Learning Together

After college, I accepted a position as a volunteer coordinator for a homeless services agency in Northern Kentucky. My role was to reach out to diverse publics with offerings for public education about poverty, economics, mental illness, and the agency's work. Out of many workshops and events, one stands out: a women's writing workshop at the transitional housing units. We met each week to write, and did much more in the process. The workshop taught me to be quiet and how to learn with a community. It let me partake in the magic of collaborative knowledge that welcomes people into being who they are.

Something happens when we substantively reflect on our world and ourselves. Our thinking changes. So too do our ways of living and our ways of relating with one another. Over the years, I have fostered knowledge of this sort through diverse moments of education. What happens in a stairway on the walk to class or in the strangely effervescent 'streets' of a protest encampment matter as surely as what happens in formal classroooms. To give a small sense of this work, I offer a couple brief examples.

Church

Whether in church basements, protest encampments, or online forums, I seek and embrace opportunities to teach and learn in community. I call the United Methodist Church home, and I particularly enjoy diving into theological investigations with my fellow worshippers. One such opportunity stands out in my memory. In the fall of 2012, I facilitated an introductory theology course for members of Grace United Methodist Church in St Louis, MO. After years of sustained theological reflection, bible studies, and book clubs, members of the church desired a "true" introduction to Christian theology. I agreed with the understanding that our work of teaching and learning would be collaborative and intellectually stimulating. The group that gathered was relatively diverse. It ranged in age from early twenties through well-past retirement and included participants with long histories in the Black Church as well as those with long histories with white liberal Protestantism. Guided by the questions and knowledge of the group, we developed a course of study that began Calvin on theological knowledge and ended with a discussion on doctrine of heaven.

We read, watched, and listened to a variety of materials spanning across classic texts of systematic theology, novels, and constructive ethics. The community dedicated its time to coming to understanding particular theological ideas and arguments in order to wrestle their effects. Each week, I left more knowledgable not only of the questions, experiences, and struggles that shape the lives of those participationg, but of the readings and ideas that I introduced to the group. The sophistication of theological knowledge in that room would compete with most, if not all, seminary spaces that I have known. Especially in theology, we cannot separate scholarly precision from the difficult work of learning to live.

Occupy

In key aspects, education grounded the Occupy movement. The people's library quite literally anchored the encampment at Occupy Wall Street with its table-after-table of books, along with the conversation and learning that accompanied each page. Each day brought teach-ins and free school sessions that addressed topics from the basics of participatory democracy to the intricacies of derivative trading. The opportunities were far-reaching and diverse. For instance, with respect to religion, workshops on belief and practice met in the Faith and Spirituality tent at Occupy Boston, and we moved a Harvard theology class to the camp.

The work for societal change intertwined with the work to increase comrehension of economic, political, and social histories and practices. The participatory practices of popular education shaped our approach to education. We worked to create spaces of learning that would blossom with the knowledge that becomes possible in communities of struggle. Everyone - and I do mean everyone across education level, age, income, housing situation, and so on - could participate. Many did.

One of the projects with which I was involved was the People's Think Tank. Having first formed in Zuccotti Park, think tanks responded to a significant challenge: In a space with thousands of people coming in and out to learn and collaborate with one another about manifold topics, how do we learn deeply, encourage open participation, and share what is considered more broadly? Think Tanks facilitated open and horizontal discussion of a single and (usually) pre-announced topic and then disseminated the conversation through audio recordings and written reports. Over the months, we continued to experiment with this mode of popular education in Boston and at Occupy Harvard. The audio recordings are available here.

Consensus and Facilitation

One of the hardest parts of living into a better world is doing so together. As a trained facilitator of consensus based group processes, I work with groups to heal or strengthen community health and group interaction using consensus based models of participatory group processes. I also work with groups to facilitate resolution of interpersonal and structural conflicts. Facilitation helps communities through and beyond difficult times with a variety of flexible practices for respectful and loving interaction.

Take, for example, a cooperative living community's struggle with difficult race and gender dynamics. An acute conflict rose when a resident felt disrespected and marginalized by housemates but could not find space in the house interactions to substantively wrestle with what had occured. Though the conflict was based in an immediate set of actions and statements, it was shaped by very long-standing assumed patterns of interrelating that consistently positioned some housemembers in positions of privilege, while others struggled to be heard. A year later, another, very similar, acute conflict shook the community, and I was asked to help guide a substantive process that would confront the roots of the conflicts and lead to a shift in the dynamics. Agreeing to facilitate, I challenged the group to take time to explore the personal, interpersonal, and societal experiences that influence the community and its ability to live together justly. We practiced techniques for recognizing and untangling race and gender dynamics that were leading to the conflicts. As the community confronted individual and group privileges, as well as long-held habits and assumptions, they found one another again. They (re)established the trust and care for one another that fueled their continued work on these and other difficult issues.

Short Pieces of Writing

Contemplating Radical Love

This piece was originally posted at www.ecclesio.com on October 24, 2013.

At a shelter in Northern Kentucky, there was a child, a very little boy, who hit me. He hit everyone. His slight underfed arms could not make much of an impact, however hard he tried.

Trust me, he tried.
And he tried.

His heart, however, hurt me deeply.

Smack.
Slap.
Punch.

A punch to remind that he is there.
A slap to insist that we share space, air.

Doubled over her hungry child, unsure of how she will answer the cries because of potential SNAP and WIC shortfalls, a parent gasps at the punch the suits of Congress landed with their political games this fall.

The queer youth seeks somewhere to rest her head by New York City’s pier. Her parents refuse the lover that she cherishes, wanting “better” for their child. The sharp sting of her mother’s slap, forcing her out, will not fade.

You and I, we are bound together. To hit you, I must touch you. Indeed, the connection between us can never be broken, only strengthened, even if the pain at our touch intensifies.

At the shelter, in conversation with his mother, the boy and I agreed that I would return each punch, slap, or smack with a hug. Always. Hitting cannot be ignored. Punching cannot be tolerated. He needed to learn. I needed to respond. But, we also clarified that I welcome his hugs. Always. Anytime. As many as he wished to offer. I see him. Rather than hitting, find me. Sit next to me. If you wish, climb onto my lap. We will read a story.

He did.

As he did, other children in the shelter started to do so as well.
For at least a few days, the small world of that Kentucky shelter transformed.

How can I do less in my neighborhoods today and tomorrow, than we did together at that shelter? Even as we hurt, especially when we hurt, can we find another way?

Where violence seems the only option, love insists otherwise. But love needs bodies. Hugs require touch. Love changes the world by being in the world. We know this. Jesus came into the world to be with us. To love us. All of us. Each and every one of us. Help us, God, to trust ourselves to living the radical transformations of this, your love’s embrace.

Find each other.
See one another.
Sit together.
Touch.

The Task of Theology

This piece was originally posted at the Theology Salon under the title "Occupy Nonviolently." I delivered the address on the task of theology in the time of Occupy as prefatory remarks to a conversation between James Lawson and Harvey Cox: “From Civil Rights Movement to Occupy Wall Street: A conversation on Nonviolence in the 21st Century” on October 26, 2011 at the Cathedral of St Paul, Boston, MA.

In the early twentieth century, a great theologian made a famous claim: theology’s task is to answer the questions of the age. That is, our world poses certain questions. Our experience demands attention. The theological task, Paul Tillich taught, is to engage matters of ultimate concern (to use his language) as the ultimate appears in each time and place. The task of theology is to offer the truth of Christian answers to the questions of existence. Not once and for all, but persistently. The task of theology is to provide these theological answers in the terms in which the questions arise. This means that Christian theology must be contextual. Christian theology must embrace the changes of time and space.

The occupies that now are claiming our attention and our cities – not just nationally, but internationally – are our context. These occupations are desperately needed. These occupations are theologically sound. The physical presence and the collective determination of the occupiers is a cry of communal lament. Intolerable injustices are being perpetuated in the idolatrously deified name of late capitalism.

Like Rachel, whose voice continues to ring out from Ramah, we, occupiers, will not be consoled by easy answers. And this, I believe, is good. Even when those who approach us appear to be or even are our friends, we need to remember Job. We must not mistake well-intentioned ‘reasonable solutions’ with the satisfaction of our embodied cries.

As a Christian theologian, I do not stand apart from, but as a part of this lamenting community of occupiers. Indeed, my theological work must be accountable to the occupying community. It is my community. I am an occupier. My theology is part of my occupation. Occupying is part of my theology.

When I think ‘occupy’ theologically, Galatians 2:20 immediately comes to mind: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” What greater hope can there be than to be occupied by Christ? I think Incarnation: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” – which more literally reads: “and the Word became flesh, and pitched his tent among us.” Or, as Jake Erickson wrote at TheologySalon recently, “occupation means fleshy, fragile bodies taking up political space together….When bodies incarnate movements of love and justice, creativity happens.” I think of Ruach, Breath, Spirit: God’s encompassing and excessive love, which fills our lungs and brings us life. And so I could go on.

But we must not – I must not – forget that ‘occupy’ has a very painful history. From first century Roman occupations through our last decade’s military presence in Iraq, occupation has been intimately related, if not fully synonymous, with domination, with violence, and with death. Certainly, incontestably, this is likewise evident throughout the history of the Christian churches and Christian theology.

Today, the violence of occupation resonates in our language of the 99%: the 99% that will take back what is being denied it by the 1%. Violence is evident in the iconography of the raised fist, which hovers over a lone solitary figure of the 1%. Violence lurks, crouched and waiting, wherever we identify our enemy or designate a target. And over the past couple days, we have watched the violence escalate in Oakland. What a marked contrast there is between what is happening with Occupy Oakland and what is happening with Occupy Albany. In Albany, the police defied the order of the mayor and governor to insist that they have not the need nor the will to combat peaceful, nonviolent demonstration.

We continue to need to learn strategies and techniques of loving resistance from the traditions of nonviolence. Just as nonviolence permeates the theology and presence of the Reverend Doctor James Lawson, we need it to permeate ours. Rev. Lawson, we continue to need to learn from you. We continue to need to learn with you. Like all of human existence, occupation – as a word, a metaphor, or an act – is ambiguous. We need to think carefully about nonviolence and our enactments (or should I say encampments) of occupation. May we all do this together in love.