Pockets of Agape, Holy Boldness, Imperfection, and Angelic Troublemaking
Um so hey hi I’m graduating this month as a Spiritual Director. Soon I will be a sparkly new graduate of the Center for Prophetic Imagination, certified in Spiritual Direction and Social Transformation.
Ooh! I think this occasions a party. Yes. I do think so, don’t you, Noah?
Y’all, I am so dang grateful for this program. When I think about what I’ve learned in these four-semesters-plus-J-terms, I marvel. It’s hard to wrap it up into a tidy box. But here goes nothing.
These Big Three Take-Aways are NOT in order because they are equally important.
Pockets of agape.
I hope that every time I throw a party, or attend a demonstration, or meet with teens, or circle up in restorative justice, or whatever sneaky form of spiritual direction & social transformation I’m engaging in, I create a pocket of agape.
Agape is the kind of love, acceptance, and belonging you feel when love is doing what love does best: using the light in me to mirror the light in you, mirroring the light in me, mirroring your heart light. Oh my God. Ugh. That, but in a way that does not sound like a Neil Diamond song about E.T.
Uh, anyway. Agape. I’ve always that Jesus, this guy some of you may have heard of, wanted us to create a whole planet of agape. Which would be great. But seems a tad unrealistic.
But then during one of our class discussions my comrade / classmate Lynice was like, “No no no, JJ. Not the whole world. Pockets. We create pockets of agape. Small communities of endless love and compassion.”
And that, like most of what Lynice says, is wise and correct. (It also seems like the only effective alternative and response to our rising Christo-Fascist White Nationalist state.)
This program has been a pocket of agape. It’s been challenging and dis-comforting and simultaneously full of love and belonging.
I expected Ashe and Dan to be excellent teachers, and I was right. What surprised me, and I don’t know why, because it makes sense that it should be so, was my cohort. Folks who were strangers in the beginning have become friends and comrades, even over Zoom. They are people who I dearly love and deeply trust. They are my community.
To wit, there is not one member of our cohort who I would not call to bail me out of jail – for any reason, at any time, and particularly for actions of holy boldness. That’s a pretty good measurement of trust. (And, as Dan says, would make a good t-shirt. “I would call any of you to bail me out of jail.”)
Holy boldness.
I stumbled on this term, and wrote about it previously, during Ashe’s Christian Mystics class our first semester.
“Holy boldness is a stance and a practice that values ecstatic experiences as sources of knowledge and power, and that also assumes a critical consciousness toward oppressive systems and the urgency to confront and to challenge demonarchy* and the matrix of domination that supports it.”
- Joy Bostic, “Mystical Experience, Radical Subjectification, and Activism in the Religious Traditions of African American Women” in Mysticism and Social Transformation, Janet K. Ruffing (ed.).
*demonarchy – from Delores Williams – “demonic governance of black women’s lives by white male and white female ruled systems using racism, violence, violation… and death as instruments of social control… demonarchy is a traditional and collective expression of white government in relation to black women. – Dolores Williams, 1986. “The Color of Feminism: Or Speaking the Black Woman’s Tongue.” The Journal of Religious Thought 43, no. 1: 42-58.
This program has reminded me to embody, to be, holy boldness. And none too soon, with the collapse of Constitutional order –as problematic and white supremacist as that order has been from the founding– and the increasingly, undeniably, authoritarian regime in the U.S.
In so many ways it’s clear that this was just the right program for me, for us, at just the right time. It’s reminded me to be an example of holy boldness for others, to stand in solidarity with other “angelic troublemakers” (-Bayard Rustin), and to bear witness to and lift up holy boldness when I see it.
To be sure, I was doing some holy boldness before this program. But in adulthood and parenthood I had, to some degree, settled back into comfort – recently by shying away from protesting too loudly against the genocide in Gaza lest my Jewish friends think me antisemitic; or by opting to write about an issue instead of getting out there (por que no los dos?); that sort of thing.
What I’ve remembered through this program is that there is no way to please everyone, and especially not folks who are aligned with oppressive systems. By definition, the people you speak out about, or speak to, when you speak truth to power are the powerful. The funder, the teacher, the boss, the bishop, the cop, the judge. Even the friend.
Yup, speaking truth to power is hard. It’s honestly rather irritating to have to do it. Over and over.
But/and: it’s vital. Vital in that it is life-giving.
Truth-telling generates its own power.
But it is dangerous, no question.
It’s dangerous to a lot of thing: to smooth-sailing friendships. To staying off an FBI list. To employment prospects. Dangerous legally. Dangerous physically. But it’s good for liberation. (Remember: a Quaker Meeting House was just raided in Britain “for the first time in living history” because a group of young people were discussing planning a nonviolent sit-in.)
Here are some current things that are guaranteed to get you into trouble:
Pointing out ways that well-meaning white liberals perpetuate white supremacy.
Talking about divesting from Israel for its genocide of Palestinians. (Or simply protesting the ongoing genocide.)
Treating climate catastrophe as reality — and tying it to the ways that wealth accumulation and anti-immigrant rhetoric exacerbate the crisis.
Questioning the morality of wealth accumulation itself.
Speak up about these and you are likely to get in big trouble, missy.
But what’s the alternative? NOT saying that it is wrong to genocide humans? Not standing up for the planet and our brethren? Not calling attention to the fact that property accumulation and worker exploitation is the rot at the heart of racial capitalism?
Anyone who’s met me in person knows that I can sit quietly in Quaker meeting, I can spend seven days in silence on retreat, but I’ve never been good at not speaking up.
What I have been good at: speaking up anyways but then worrying, panicking, double-guessing, not trusting myself. The difference this program has made is in helping me to trust. To know, to really truly know, in a deeper way, that my ecstatic spiritual experiences, my hearing the voice of God and seeing energy and ghosts and fairies, are true and real in the only sense that actually matters: if they help steel my spirit and tenderize my heart to flip more tables of oppression, then they are a source of power not to be trifled with.
Also what I’ve learned and relearned through Dan’s teachings of ego bubbles and Ashe’s lessons on POSIWID (the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does), and from our readings, and from my comrades who I get to witness embodying holy boldness, is that if I’m honest and true to myself, if I speak up against white supremacy and oppression, there are a few things I can reliably count on.
Here they are, in no particular order:
If I’ve been a give-and-take member of a pocket of agape, I will be loved and I will have support from true comrades. Even if I’m carted away for thought crimes (my current unrealistic yet based-on-real-events anxiety) or I go broke (another recurring anxiety) or my loved ones die in tragic accidents (another ongoing anxiety), I will still be beloved in my pockets of agape.
I’ve got my God squad. Jesus and Blessed Mother Mary and my other spirit guides are with me in trying to flip tables of oppression and no matter what, they will be. When I’m grounded and centered, I know this.
It helps to have sleep and nourishment to feel this grounding and presence – if I’ve had fewer than six hours of sleep, I shouldn’t panic or make bug decisions. Try to get some rest.
We angelic troublemakers, those who speak up against white supremacy and injustice, we will be in the minority. This is a disappointing thing to realize. People talk a good game but when it comes down to it, a whole lotta folks go along to get along. (Especially white liberals. Sigh. Experience and history shows that if they start to feel uncomfortable or threatened, they are the least robust, the least brave, the least prepared to fight. They are the first to peel away and scamper back into the privileges of white supremacy.)
Also, reliably, the thanks we’ll get for pointing out ways that white supremacy is showing up is the dreaded blue wall. “The Blue Wall,” as Dan’s friend put it, is an apt description to the defensive, take-it-personally white liberal response to a totally non-personal critique. Why blue? Why the wall? It’s usually die-hard Democrats and it’s just about impossible to break through as a brick wall. Still, I take Ashe’s wisdom seriously: that the POSIWID (Purpose Of a System Is What It Does), means focusing on impact. Impact is 95% of what matters. Intention? Sure it counts, but only about 5% — and far less if a behavior or system repeats. Ashe taught me to understand this at a deeper level: “Us living in the U.S., we are all part of harmful systems. We just are. Especially white people and white supremacy. So if someone points out ways you are operating in a system of harm, really we should be grateful that person took the time and risk to point it out to you. Sure, our egos can try to trip us up, I get that, we’re human. But try not to let it. Because it’s not really about you as a person. It’s about the way we are inevitably operating in a system, in a way that might be invisible to you. So if you want to be anti-racist, and not harmful, the best response is truly, ‘Thank you.’ Then we do some self-reflection, seek out more education, check in with accountability buddies who are committed to dismantling white supremacy.”
Amen, Ashe.
Quick Big Picture
Here’s what I don’t want to say when I cross the rainbow bridge to meet The Great Cosmic Echidna or St. Peter or whomever: I don’t want to shrug and stare at my toes and meekly concede, “I guess I could have said more. I guess I could have flipped more tables.”
Here’s what I want to be able to say: “I was a mess, oh my my oh hell yes I was a mess: as imperfect as a long blade of shit-stained grass hanging from a dog’s ass. But you know what? I did my best. I left it all on the field. I did everything I could with everything you gave me. I loved hard and I railed hard and I cried hard and I had so much freaking fun. I learned with my comrades to find joy in resistance. So. Thank you for this go-round and thank you for the people I got to go-round with.”
Which brings me to the third of the Big Three: me.
Me, as in, I already knew everything I needed to know before this program, and there is everything to learn all the time.
One of my goals for this program was to do this on my own terms, to get what I wanted out of it and not worry about doing it the “right” way or gaining teachers’ approval.
Yes, of course, it’s lovely to feel affirmed and valued and treasured – and I do feel that way – but not because I sought it or contorted myself to fit what I thought was the ideal CPI student. Which feels even better because this love is directed from and toward my own values and my own true self.
This is a huge lesson and a big change for me.
In all my other educational pursuits — although I was able to be intentional and study what I wanted to study – I was preoccupied with doing it correctly and well. Graduating Harvard with a 4.0 for my Masters degree was the epitome of this. To be clear: I loved my Harvard grad school cohort, and am still besties with several of my classmates. But my overwhelming desire was to Do The Best School Perfectly And Get Straight A’s. Even while thinking that Harvard was actually pretty gross and super elitist. Uh duh.
This has been a core issue, a crux, of my life to date: I resist every part of oppressive structures and I want those same structures to validate and approve of me.
It’s a wild conundrum I’ve put myself in.
I don’t want to shut off valid feedback from honest critics and friends. But to want Darth Vader to give me an A+ in Rebel Alliancing is the dumbest thing I can think of.
And I don’t think I’m alone in this. I wonder if a lot of angelic troublemakers, or would-be angelic trouble-makers, feel this way. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, by learning this about me, I can be a dog-gone wonderful spiritual director. I can do this on my terms. I can trust my values, and my God Squad, and the accountability partnerships of my anti-racist comrades.
What next for this soon-to-be certified spiritual director?
I’ll see where my feet take me. I’m open to one-to-one spiritual direction, but I don’t necessarily plan to hang a shingle. I’m more sneaky-like. I think of spiritual direction as deep listening. As wondering. As noticing. And sure, I’ve picked up some skills. But ultimately, for me, it’s about being, not doing.
It’s about being a mirror of love.
Quoth James Baldwin, another of my favorite mystics, in Nothing Personal:
“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light.”
What I want to be doing, in as much regular life as I can manage, is be a mirror. Witnessing and magnifying people’s light. And allowing them, giving them the gift, of being that for me, and for others.
And that’s pretty good, I think.
Yay. Well done, me.
I graduate with my own grades: an A+ and F- and every grade in between. All the grades.
For all of us.
XOXO
Congratulations!🎉
I absolutely loved this. Thank you for writing.