A Marvelous Discussion on Hope

Because we all need to have hope

Last night, I was part of a nationwide webinar hosted by Dr. Catherine Meeks with three bishops of the Episcopal Church to talk about hope.

Bishops Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Michael Hunn of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, and Craig Loya of the Diocese of Minnesota each shared personal reflections, contemplative practices, and—yes—-play as means of staying centered and in touch with God during these trying times.

I was delighted to hear them talk about play as an act of resistance. Because it really is a way to avoid getting sucked into the dark abyss that these goons running the government want to take us. Bishop Hunn talked about how he watched children who had journeyed for hundreds of miles through the Darien Gap and and other dangerous places with their parents to escape violence and poverty now sitting in cardboard box huts on the Mexican side of the Southern border. And yet, these kids when meeting other children would start to play in the street. Because children play. Adults fret, but children play. Adults could stand to play a little more.

I think this is the reason why the goon squadron hates drag queens so much. Drag is fun. It’s playful and liberating and experimental. All the things that these people are not. It makes me wonder what happened to them when they were children that they have become so hard-hearted and embittered toward anything that is joyous?

The bishops also shared the things that we can do right now to not feel so isolated and afraid. Primarily, they were encouraging us to remember that our power and our influence is going to be with our friends, family, and neighbors. Find community. Because it is in community that even us who are so very introverted can experience the work of the Holy Spirit.

And they also acknowledged that we are in a moment in this country where Christian righteous anger is appropriately expressed as lament. I could not agree more. Right now, it is a time when we should be screaming as Sen. Cory Booker shouted out the other night during his epic speech: “Don’t let this be another normal day in America! Please, God, don’t let them take away Medicaid from 20, 30, 40 million Americans who desperately need it! Don’t let them do it!” As Bishop Loya said, “The biblical tradition of lament is the Christian anger in solidarity with others.” In our tradition, and that of our Abrahamic siblings, we believe that God does hear the cries of those afflicted and oppressed. We do believe in a God who has never abandoned us. And as Bishop Mariann Budde notes, we are people who when we are rooted in our “radical” ideas of mercy, compassion, and justice as found in Jesus’ teachings, we are drawing on the life source of God, which is love. And when we move from a place of love, we are not giving into the “Outrage Industrial Complex” that is getting peddled on a daily basis.

There is so much more that they talked about. It was just the best 75-minutes of my week thus far. And it prepares me for my mindset heading into this weekend’s Hands Off demonstration at the Old State Capitol here in Tallahassee. Hands off my joy! Hands off my love! Hands off my country!