Let the sun wake you up. Grind the beans, heat the water,
and make your cup of coffee. Enjoy it. Drink it slowly. Notice how your
pour-over tastes much better than the drip brew at work.

Don鈥檛 make the news your lectionary. Give
thanks. Meditate. Pray. Pause before you
open your device. Listen to the birds outside
of your window.

Work hard, but take breaks. Pay attention to your body. Get
out of the stiff kitchen chair at your makeshift desk. Stretch.
Breathe. Make a cup of tea. Go on a long walk in the middle
of the day.

Let your son distract you. Let your dog rest her head on your
lap. Pressing send one more time will not change the world.
Replacing your anxiety with presence just may though.

Breath in,
鈥淭his is not…,鈥�
Breath out,
鈥渁ll up to me.鈥�

Breathe in the air shared by every other human on this earth.
You are not alone in this wildness.

Stop working and disconnect. Dig your hands into the soil. Call that
person you kept telling, 鈥渨e should get lunch sometime,鈥� But never did
because you were too busy 鈥� or too terrified they would rather not.
Let yourself feel the weight of the world in your hands.
Run your fingers across the ocean. Hear the trees breathe
in renewed air.

Clasp your loved one鈥檚 hand from far away. Grieve with them that
they couldn鈥檛 walk at graduation. Or that she labored alone for two
hours while waiting for a room.

Hold the earth just long enough to recognize it is far too heavy to
place on your back. Set it down. Watch the sunset and hold onto
gratitude for this single day.

Sacred Space is curating a virtual gallery to offer space to communally share how we are processing in this season. We would love to be witnesses to the ways you have been showing up with yourself to grieve and lament. to submit a photo of your art, a written piece, a recording of you playing music, or any other form of processing. In the coming weeks, you can visit the Intersections blog to see artists highlighted.

The post Pandemic Way of Life appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

鈥淗ow are you grieving? In what creative and available ways have you found for your body to express its pain?鈥� Melissa Deeken, MATC and MACP student

Sacred Space is curating a virtual gallery to offer space to communally share how we are processing in this season. They would love to be witnesses to the ways our students have been showing up with themselves to grieve and lament. to submit artwork, a written piece, a musical recording, or any other form of processing.

鈥� reflects what this time has allowed/required me to do鈥攕low down. Amidst that slowness, I’ve been surprised to receive guidance, support and blessings from the plant allies that are providing food, medicine, and keeping our ecosystems in balance at all times and especially now amidst pandemic.鈥�

Kate Fontana’s patronus is a peregrine falcon. She thrives on ambiguity, karaoke, and the worlds of youth fantasy fiction. She struggles with single-use plastics, small-talk, and to get anywhere on time. She is a Sagittarius, an auntie, and a third-year MDiv student. You can visit her blog at .

鈥淎fter an initial five weeks of enjoying the slowing down that the quarantine provided, during the fifth week I began to feel a building anxiety and a feeling of overwhelm. My process of grounding myself started with yoga, tapping exercises, and meditation. Yet while it aided in reconnecting to myself, it wasn’t until I started mixing colors on my palette and putting some force into my brush strokes that I began to feel the transfer of my emotions onto the canvas, and an eventual emotional release. There is something cathartic about mapping a color to an emotion and assembling them together into a mosaic. The process helped me identify areas where my body was holding emotional tension and where I needed to tend to myself the most.鈥�

Yuliya is a Seattle-based photographer, writer and grad student of Counseling Psychology, playing in the intersecting spaces of trauma and creativity. You can see Yuliya鈥檚 photography at .

鈥淔rida was a woman who bore her discomfort and worked through adversity. These are times of adversity and she inspires me.鈥�

Danielle is a mother of four (ages 14, 12, 10 and 8), wife of one awesome guy, and graduating with a Masters in Counseling Psychology from 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology. She is honored to be a regular contributor to and her and . She plans to open a private practice. Her loves are my four children and husband. You can find the #supersixcastillejos reading Mo Willems and other various books, hiking, creating spaces for art, and adventuring together. Her heart is to bear witness to the stories untold by the marginalized, silenced, and bodies seeking healing. As a survivor herself, she fights together with clients for love, justice, truth, and honor. Learn more about Danielle by following .

鈥淥ne of the ideas I’m trying on in solitude is: soft is good. Soft words, soft thoughts, soft body. This does not come naturally to me.

I like rough edges and abrasive things like critiques and analyses and freezing cold water and hard, unsquashable objects like river rocks and steel, like concrete buildings that cut the light into clean lines. Soft makes me suspicious.

A long time ago in school critiques, one of my art professors would always take my hands. Cracked, stained, maybe bleeding, they bore the brunt of whatever work had just been finished. These? He would say, ignoring whatever sculpture I had hurled my body at for the past two weeks. These hands are the piece.

And this need for steel and concrete, this need to hurl myself against unyielding impenetrable boundedness is not because tough calls out to tough like deep to deep. The craving to feel cool unyielding solidity outside comes from somewhere deep within where, in a really terrifying sense, I’m soft too.

As my own boundedness grows new and fragile in some places, calloused in others, I feel the gentle but reliable edges of my own skin from the inside out. There is soft and steel in here, too. As smooth and cool as a river stone and as easily squashed as a freshly baked roll all at once.

And still: how scary to be soft. How terrifying to let the concrete be out there and grow a skeleton inside, to touch surfaces that might collapse. How strange but strong to feel the texture of my internal world softening and hardening at once, like new skin growing under a scab.鈥�

Ellen Cline is a MACP student interested in body as an instrument of research, art, and healing. She is committed to growing out her hair during this time of isolation. She will not buzz her head. You are all witnesses. To view more of Ellen鈥檚 work, visit .

The post Processing Amidst a Pandemic: A Collection of Student Artwork appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

These words of the prophet Jeremiah situate themselves in a devastating part of Judah鈥檚 history鈥攖he destruction of Jerusalem. As it lay in ruins, Jeremiah speaks of what the community is collectively grieving in the death of their beloved city and the thrust into exile for the third time.聽 They are a people desperate for hope. For restoration. For shalom. says that, 鈥淪halom requires lament鈥� because its very nature is to 鈥渆mbrace the suffering other.鈥�¹ In a time when we as God’s people yearn for a collective shalom, we are reminded that we must first enter into a collective lament.

On April 8, 天美视频鈥檚 Sacred Space group hosted a virtual lament service to create a space for individual and collective mourning over the losses of what we knew as life. Faculty, staff and students gathered to see the faces of the suffering other and to collectively lament鈥攊n song, word, and prayer. We ended our time by praying through a poem by Christine Valters Painter, pausing at each stanza to write the names of those heavy on our hearts, to write our laments, our pain, our grave sense of scattered losses. It was a raw and beautiful time to pour our hearts out like water in the presence of the Lord.

During the service, artist and alumnus Kate Creech ² acted as a witness to our community lament and created this piece of art to hold our feelings of confusion, anger, and grief. As she scrolled through the suffering faces and words of those in attendance, her brushstrokes acted as 鈥渆xpressions of what was both spoken and unspoken.鈥� We are grateful for her witness and illustration of this sacred evening.聽

Artwork by Kate Creech

While the service is over, our lament is not. Grief will continue to come in waves as we endure the changes we have been forced to adapt to and as we long for the presence of the ones we live life with the most.聽聽

How are you grieving? In what creative and available ways have you found for your bodies to express its pain?聽 Kate reminds us that artistic expressions can act as a mouthpiece for our souls鈥� greatest afflictions, containers for our unspeakable laments. We stand suspended in a time that knows not its return to life as we knew it. As you hold these tensions and uncertainties, know that our is necessary to see our shalom.聽聽聽

Sacred Space is curating a virtual gallery to offer space to communally share how we are processing in this season. We would love to be witnesses to the ways you have been showing up with yourself to grieve and lament.聽 to submit a photo of your art, a written piece, a recording of you playing music, or any other form of processing. In the coming weeks you can visit the Intersections blog to see artists highlighted.

The post A Lament: Processing Amidst a Pandemic appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

Faculty, students, staff, and members of our community gathered to hear Dr. Stearns explore how a trauma-informed theology can help us find new paths toward hope and restoration. As a community, we were invited to reflect on the integration of theology and trauma with our bodies. 鈥淥ur bodies,鈥� said Dr. Stearns, 鈥渟hould be holistically included in our spiritual practices.鈥�

鈥淗ope is not an illusion, but a witness to God鈥檚 presence.鈥�

Watch the full video of Chelle鈥檚 lecture on 鈥溾�楳y Heart Flows on in Endless Song鈥�: Lament and Hope Through a Trauma-Informed Theology.鈥� Following her lecture is a reflective panel discussion with Dr. Darren Sumner, Danielle Elliott (MATC 鈥�15), and Rev. Dr. Jane Roland. Each, through their respective lenses of theology, art, and integrative practices, offer valuable insight into Dr. Stearns lecture.

The post 7th Annual Stanley Grenz Lecture Series Featuring Dr. Chelle Stearns appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

All these works of art imagine the first Good Friday. They capture the range of emotions that Christians feel on this dark day, allowing us to place ourselves in the person of Mary who mourned her dead child. There is surely no grief more profound than the grief parents feel at the death of a child. It is unnatural for the younger to die before the older. The profound grief of the mother of Jesus models for believers a response to the unnatural death of this one whom they also love.

None of the Gospels, however, suggests that Mary carried the crucified body of Jesus. According to all four Gospels, Joseph of Arimathea is given permission by Pilate to bury Jesus, and he puts the body in a secure tomb (Matt. 27:57鈥�60, Mark 15:42鈥�47, Luke 23:50鈥�55, John 19:38鈥�42). To care for the dead was an important religious observance, as John鈥檚 Gospel tells us (John 19:31), and as archaeology and other Jewish literature of the period confirm (3). Joseph, a respected Jewish leader, a good and righteous man, undertakes this religious duty for the crucified Jesus (Mark 15:43 and Luke 23:50). There are, of course, paintings of Joseph, but he does not hold the place in our imaginations that Mary holds.

According to the first three Gospels, this Mary isn鈥檛 even present when Joseph takes Jesus down from the cross. Matthew tells us that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, a woman without any particular pedigree, watched Joseph put Jesus in the tomb, sitting opposite it (Matt. 27:61). Mark gives us some information about the other Mary鈥攕he is the mother of Joses (Mark 15:47). Luke says that the women who watched Joseph were the ones who had followed Jesus from Galilee, and later he identifies these women as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some unnamed others (Luke 23:55 and 24:10). And in John鈥檚 Gospel, it is Nicodemus who helps Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus, not Mary, the mother of Jesus (John 19:39).

This image of a grieving mother that has so captured the Christian imagination does, however, have roots in the Gospel of John. In all four Gospels, there are women watching at the crucifixion (Matt. 27:55鈥�56, Mark 15:40鈥�41, Luke 23:49, and John 19:25), but only in John鈥檚 Gospel do we observe the mother of Jesus among those women. John tells us that just before Jesus dies, as his final action, he commends the care of his beloved disciple to his mother and the care of his mother to his beloved disciple (John 19:26鈥�27). Tradition has identified the beloved disciple as John, but in the gospel account, neither John nor Mary are named. Rather, both are identified by their relation to Jesus: she is called his mother, and he is called the disciple whom Jesus loved. It is this story that gives rise to the images of a mother grieving for her son and to John鈥檚 presence with her at the cross.

In John鈥檚 Gospel, Mary鈥檚 identity is both less definite and more important than in the other Gospels. On the one hand, we never learn her name in this gospel. When we read of her presence among the vigilant women at the foot of the cross and when Jesus commends her to John, her particular identity is obscured, as if her identity has been absorbed into her role as mother of the crucified one. She is not made present in this crucifixion narrative as a particular Mary鈥攚hom we would need to distinguish from other women of that name鈥攂ut as the woman who brought into the world the one who is now leaving the world.

We also do not meet Mary in this gospel as a woman with a baby. Instead, we first meet her as a woman enmeshed in family and community with a grown son. She is attending a wedding in the town of Cana in the region of Galilee (John 2:1鈥�11). Jesus and the disciples whom he had gathered before the wedding are there with her. The caterer has run out of wine, so the mother of Jesus asks him to help. Jesus puts her off鈥攊t is not the right time for him to host a wedding banquet. But she insists, and eventually Jesus complies. He turns the water in six large jars鈥攅ach holding twenty or thirty gallons鈥攊nto good wine, and the wedding celebration continues in style. Throughout this account, Mary is called 鈥渢he mother of Jesus鈥� or less intimately, 鈥淲oman.鈥� We do not learn her name.

The third explicit mention of her in the gospel is when Jesus鈥檚 opponents complain about Jesus鈥檚 claim that he is the bread from heaven (John 6:41鈥�42). They argue that they know his parents, so, clearly, Jesus has not come from heaven. They dismiss him with the words: 鈥淚s not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?鈥� (NRSV). Even here, Joseph is named, but Mary is not. In whatever way Jesus鈥檚 mother matters for this gospel, her particular identity is obscured.

On the other hand, the miracle at the wedding of Cana is the first sign of Jesus鈥檚 glory. His mother鈥檚 insistence that he contribute wine for the feast leads to Jesus鈥檚 first act in his public ministry. And the commendation of John to Mary and vice versa is Jesus鈥檚 last act before his death. Jesus鈥檚 mother is clearly very important to John鈥檚 story. She bookends his public ministry, invoking its beginning with her expectation that he will act on behalf of the wedding party and entering into a new relationship with the unnamed disciple at its end.

This is a very different portrait from what we find in Luke鈥檚 writings, where Mary also has a significant role. When we encounter Mary in Luke鈥檚 Gospel, we meet a young woman whose life is being interrupted by an angel. The angel asks her to join God in God鈥檚 redemptive purposes for the world. And she gives her consent. This is a comfortable image, even if it is also benevolently patriarchal. God, the higher being, comes to Mary, the lesser being, to ask her to do what only a woman can do: bear the child who will save the world. And Mary, having been given the grace to participate in the purposes of God, assents to God鈥檚 plan. As a result, she has a singular vocation as the mother of God in the history of salvation. She is Mary, the one that all generations will call blessed (Luke 1:48).

Her singular identity, derived from her particular role, is softened somewhat later in Luke鈥檚 Gospel when a woman in the crowd following Jesus suggests that Mary is particularly blessed for having born and nursed him. Jesus responds that those are blessed who hear the word of God and obey it (Luke 11:27鈥�28). In fact, Mary is both blessed by the woman from the crowd for her unique role and blessed by Jesus for the way this unique role models an obedient response to God. In Acts, which is also believed to be the work of Luke, we find Mary praying in the upper room, a disciple among disciples, waiting for the promised Holy Spirit who would empower them all for mission (Acts 1:14). But even here, she is named.

John鈥檚 Gospel starts in a different way. He announces that 鈥渋n the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God鈥� (John 1:1). The Word was active in the creation of all things and became human and joined our community, shining in our darkness. There is no thought here of a woman contributing to the grand purposes of God. There is a man sent from God to witness to the light, but that man is John the Baptist. God is active accomplishing God鈥檚 purposes in God鈥檚 own way, with no mention of Mary. Neither does the ending of John鈥檚 Gospel mention her. Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter, Thomas the Twin, Nathanael of Cana, the sons of Zebedee, two others of the disciples, and the disciple whom Jesus loved all see and converse with the resurrected Jesus, but Mary is not a part of his resurrection ministry.

So how is it that, despite the evidence of the Gospels, the image of the grieving mother has so captured our imaginations? Have I drawn an entirely faithful picture of her role in John鈥檚 Gospel?

Something else needs to be said. I believe that Mary captures our imaginations because we can believe she is like us. It was her catering problem that provided the impetus for Jesus鈥檚 public ministry. It was her loss of a son that Jesus responded to at the end of his earthly life. The 笔颈别迟脿 invites us to join her in her grief because we can believe that we grieve as she grieved. In these stories about Jesus鈥檚 mother in John鈥檚 Gospel, we are not invited to participate in God鈥檚 story鈥攖hat is Luke鈥檚 invitation鈥攊nstead, we see that God comes to participate in our story. When her friends need more wine, their need is met and there is an abundance of good wine. In her grief at the death of her child, she is given one who will care for her. It is easy to read our lives into the life of this unnamed one who is so like us, who calls on her son to create abundant life instead of scarcity and who was so cared for by him in her sorrow. We are grateful to know that our needs and our sorrows are sufficient invitation for God to come near.

In his Farewell Discourse, as he anticipated his death and separation from his disciples, Jesus comforted them with an image of a woman giving birth (John 16:20鈥�22) (4). He reminded them that in the hour of a woman鈥檚 labor, she has pain and anguish, just like the disciples are experiencing as they anticipate Jesus鈥檚 absence. But when the birth has been accomplished, the woman forgets the pain because of her joy in the new life of the person born. As Jesus leaves his earthly life, attending to the grief of his mother, he dies as one anticipating vindication, as a woman in labor who anticipates the joy of new life. His teaching is embodied by his mother.

And so his mother becomes not only the one with whom we identify in sorrow but also a model of hope for life and joy beyond sorrow. Mary becomes an archetype for all of us in our need and in our afflictions, and even more, as mother, in our hope for new life. If one must be born from above to enter the kingdom of God, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, the mother of Jesus guides us through that birthing process, standing at the foot of the cross (John 3:7). Grace and truth, and glory, become present like wine at Cana (John 1:14). The deep sadness of losing a child becomes the foundation for new relationships. At the point of great suffering, Jesus responds to her overwhelming loss.

To say it another way, in John鈥檚 Gospel, it is our need that evokes God鈥檚 action. And God鈥檚 action is for abundant life鈥攅ven death on a cross. We grieve with his mother, and we are comforted because Jesus comforted her. By speaking of this woman as Jesus鈥檚 mother rather than identifying her as a particular woman, John calls us into an intimate relationship with God, into an affiliation that we also can inhabit because of our own need. This is in contrast to Luke, where Mary is presented as fulfilling a unique role in God鈥檚 plan of salvation, a role that does not need repetition. In this way, the mother of Jesus teaches us what to do with Holy Friday. She allows us to dwell in the grief of the world as God-bearers, watching as the light of the world is extinguished. As children of light we experience the scarcity of our existence and long for abundance. She teaches us to weep and to pray. And we know that our grief is enough because, in our tears and our prayers, we are as the woman who gave birth, the woman to whom God responded with wine and companionship. We too anticipate joy because we are confident that our tears and sorrow enjoin light and life to come to us.

This post was originally published at .

1. Timothy Verdon, Mary in Western Art, captions by Filippo Rossi (New York, NY: Hudson Hills, 2005), 140鈥�64.
2. Michelangelo Buonarroti, 笔颈别迟脿, c. 1498-1500, marble sculpture, ; Giovanni Bellini, 笔颈别迟脿 Martinengo, c. 1505, oil on panel,; Andrea Mantegna, Lamentation of Christ, c. 1480, tempera on canvas, ; Sandro Botticelli, Lamentation over the Dead Christ with Saints, c. 1490鈥�1495, tempera on panel, ; Enguerrand Quarton, 笔颈别迟脿 of Villeneuve-l猫s-Avignon, c. 1460鈥�1470, oil on wood, .
3. See Byron R. McCane, 鈥淏urial Practices in First Century Palestine,鈥� Bible Odyssey, .
4. Judith Lieu helpfully brings this passage into the discussion of Mary in the Gospel of John in 鈥淭he Mother of the Son in the Fourth Gospel,鈥� Journal of Biblical Literature 117 (1998): 61鈥�77, especially 70鈥�74.

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To continue this conversation, we鈥檙e also sharing Elliot Huemann鈥檚 vulnerable plea that the pain of LGBTQ+ Christians be heard honestly, Jennifer Fernandez鈥檚 thoughtful exploration of the dangers of conflating the Church and Christianity, and Dr. Derek McNeil鈥檚 reflection about global complexity and the pitfalls of ethnocentric theology.

What a hopeful time for the Church in America.

It doesn鈥檛 look like it, at first glance (or perhaps even first dozen glances), but in the midst of grief, I feel the greater undertow towards hope. My tears are both lament and cleansing baptism.

The headlines in my newsfeed are focused on the fracturing, fighting, and forsaking taking place in the United Methodist Church. The rejection and righteousness felt by both sides. Grief is expressed, prayers offered, services held.

It鈥檚 the grief that strikes me, more so than the split. Many of the prayers and laments offered are from Christians who aren鈥檛 in the Methodist tradition. I鈥檓 also not Methodist, and have been processing the news each day with friends and colleagues who identify across a number of sexualities and come from various traditions, including some who don鈥檛 currently identify as Christian at all. From the depth of pain and grief expressed, you鈥檇 never know that we aren鈥檛 all Methodist.

Because despite centuries of denominational splits and rewritten polities and institutional barriers, we are all still the singular body of Christ.

鈥淒espite centuries of denominational splits and rewritten polities and institutional barriers, we are all still the singular body of Christ.鈥�

In the crucifixion, Christ鈥檚 body was wounded, but the bones remained intact. There are no breaks in the body of Christ. No fractures. No amputations.

Which isn鈥檛 to say there aren鈥檛 wounds. His wrists, his feet, the cut on his side, the crown of thorns鈥攚ounds abound. The wounds are not superficial; they go deep, and the nails go all the way through. Thomas is able to insert his fingers into the side of the resurrected Christ. The body of Christ is deeply wounded, but remains intact.

Which is why this week has hurt so much. We are still the body of Christ, and we feel the nail pierce our flesh, no matter the distance of denomination, tradition, theology, ideology. It turns out that the God who holds us together is bigger than polity, that words can deeply wound鈥攅ven unto death鈥攂ut cannot break us.

And this is what strikes me as hopeful in this season: the recognition of pain. Our collective feeling of our hurt鈥攏o matter tradition or sexuality鈥攎eans that we鈥檙e in touch with our common humanity. The shared lament offers us an opportunity to draw closer to one another across perceived differences鈥攅ven as it feels like our two hands are arm-wrestling each other.

Because I direct a program designed to cultivate pastoral resilience, the question keeps coming to me: What does resilience look like in the midst of this? It looks like grief. Like tears and lament. It looks like fully entering into grief, and the ability to do so because we know God is with us into suffering, through death, and on the other side. It looks like entering into pain with the expectation that the experience will form us.

The disciples didn鈥檛 get to fast forward from the crucifixion to the resurrection. They had to grieve through Holy Saturday, with the certainty that the man they had thought would save Israel was dead. I trust that God鈥檚 timing wasn鈥檛 off, that it was necessary for the disciples to go through this day of grief before the resurrection occurred. I believe God was inviting them to something formative on that day through their grief.

We don鈥檛 get to fast forward to resurrection or reconciliation either. But we can enter into grief with the trust that it鈥檚 formative, perhaps even necessary. And we can grieve with the memory that reconciliation and resurrection have come before: that Jacob and Esau embraced, that Joseph kissed all his brothers and wept over them, that salvation came even from a Samaritan. Sometimes years pass before reconciliation occurs, necessary time in which God does the formative work to make reconciliation possible.

May this season be an opportunity for us to identify as citizens of Heaven more primarily than members of any denomination or ideology. May we enter into the wounds of the body of Christ, recognize our shared pain, and proclaim together: 鈥淢y Lord and My God.鈥�

Rev. Steve Wolff is a pastor of a UMC congregation in Nehalem Bay, OR, and a participant in Resilient Leaders Project. I reached out to ask him how he鈥檚 doing in the midst of his congregation鈥檚 decision-making process. Steve has held different stances on LGBTQIA questions during his 35 years in the denomination, initially in the traditionalist group before moving into the open and inclusive one. I value Rev Wolff鈥檚 perspective because he鈥檚 a kind, connective soul who speaks with both strength and mercy, and I am grateful for these words he shared about his experience:

Since I serve to a progressive congregation in a progressive Jurisdiction, I have felt all along like I was pretty secure in what I felt and where I belonged. That said, I have been surprised at how much this vote has affected me. I have been part of this denomination for some 35 years, and have moved from initially being in the traditionalist group into the open and inclusive camp. It has been journey of discovery, but now I feel like I have moved from the United Methodist Church to the Untied Methodist Church and that we are adrift.

All this is preamble鈥攈ere is what I have been thinking about today. A dear friend of mine brought up the good Samaritan, wondering what should this general conference have done in light of that parable? That got me to thinking of a teaching from my old Seminary professor, Bill Mallard. What Bill pointed out to us was that Jews and Samaritans hated each other. Most of us know that, but somehow when we read the parable, we forget. So, in a parable told by a Jewish man, to a Jewish audience who would be identifying with the assumed Jewish protagonist, the one who comes to save is a member of their most hated group. At least part of what Jesus was teaching is that loving our neighbor is not just about us saving the hated person or class鈥攊t is accepting that the hated person is saving us. As I look at General Conference 2019, I see that the presenting problem is Human Sexuality, but much of it is about power: who will have the power to determine who is in and who is out, and both conservative and progressive voices are jockeying for this authority. How different would this look if we were to let the most abused and reviled groups save us? Now that would be an inspiring generosity. I can鈥檛 explain how, at least right now, but that idea of salvation by the least of these keeps me going.

In the hope of fostering faithful dialogue that understands narrative, wrestles with intersections, resists reactivity, and fosters radical hospitality, we seek to feature work from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. Therefore the opinions expressed on the Intersections blog are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect an official statement regarding the views or opinions of 天美视频. You can read more on the Intersections landing page.

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Like everybody else I know in the Northwest, I was captivated by , or J-35, the orca whale who carried her deceased calf for more than 1,000 miles鈥攚hat became known internationally as a 鈥渢our of grief.鈥� The calf had lived for as little as half an hour, and Tahlequah refused to let go for the next 17 days. With scientists and whale watchers fretting about Tahlequah鈥檚 health and speculating about when the calf鈥檚 body might decompose, we all followed along as the mother whale continued swimming, sometimes balancing the body on her nose, sometimes holding it by the tail in her jaw. Each time it slipped from her grasp she would dive after it, chasing it into the depths because her tour of grief was not yet complete.

In the midst of such a heartbreaking display, Tahlequah was not traveling alone; she was surrounded by the pod that had witnessed the birth of her calf and shared in the trauma of its death. According to the , the Southern Resident killer whale population has seen no healthy new calves in more than three years; as their food supply grows scarce, their population has declined by 25 percent in the last 20 years. So Tahlequah, her pod members, and the other orcas in the region know something of death and loss. They know something of grief. Finally, here was a living calf who鈥攆or at least a few minutes鈥攂ecame the first sign in years of a hopeful future for the pod. No wonder Tahlequah would not let go. No wonder, as I heard one scientist speculate, the others in the pod were helping feed her鈥攈elping sustain her in her mourning, because her mourning was also their mourning. It does not minimize Tahlequah鈥檚 individual grief to suggest that this tour was also an outpouring of collective grief.

I was thinking about Tahlequah during (Re)Orientation on August 28, when Dr. Derek McNeil, Senior VP of Academics, named our institutional season of transition and, more broadly, the profound social disruption unfolding around us. Derek then invited our student body into this refrain: 鈥淕rief and hope. Grief and hope. Grief and hope.鈥� He reminded us that the two must go hand in hand; grief grounds and contextualizes our hope, and hope brings life to our grief. Yet they both feel foreign to our cultural discourse.

鈥淕rief grounds and contextualizes our hope, and hope brings life to our grief.

On August 10, Richard Russell, a ground service agent at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, stole a 76-seat plane and went for an improvised鈥攁nd ultimately suicidal鈥擣riday evening flight. Russell commented on the beautiful mountain views, talked lightheartedly with air traffic control, and mentioned that his video game experience was enough training for the unlikely stunts he pulled off. At one point before he crashed into Ketron Island, almost in passing, Russell made a heartbreaking request: 鈥淗ey, I want the coordinates of that mama orca with the baby. I wanna go see that guy.鈥�*

An individual caught up in some unknown inner storm was drawn to an outer display of collective grief. I won鈥檛 pretend to know what in Russell鈥檚 life led him to that moment, what losses or traumas or conflicts prompted his quixotic quest for what he hoped would be 鈥渁 moment of serenity.鈥� But I do know there is something deeply, perhaps universally human in this airborne confession: 鈥淚’ve got a lot of people that care about me, and it’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it until now.鈥�

What do we do with our brokenness, with those parts of ourselves that are loose and unraveled? Do we dare name it and bear it on our faces for the world to see? Do we dare expose our grief and nourish others who are doing the same? Or do we try to silence and bury it, pretending that it won鈥檛 eventually leak out in some form or another?

On August 14, the state of Nebraska carried out , marking the inaugural use of fentanyl in a government-sanctioned lethal injection. If fentanyl sounds familiar, it鈥檚 because it is the synthetic opioid that is the name and face of the latest iteration of America鈥檚 overdose epidemic鈥�.

What a damning exposure of our cultural paralysis in the face of grief. If the drug crisis demands the kind of collective lament that leads to action, then is there anything more morbidly ironic than taking an icon of that unaccessed grief and using it to kill another person? Is there anything more futile than injecting into someone else鈥檚 veins what we鈥檙e afraid to face in ourselves? Psychological theory, scientific research, and the common sense wisdom of living in relationship all point to this truth: if we do not name our experiences of harm and loss, and if we do not allow others to care for us in our grief, we will not wake up one day magically whole again. Internalized pain does not come to rest and dissolve away; like a poorly contained body of water, it will always find an outlet.

The world recently learned about at the hands of hundreds of priests in Pennsylvania鈥攁 hideous, systemic act of evil that was protected at the highest levels. No words I write here could capture the outrage and hollowness and sackcloth-and-ashes kind of torment that should answer such a degree of harm, or the sinking awareness that these revelations were contained to just one state. Instead I remember the story of , whose own tour of grief in 1955鈥斺�淚 wanted the world to see what they did to my baby鈥濃�攆orced our nation to reckon with its legacy of state-sanctioned lynchings. As Karen Baker-Fletcher writes, 鈥淪he was like Mary, mother of Jesus, asking the world to look and to repent. She was like many other black women who had seen the horror, and couldn鈥檛 bear another look. But Mother Till-Mobley found courage to say, 鈥業鈥橫 NOT TAKING THIS! LOOK World, get delivered of your demons and Look!鈥欌��**

And so I turn again to the story of Tahlequah, who balanced the body of her grief on her nose for longer than anyone thought possible. Because here鈥檚 something else: soon after Tahlequah鈥檚 grief had been expressed and she had let go of the calf, she was described as once again able to contribute to her pod鈥檚 fight for survival.

In her stubborn, prophetic grief, and in the collective lament of her community, Tahlequah鈥檚 story holds a mirror to our own avoidance of grief, our efforts to divert our outrage and mourning into cyclical contempt, revenge, or shame. She embodied the conviction that the dynamic movement of grief unto life is the only way forward. May we learn to do the same.

*Quotes from Russell鈥檚 communication with Air Traffic Control were found and .

**Karen Baker-Fletcher, Dancing with God: The Trinity from a Womanist Perspective (Chalice Press, 2006), emphasis in original. I first encountered this text in a theology class at 天美视频 with Dr. Chelle Stearns.

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The first time I remember seeing people out and about with forehead smudges on Ash Wednesday, I was nearing the end of a brief stint living in Los Angeles after college. I didn鈥檛 even know what it was at first; I discreetly wiped my own forehead to let a woman at the library know she had something on hers. Later I saw it as I passed a bearded man on the sidewalk, again on a barista, then matching smudges on an older couple at the theater. It felt so vulnerable, so naked. They were wearing a mark of repentance for the world to see, which struck me as both brave and desperate.

Though much of my childhood had revolved around church, Lent was not a part of that faith. Like many evangelicals, we wrote off most of the rhythms of the church calendar as empty rituals and religious legalism. We got out of school early on Good Friday and broke out our pastel finest for Easter Sunday, but I remember little talk about Holy Saturday, let alone the larger Lenten movement that starts with the desperation of Ash Wednesday.

I had moved to LA in a fit of restlessness. It was a year after my dad died, and I had come unmoored as I learned that the rhetoric of my faith did not allow much room for anger, doubt, or loss. Death feels all but irrelevant when you think only of the empty tomb. This Lent-less worldview fit quite nicely with our American tendency to believe that we can buy, shoot, medicate, or elect our way out of our problems, but it offered little solace to a grieving son. My faith jumped ahead to resurrection and left me behind, isolated and abandoned.

So when I noticed the day-long pattern of smudges and recalled some dusty memory about what it might mean, I wanted in. It was not that I needed to be reminded of my smallness or my brokenness (though that is often the case). At the time I was well aware of my fragility and pain, but it lacked context. As I passed these strangers, the ashes on their foreheads said It鈥檚 okay, we鈥檙e broken too. We鈥檙e wandering like you, but here鈥攋oin us. We can wander together for a bit.

I thought about that as I walked around the school recently, asking folks鈥攖hose who would let me, considering the microphone in my hand鈥攁bout their understanding of Lent. (You can hear the responses on 鈥淲hat Lent Means to You: A text.soul.culture 惭颈苍颈蝉辞诲别.鈥�) I thought about it again when Daniel Tidwell spoke of stardust and shared humanity as he led the Ash Wednesday service in our chapel. It鈥檚 the joyful surprise of a season known for desert and fasting: something transformative happens when suffering is witnessed and shared.

Maybe you, like me as a fatherless young man in Los Angeles, don鈥檛 need Lent to be reminded of your personal brokenness this year. And we probably don鈥檛 need it to remind us of our shared brokenness, either. Is there any doubt that we are, collectively, lost in a wilderness? Our nation鈥檚 appetite for violence seems without end, and stepping over others for the sake of personal comfort or advancement is a national pastime.

I do not believe that Lent arrives to evoke suffering for suffering鈥檚 sake. But it does insist that we not ignore or belittle suffering鈥攐ur own or others鈥�. Lent counters those who 鈥渄ress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 鈥楶eace, peace,鈥� they say, when there is no peace鈥� (Jeremiah 6:14; modern translation, 鈥淎ll lives matter鈥�). It reminds us that we are not alone when we suffer, and that Jesus preceded us into the desert and emerged with the clarity and authority of calling.

May we follow his example when we find ourselves drawn into the desert and tempted toward quick fixes or empty promises. May we listen to those鈥攅ven if it鈥檚 a bunch of kids in Florida鈥攚ho follow his example here in the wilderness, those who remind us that the way forward is not in hunkering down or closing our eyes or turning back, but in naming the realities of our woundedness, witnessing each other鈥檚 suffering and healing, and challenging those who benefit from cloaking rocks as bread.

And may we always, always, always remember鈥攊n our suffering, grieving, healing, erring, and returning鈥攖hat we are not alone.

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What were a few of your early influences in life?
Dr. Rah: I have seen how the gospel can connect across cultures, and that comes from my experience of growing up in Seoul until six years old and then moving to the United States. There was privilege in that original cultural context; then we moved to a rough neighborhood in Baltimore. It was third black, a third white, and a third recent immigrants. We were all common in that we were poor, but we divided along racial lines. There was a question of why we couldn鈥檛 get along. Part of my desire to see different cultures live together came from early on. I later realized I wouldn鈥檛 find the answer in the Church either.

How did you experience other culture groups growing up?
Dr. Rah: As recent immigrants, we don鈥檛 have a long history with African Americans or whites. Even when we said 鈥淎merican churches,鈥� we meant 鈥渨hite churches.鈥� We had a hard time seeing value in our own culture and therefore couldn鈥檛 see it in others. I later realized parallels and a similar sense of culture in African American churches.

How have we missed the opportunity to share oppressive stories?
Dr. Rah: Lament provides a positive mediating narrative. It brings us together across the boundaries. If I can enter into lament alongside someone with a different background, we find a sense of equality. My own journey has been about sitting at the feet of African American, Latino, and Native American mentors, to see how our narratives overlap. When I write about lament, I write about Han theology, which is very similar to the spirituality of the blues. The inability to share narratives is to our detriment.

What鈥檚 the consequence of the absence of lament?
Dr. Rah: I remember learning three chords and being limited by them. I think we don鈥檛 sing enough in the minor key and too often end on a happy progression of chords. In the absence of lament, we lose our understanding of justice. Three fifths of Lamentations deals with a funeral. We don鈥檛 know how to deal with real tragedy and look for quick solutions.

How are we depriving ourselves by always trying to end on a happy note?
Dr. Rah: Things can be better that way, but not transformed, because there was no death for transformation. Most of us don鈥檛 know how to end on the minor key of Lamentations. Even for our villains, we want a happy ending.

How do you see this happening in our culture?
Dr. Rah: For years, we鈥檝e said the American dream is to work your way up and then help others repeat the process. In doing so, we鈥檝e created a mythology that is not attainable for everybody. The racialized piece is that we had a president who did that, and there was a vitriolic response. Many had unfulfilled dreams and saw a non-white achieving the American dream. So now there鈥檚 the idea that we need to go back to a time when 鈥淚 had better access to that dream.鈥�

How do you turn loss into something for the future?
Dr. Rah: In Lamentations, the exiles are thinking they鈥檒l go back to Jerusalem. They actually had to look towards a new reality. The people needed a reality check. It鈥檚 a tough sell to tell the majority population that things will never be the same again. Maybe the missing step has been that we鈥檙e missing lament 鈥� acknowledging the reality.

How do we let white supremacy die in all of us?
Dr. Rah: Lament offers the possibility that we might not get the exact resolution hoped for. What makes Lamentations redemptive is Jesus, not because Jerusalem is restored to its once great status, but Jesus shows up in that temple, which does outshine Solomon鈥檚 temple.

So this is really about a love story?
Dr. Rah: As a Christian, I still believe it鈥檚 the Church that holds hope. It won鈥檛 be success as defined by the American empire, but we鈥檒l have places where the kingdom narrative will win. The American Church has prostituted itself so much to the American empire that we don鈥檛 recognize success outside of that, and we have to lament that. We have to recognize the narrative is that the kingdom of God means a romantic ending for all.

What hope can you offer in this conversation?
Dr. Rah: If we can get there, there can be a communal element to lament, which can be unifying. The problem is that most of our western narrative is around triumph. We also have to understand suffering and death. If we can return to communal lament, we鈥檒l get a richer theology that has been long neglected.

Highlights and Takeaways

• What the perception of Korean-Americans has often been by African Americans
• How people of color understand other cultures through the eyes of white Americans
• Why, with quick and easy answers, we don鈥檛 know how to deal with tragedy
• How happy endings have been fed to millennials, who now want to save the world, but quickly
• Why we bond more intimately in our weakness than around the victory

About Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

Reverend Dr. Soong-Chan Rah is the Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL. He has authored several books, including The Next Evangelicalism, Many Colors, and Prophetic Lament.

Prior to joining North Park, Dr. Rah was the founding Senior Pastor of Cambridge Community Fellowship Church (CCFC), a multi-ethnic church living out the values of racial reconciliation and social justice in the urban context. He has served on the board of Sojourners and the Christian Community Development Association and currently serves on the board of World Vision and Evangelicals 4 Justice.

With extensive experience in cross-cultural speaking, Dr. Rah has been a main stage speaker at many events, including the Congress on Urban Ministry, the CCDA National Conference, the Justice Conference, Verge, and Catalyst.

A lover of learning, he received his B.A. from Columbia University, his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, his Th.M. from Harvard University, his D.Min. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and his Th.D. from Duke University.

He lives with his wife, Sue, and their two children, Annah and Elijah, in Chicago.

About text.soul.culture

Hosted and curated by Dr. J. Derek McNeil, Academic Dean, text.soul.culture is guided by a commitment to understanding narrative, wrestling with intersections, resisting reactivity, and fostering radical hospitality. Every other week, Derek is joined by faculty members, alumni, visiting thought leaders, and other conversation partners to explore what it means to foster wisdom and imagination for a world in need of complex thinkers and healers.

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This year, we were grateful to have as our featured speaker, Reverend Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, a professor, pastor and dynamic author whose life work has revolved around theology, lament, and racial reconciliation.

As a community we were invited to reflect on the importance of lament, especially as it relates to racial division within our country. Dr. Rah reviewed the prominence of lament in Scripture and challenged us to consider the ways in which our culture and the American Church has run from lament, leading to a mentality of exceptionalism.

Lecture

A few notable quotes from the lecture:

鈥淪piritual confusion can lead to spiritual health. Without disturbance of ourselves, why would any of us want to change?鈥�

鈥淚srael had only two choices in Lamentations: to run away and hide or to lament.鈥�

鈥淓vangelism from the ark works poorly because it is not for others.鈥�

Panel Discussion

Dr. Rah was joined by Dr. Caprice Hollins,听Dr. Ron Ruthruff, and for a panel discussion.

鈥淓xceptionalism keeps me, as a white person, from messages other than 鈥榊ou are helpful鈥� or 鈥榊ou can do it.鈥欌�� – Dr. Ruthruff

鈥淚 see lament as awakening truth and then grieving.鈥� – Dr. Hollins

鈥淲e need both windows and mirrors to see ourselves and others.鈥� – Tali Hairston

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