Resistance : the refusal to accept or comply with something; the attempt to prevent something by action or argument.
Resistance : the ability not to be affected by something, especially adversely.
After a 5 week break I’m back at school. To say I needed the time off is an understatement. I needed time to reconnect with my family, to read books of my choosing – to watch House of Cards and Blackish and my new favorite Finding Your Roots. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is masterful in his approach to exploring a story – particularly the stories no one knows. Every episode follows fluid half-truths that lead to amazing stories about how a family came to be.
The older I get the deeper the longing for answers and the more I appreciate stories. The longer I’m alive the more I realize the importance of filling the gaps. Remembering, preserving – how we tell the story is important.
I told a friend the other day that I love seminary. I love sitting down to write and read and think. It is a gift, a sacred exercise to stretch my faith roots deep into a single story told by so many voices. I love the surprise of discovering what resonates with me. It’s an honor to add my thoughts to conversations that shape stories to come – conversations on faith and justice and the heart of resistance. It’s with this in mind that I write today.
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I attend a liberal seminary, perhaps one of the most liberal. So liberal that I’ve heard some say there is no God, no Jesus left in its halls. But I reject that, I’m here. And a handful of classmates I’ve met feel the same way. We sense our planting in the middle of a great awakening. I can’t put my finger on it but the people…the people are doing the work. The people are loving and living for God and like the first believers in Acts, followers of “The Way”, they are just doing what they know how to do. They’re speaking about what they’ve seen and heard, and they’re doing that together. There is no greater power – no holier resistance.
There’s talk lately – lively, passionate discourse and tears over plans to sell the air rights in the courtyard at Union Theological Seminary. Typing the words feels wrong. You’d know how wrong if you’ve visited the school but even the words on a page brings to mind an odd mix of sacred and secular. A hi-rise in the middle of a sanctuary is wrong.
From the hiring of a construction company of questionable repute to worry over a seminary wrapped in the heart of social justice adding to the problematic landscape of gentrification – plans are mired in controversy. There is no provision for low-income housing. This building will join many such developments in a community up for grabs. The people (the students and faculty) are concerned about the message, the legacy left behind and the story that will be told in years to come.
Union feels this move will solve a decades old financial crisis.
But students and faculty, particularly new students, are not happy. They feel left out of this story and it’s telling. They’re gathering and petitioning with a purpose because of what they’ve seen and heard. They’re passionate about a place they’ve chosen to call home for the next few years and more importantly for the story of Union. It is a powerful story of soul in the seat of social justice. New students have the heart for this kind of resistance. It’s inspiring.
for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard. – Acts 4:20
Gentrification is how stories are rewritten, how stories are erased, how stories are forgotten. I wonder in another 20 years, 50… 100 years how this story will be told. Some liken the proposal of this new building to a tower of Babel but I see it as a tree of knowledge of good and evil – one we build in our own back yard. Or could it be the re-imagining of a temple? Built for the holy habitation of unknown gods? Need we reminders about how these stories unfolded?
It seems we’re planting roots of something that has the potential of poisoning everything holy around it. Seminaries and developmental corporations shouldn’t mix. It brings to question ethics and religion, socio/cultural economics and politics. It brings to question our need to feed the all important empire – at all costs – an empire that shouldn’t have air space on seminary grounds.
Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord guards the city,
the guard keeps watch in vain. – Psalm 127:1
As much as I believe my midlife voice needs to be part of these conversations I’m at a point where resistance takes multiple forms. I’m just as likely to write a blog post as bake a cake. Resistance often looks like the kind of prayer that happens in a kitchen when I work out my issues with my hands covered in dough. Or a song. Resistance sometimes finds it’s life in a song. If you hear me improvising songs with a Negro spiritual bent, you should know I’m in deep prayer. I’m wrestling in a way no one modeled for me but is planted firmly in my dna. I’m expressing my agency as a woman of faith. I’m expressing what I’ve seen and heard. Today I’m writing. Tomorrow I’ll dance.
La vida la lucha!
Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight …. #GiveMeGrace
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Continue reading “Give Me Grace : Resistance {on the power of the people}”
