire on the mountain. But here’s the point: in ‘hurrying up’ all the time, we often lose sight of the abundance of resources that might help us meet today’s most challenging crises. We rush through the same patterns we are used to. Of course, there isn’t a single way to respond to a crisis; there is no universally correct way. However the call to slow down works to bring us face to face with the invisible, the hidden, the unremarked, the yet-to-be-resolved…. It is about staying in the places that are haunted. [1]   

Holmes describes the challenge of “slowing down”:  

In order to love, you have to slow down. There’s no such thing as “drive-by loving.” You have to give attention to the object, to the person, of your love. There has to be reciprocity and mutuality. It is giving ourselves over, letting go so that something else can do the loving through us and for us, because we’re not capable of it.  

[47] No One Loves Because He Sees Why

Where a man does not love, the not-loving must seem rational. For no one loves because he sees why, but because he loves. No human reason can be given for the highest necessity of divinely created existence. For reasons are always from above downward.

Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald (p. 26). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Father Richard views shadow work as essential for our transformation:  

Shadowlands are good and necessary teachers. They are not to be avoided, denied, fled, or explained away. They are not even to be forgiven too quickly. First, like Ezekiel the prophet, we must eat the scroll that is “lamentation, wailing, and moaning” in our belly, and only eventually sweet as honey (Ezekiel 2:9–3:3).  

There’s a shadowland where we are led by our own selfishness, stupidity, sinfulness, and by living out of the false self. We have to work our way back out of this with brutal honesty, confessions, surrenders, forgiveness, and often by some necessary restitution or apology. By any account, it is major “inner surgery” and feels like dying—although it also feels like immense liberation. We need help at these times.  

There’s another shadowland, however, into which we’re led by God and grace, and the nature of the journey itself. Many saints have called it “the dark night.” The difference is that we still sense that we have been led here intentionally, somehow. We know we are in liminal space, betwixt and between, on the threshold—and we have to stay here until we have learned something essential. It is still no fun—filled with doubt and “demons” of every sort—but it is the dark night of God. All transformation takes place in such liminal space. [1] 

Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama wrote this prayer for those dwelling in the shadowlands:  

God of darkness 

You must be the god of darkness 

because if you are not, whom else can we turn to?  

Turn to us now.  

Turn to us. 

Turn your face to us.  

Because it is dark here.  

And we are in need. We are people in need.  

We can barely remember our own truth, and if you too have 

forgotten, 

then we are without a hope of a map.  

Turn to us now.  

Turn to us.  

Turn your face to us.  

Because you turned toward us in the body of incarnation.  

You turned toward us.  

Amen. [2] 

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Sarah Young Jesus Listens

Mighty God, Help me to trust You by relinquishing control into Your hands—letting go, knowing that You are God. This is Your world: You made it and You control it. My part in the litany of Love is to be responsive to You. You have planted in my soul a gift of receptivity to Your Presence. I want to guard this gift and nurture it with the Light of Your Love. I rejoice that You encourage me to speak candidly to You—pouring out my heart as I express my concerns and bring You my requests. After opening up to You, I like to thank You for answering my prayers even though I don’t yet see results. When the problems come to mind again, please remind me to continue thanking You for the answers that are on the way. I’ve found that when I tell You about my concerns over and over again, I live in a state of tension. But if I thank You for how You are answering my prayers, my mind-set becomes much more positive and peaceful. Thankful prayers keep my focus on Your Presence and on Your great and precious promises. In Your excellent Name, Jesus, Amen

PSALM 46:10 NASB; Stop striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on the earth.”

PSALM 62:8; Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

COLOSSIANS 4:2;  Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

2 PETER 1:4; Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 181). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.