[A version of this post was originally published in Unity Magazine May/Jun 2023 issue]

Artificial Intelligence was once hailed as the antidote for human bias. After all, computers were devoid of emotion, preconceived ideas, or unconscious and internalized bigotries. Then why, in a recent experiment when scientists asked robots programmed to scan faces and select the “criminal”, did the robots repeatedly choose a Black man’s face? Or when asked to select “homemaker” or “janitor”, women and BIPOC were chosen over and over? It turns out that when programming the machines, the programmers’ own implicit biases become part of the code. We cannot, it would seem, remove our humanness when we participate in, well, anything.

Many of us, however, erroneously believe our spirituality to be the exception. As we engage in practices to deepen and expand our consciousness and connection with the Divine, it rarely occurs to ask ourselves if we’re bringing our biases with us. Is it because we believe spiritual people are good people? Or that since the Divine is pure, we, and our practices, are just as pure? These are both privileged views. It implies that those who do not have a spiritual practice are not as good as we are. There’s also the assumption that everyone has access to the resources that make a spiritual practice possible: time, energy, money, safe and distraction-free spaces. 

It’s time we embrace an Antiracist Spirituality. If the “anti” prefix is stirring thoughts of dismissing the idea because we should focus our energies on what we’re “for” not what we’re “against”, that’s spiritual bypassing. If the thought “why is everything about racism” comes to mind, that’s racial bypassing and privilege at work. If the retort “But I’m not racist” is about to be uttered, know that being “not racist” is not the opposite of racism, nor is it nearly enough.

To be antiracist is to consciously create a culture of equity and liberation for everyone by recognizing and dismantling systems of oppression that impact us all, while creating new structures of inclusiveness and equity. Systems of oppression include racism, ableism, ageism, capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy cultural norms (wscn) such as a right to comfort, a sense of urgency, either/or thinking, quantity over quality, paternalism, and perfectionism.

​These are characteristics of our American (and increasingly global) culture. We have unconsciously internalized them, and like AI programmers, integrated them into our spiritual practices and communities. How many times have we tried to perfect a meditation practice, or have been fixated on growing the community while seeing it as a sign of failure if we don’t?

An Antiracist Spirituality uses the tools of our spirituality to help reduce the influence of wscn in ourselves, as well as our spiritual practices and communities, in order to be inclusive and equitable. Engaging in Antiracist Spirituality includes:

1. Recognizing what we have internalized – when we are willing to acknowledge that we have internalized wscn, we apply mindfulness principles (being fully present, pausing, noticing) to recognize how they influence our thoughts, beliefs, and actions.
2. Decolonizing our inner space – transforming our internalized wscn to more inclusive and equitable beliefs through mindfulness practices and embracing discomfort. 
3. Decolonizing our outer space – noticing the wscn in our homes, jobs, spiritual communities; bringing them to the attention of others; changing them with the help of those who they affected the most, which begins with listening and believing their stories
4. Deconstructing our spirituality – accepting that our theologies and teachings (or at least the application of them) have also been influenced by wscn and may also need to be revamped to be more inclusive and equitable.

​[A condensed version was originally published in Unity Magazine Jan/Feb 2023 issue]

March 13th is National Napping Day. As someone who regularly preaches that naps are a spiritual practice, it goes without saying that this is one of my favorite days of the year. Frankly, every day should be a napping day. Naps are good for the mind, body, and soul. I try to get in a 30-45 minute nap most days, joining other luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Lady Gaga, Ariana Huffington, and Tricia Hersey aka The Nap Bishop

Naps are also a powerful tool for dismantling white supremacy. Yes, you too can fight racism with a good snooze! Of course, that's a bit of an oversimplification, but it’s not far from the truth. Naps, plus other forms of intentional rest and restorative experiences, are an antidote to one of white supremacy’s most violent, exploitative, and relentless manifestations: Capitalism.

Capitalism is defined as “an economic and political system in which property, business, and industry are controlled by private owners rather than by the state, with the purpose of making a profit.” [Cambridge Dictionary] Characteristics include accumulating capital (money and goods) to make more capital, owning private property, and wage labor. For capitalists (i.e. business owners) to turn a profit, expenses cannot outpace income, and the lower expenses the better. Labor is one of those expenses. We sometimes forget that labor means people – actual human lives. The less people are compensated for their labor (paycheck, health insurance, paid time-off, etc.), the greater profit can be made. 

Capitalism was at the root of the mid-Atlantic slave trade and the Trail of Tears – free stolen labor to work free stolen land. It fuels our national gas-lighting, better known as The American Dream: financial success and upward mobility is possible for everyone regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, through sacrifice, risk-taking, and hard work. We know now that it’s a delusion because of systemic discriminatory attitudes and practices stemming from racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and more.

Capitalism, along with greed based in scarcity consciousness, is the cause of widening income disparity, with CEOs making, on average, 670 times more than the average worker, up from 20 times more in 1965. It’s why we have a climate crisis, as multinational corporations continue to plunder the planet of its natural resources, while replacing them with destructive pollution, all in the name of profit.

To be fair, we’re not a purely capitalist society, otherwise government social programs wouldn’t exist. However, the capitalist mindset is deeply rooted in us. We work full-time jobs plus various side-hustles just to make ends meet, or to get ahead. Our worthiness becomes intrinsically tied to what we do and how much we have, not who we are. More is better, and we are better people when we do more. Something inside tells us that we should always be doing something. Some of us are perplexed to paralysis when we’re unexpectedly gifted with a free hour, so it’s on to the next item on our to-do list, which is our metric for a successful day. Capitalism shames us for having regular unscheduled fun. Why else would we call them guilty pleasures?

We bring the same sense of urgency to our spiritual and wellness practices. We determine how spiritual we are by the number of classes, workshops, or retreats taken, or how many books we read, rushing from one to the next without pausing to integrate. We obsess over the brands of yoga clothing and accessories, ignoring how far removed from the original practice our Western white-washed beer/rave/goat yoga classes actually are, all in the name of entertainment and profit.

Napping, and resting in general, upends all that capitalism stands for. By intentionally removing ourselves from the grind, we cease toiling for the benefit of others, and free ourselves from a system that commodifies us. By giving ourselves the gift of doing absolutely nothing, or by engaging in purely pleasure-without-a-point activities, we place value on ourselves, no longer seeing ourselves as a product with our worth determined by our output. By reclining to stare at the clouds lost in thought, we truly begin to find ourselves.

REST. RESTORE. REPAIR. RESIST. Let this be our mantra for self-love, activism, justice, liberation, and the dismantling of a system of exploitation.

I really liked high-school science, specifically physics (secondary school for my Caribbean readers). I never tired of learning the principles that naturally occurred in the physical Universe, and I still marvel at humanity’s ability to harness them. I know about Bernoulli’s Principle, yet every time I’m in an airplane or I see one taking off, I’m in such awe I swear some kind of sorcery is involved. Don’t get me started on Quantum Physics. That’s some advanced level wizardry right there.

I continue to forget most of what I learned, but two particular principles stick with me: Newtons’ First and Second Laws of Motion. The First Law of Motion states that a body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it, and a body in motion at a constant velocity will remain in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force. The Second Law of Motion states that if an unbalanced force acts on a body, that body will experience acceleration ( or deceleration), that is, a change of speed.

Why these two? Because they are a perfect metaphor for who I am as an Enneagram Nine. While Nines are often lauded as Mediators and Peace Makers who can skillfully guide opposing forces to the middle ground of compromise and mutuality, we are also conflict avoiders who are well versed at numbing out and not being in touch with our own feelings. This stems from the erroneous belief that if we make others unhappy they will withdraw their love, and all we want is to be loved. So we make their needs our needs. It’s not the love flex we think it is. In merging with them, we lose ourselves in them, and when we’re not misguidedly loving them, we have no idea what we want for ourselves. 

It’s a terrifying feeling not to know who you are outside of your dedication to others’ happiness. We escape the unsettling anxiety by numbing ourselves with anything from narcotics to sex to hour after hour of mindless screen time. We become a body at rest, and we stay at rest, loving ourselves less and less, forgetting ourselves more and more.

Moving helps us find ourselves. It’s the antidote to numbing. It’s a reminder that we exist. Almost any motion will do: stretching, jumping, walking, running, lifting, dancing, swimming, biking, calisthenics, yoga, martial arts. As long as there’s enough effort that requires attention and intention beyond the autonomic going-through-the-motions. Moving invites us into ourselves, a place that many of us would rather not go, to face the unhealed and unresolved parts we’d rather ignore.

To be clear, these activities can also be narcotic. Too much of a good thing ceases to be a good thing. We can just as easily avoid ourselves by becoming obsessed with wellness and its trappings, harming ourselves just as the wellness industry so often causes harm by perpetuating systems of oppression like capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and ableism. 

Moving awakens the body, and in so doing it awakens the mind, and the spirit. The mind-body-spirit triumvirate governs both our existence and our being. And when we move with others, we may discover a healing refuge of community and connection. 

We're not just healing from our own well-worn wounds, but from generational trauma, as well as the daily assaults from a world intent on exploiting our bodies through hustle and grind culture. We are not here to toil and labor for those in seats of unearned power and privilege. We are called to live free and fulfilled. Moving decolonizes.

So let’s move… into joy, into wholeness, into love, into liberation.

As a child, the church taught me that my body was not mine. It was a temple for Christ. I was to take care of it, but not for me. I, and my body, were vessels to be used by God. I wasn’t supposed to have any autonomy. Thankfully in my case, the message of ownership and usage didn’t extend to God’s representative, the pastor/minister/priest/deacon. Others over the centuries have not been as fortunate. Clergy who abuse their position are still a horrific reality. 

I was supposed to be always listening for divine directives, to consecrate and dedicate every act to the Trinity. Music making, dancing, even sex… especially sex… were to be acts of holy supplication, offerings of praise and worship not just to cull favor, but as fulfillment of my purpose. I was created to give God glory. If I didn't, I was unworthy. 

As a child, my culture taught me that my body had no value. I could be seen, but not heard or believed. I could be in the room, but my thoughts and feelings and opinions had no value. I couldn’t express my emotions. Don’t talk back. What you crying for? Hush you don’t know anything. So I learned to suppress and ignore, making myself as small and as invisible as possible.

As a teenager, patriarchy and toxic masculinity convinced me that I was not attractive enough because girls did not seek me as they sought others; that because of my soft rotundness I deserved ridicule; that my penis was probably too small to provide pleasure, even though I was being a good Christian by remaining chaste. Religion told me that natural hormone-driven sexual desires meant my faith was flawed; that they were a precursor to sin; that any sexual thought or expression (even masturbation) was tantamount to the sin itself and displeased God and I was bad. I signed purity pledges, feeling racked with guilt for my sexual awakening, berating myself for being weak.

For the first twenty-one years of my life, my body and my faith existed in conflict with each other, ultimately both losing. Or at least what I understood to be a loss, but what would eventually become the first steps on a path of liberation as I progressively discovered spiritual beliefs that fostered inner alignment, not conflict. But even as my mind and heart opened, the practice of ignoring the body was too well ingrained. I didn’t know how to understand what my body was saying. I didn’t even know I should be listening. Meditation practices that focused on stillness subtly and inadvertently reinforced suppression of my body’s cries for attention. 

I was spiritual, but I was not in harmony with myself, because I was still not loving all of myself. To not be in touch with all parts of me was to deny love to all parts of me. I loved my mind, my heart, even my soul. But not my body. I didn’t hate it, I simply did not acknowledge it as anything other than a physical entity to be kept out of harm’s way.

And then grief made itself known. Since 2015 its immense weight bore down on me as someone in my orbit died almost every year: spouse, family, friends. Trauma is not what happens to us. It’s how our body responds to what happens to us. My body, to which I was still more of a stranger than a friend, took the pain of the losses, held on to it, and reminded me that I just couldn’t think and talk my way out of the shock and suffering and sadness.

Enter weightlifting.

Enter running.

​Enter kink.

Lifting brought me back to my body. Running brought me back to my breath. Kink brought me back to my sexuality. 

To lift without intention and attention on the body is a recipe for injury. As I pushed and pulled, the pain was pressed to the surface to be unabashedly released in racking sobs as I leaned against the weight rack between sets. I made more than a few folks uncomfortable at more than a few Planet fitness gyms. Lifting became my meditation and my medication, a body-centering practice that allowed the grief to work its way through me.

I hated running before the losses started to pile up. I still hate running. I rarely run these days, but for a handful of years, until my knee reminded me that some injuries never entirely recede, I found the bottom of my lungs, a stillness of mind, and a zone wherein nothing resided but the Breath and Oneness with my body.

Kink was the unexpected safe space that provided the container for me to fully accept, love, and reclaim my sexual body. With each act, every deeply embedded line of code that would elicit shame and doubt and self-loathing and unworthiness around my body and sexual self began to be rewritten. In kink spaces I found more acceptance and belonging among bodies of all shapes and sizes and genders and ages and ethnicities… more than I ever experienced in spiritual communities. In kink spaces there was no shame, no judgment, no ridicule, no comparisons, only a desire for empowering consensual and sensual connection.

My body, it turns out, is as much a source of my truth as any other part of me. It is my Early Warning System. It is my final arbiter. It is my everything in between. It knows my feelings before I can articulate them. It lets me know which choice is the right one for that moment. It is the place and the process of self-regulation. It is not mere flesh and bone, but its own beingness, alive, sentient, fully integrated with mind and soul. It is not a temple for an imagined deity, but the home of all I Am. It is me, and I am it. It is wisdom. It is history. It is ancestry. It is who I am yet to be.

The ongoing invitation from my body: listen to me, believe me, love me. 

My RSVP: Yes, always. 

The Breath is more than biology. It is an energetic and spiritual practice of returning to our Essence, the purest sense of our Self that transcends the mental and the physical and the emotional, that existed and continues to exist before and beyond our wounds. We mostly breathe above the neck: short, shallow, unconscious, survival-oriented panting. What’s the minimum amount of air we need to keep us upright? To keep our organs functioning? To keep our brain swirling in the morass of anxiety and fear? 

Sometimes we realize we haven’t been breathing at all. I remember that as I witnessed the horror of George Floyd’s lynching, his airway forcibly constricted, unable to breathe, I too stopped breathing, unintentionally, paralyzed by terror, my air flow returning with a sudden gasp when my lungs could no longer go on without oxygen. Unfortunately, like many before and after him, Floyd did not have the luxury of taking another breath. His life was crushed under the weight of a historical and systemic oppression that presses down on us every day in any number of ways, scattering our attention and our energy, depleting our life force.

The Breath can recenter and reground us, but only if we breathe with the entirety of our lungs, and with our whole body. It requires conscious effort to entirely fill the lungs. The diaphragm is a muscle, after all, but left to its own habitual devices it contracts only so much. It requires our attention and intention to tighten it even more, along with the intercostal muscles which lift the rib cage, to make an increasingly negative space within us, a vacuum to draw in life-sustaining air.

But what does it mean to breathe with our whole body? It begins with knowing that every part of us is connected to every other part of us. Our body is a symbiotic entity, not a collection of compartmentalized functions. We cannot breathe as we should if our body is in a state of tension. The Breath relaxes the body and our body relaxes the Breath. Envision every muscle and bone and organ contracting and expanding in harmony with the inhale and the exhale, gradually making them all slower, eventually letting the exhalations and relaxations longer than the inhalations and the tensions. Inhale and tense for a count of four. Hold for a count of six. Exhale and relax for a count of eight. Repeat. Lengthen each count. Don’t just do it. See it. Feel it. Embody it. Close your eyes and let all your attention follow in the inflow and outflow of air, the rise and fall of the chest, the subtle contraction and release of the whole body, the soothing of our trauma.

To be sure, deep breathing requires intention and practice and commitment. It compels us to first pause (see previous post) and notice how present we are, or more likely, are not, to and with and for ourselves. We often place ourselves at the bottom of our priorities list. That comes from a variety of places: capitalism, which tells us we have to constantly hustle to succeed and that our worth is defined by our financial status; religion (mostly Christianity), which tells us we’re born inherently unworthy; patriarchy, which tells us we have to aspire to the cisheteronormative standard of toxic masculinity. Panic might arise when we strive and fail to meet a particular benchmark. Or even worse, a constant undercurrent of shame and self-reproach because we don’t measure up.

The invitation: set an hourly alarm and breathe deeply for at least one full minute. Two would be better. We slip away from ourselves so easily. The Breath brings us back home.

What’s in a pause?  A recognition. A refrain. A reset. An opportunity.

The amygdala hijack happens at least daily. Since arriving in Barbados, perhaps multiple times a day. Having lost my father last May, I almost couldn’t handle the news that my mother had a stroke just over five months later. It was a relatively minor stroke, but enough to sideline her from her usual relentless pace of work.

​As I interact with my mother and help with her recovery journey, all I can say is, “Thank the Universe for therapy!” I’ve had to call upon every trick in the book when it comes to setting and holding boundaries, managing my self-care, deftly cutting the wires from every button that’s being pushed so my childhood wounds don’t explode all over the place.

In reality, a wound is always touched or threatened, and the amygdala does what it does best: bypass the slow, reasoning and reasonable forebrain to prepare me to fight or flee or freeze or appease  my attacker. Except I’m not really being attacked, and to respond as if I am will only do everyone greater injury including myself. 

So I learn to Pause. To just stop. To do nothing. To reject the habitual amygdala responses. To give the forebrain time to reboot and remember… remember to be patient; to be vulnerable; to open my heart; to ask for what I need; to discover my need; to empathize; to reestablish a boundary; to say no; to say yes; to forgive; to listen; to love.

I Pause for a moment, a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year… however long it takes to dive deep into myself; to travel back in time to the first causes of suffering; to extend compassion and love to the parts of me still caught in the wound; to examine and deconstruct the internalized beliefs that diminish my inherent worth; to ease the constricted parts of body that hold the pain like a sacred totem to fear.​

The Pause is the first step in the journey of being who I aspire to be in every unforeseen life moment. The Pause gives me the opportunity to choose better; to be better; to stay heart-centered; to stay connected to, and engaged with, the other; to realize there is no other, only us now in this moment.

The Pause is Power. The Pause is Peace. The Pause is Freedom.

[A condensed version was originally published in Unity Magazine Jan/Feb 2023 issue]

Thanks to Valentine’s Day, love is everywhere during February. Modern Western culture glorifies coupledom and marriage. Matrimania, the over-hyping of marriages, relationships, and weddings, drives a 57 billion dollar industry. Unfortunately, homophobia, singlism (the stereotyping, stigmatization, and discrimination against people who are not married) and polyphobia (ranging from unease about the idea of Ethical/Consensual Non-Monogamy [ENM] – any relationship in which all participants explicitly agree to have multiple concurrent relationships – to outright hatred of polyamory) leads to discriminating against those who don’t fit the just-the-two-of-us heterosexual mold.

How did we even get here? We’re not sure exactly. In a 2011 paper, researcher Kit Opie of University College London showed that early humans, or hominids, began shifting towards monogamy about 3.5 million years ago. He surmised that monogamy in early primates meant that males were able to protect and nurture their children, which led to higher rates of survival and increased nourishment—which had an impact on human brain development further down the line. 

Our modern idea of socially imposed monogamy may have been first established in ancient Greece and Rome. One theory holds it was for a military advantage: monogamy meant that fewer men would leave a group to search for wives elsewhere and would be available to fight. As Christianity emerged in the Roman Empire in the first centuries AD, it embraced and took monogamy a step further: marriage was between a man and woman, their bodies and desires reserved for each other and God. So technically a threesome?

The industrial revolution gave birth to the solitary effects of the modern workplace and weakened community bonds. The pressure monogamy put on a couple increased. As psychotherapist Esther Perel writes in Mating in Captivity, “today, we have to give one person what an entire village used to provide ­– financial and emotional support, companionship, entertainment, friendship, familiarity, mystery, love, sex, the works…” 

Physicians and sexologists who were also eugenicists wrote many of the early 20th-century books about courtship and marriage, thereby introducing pseudoscience based on common racist and xenophobic attitudes to the relationship lexicon. Some of their central tenets – incompatibility and deference to men – persist in modern relationship and marriage advice. Best-selling books like John Gray’s “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” perpetuate the message that men and women are fundamentally at odds, and learning to accept and accommodate their innate gender differences (tropes, really) is the relationship secret sauce.

These are but a few of the factors that led to heterosexual monogamy being the established norm. And the thing about norms? Those who exist outside of them are often rejected. Both conscious and unconscious discriminations and resentments develop (ranging from micro aggressions to outright hostilities), some of which become enshrined into organizational policies, and state or federal laws.

Members of ENM and LGBTQ+ communities share the stigma and fear of coming out, retaliation for coming out, marital/adoption/custody/parental issues, family rejection, difficulty accessing supportive mental health care, housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, and more. As someone who doesn’t hesitate to say what others might prefer to remain unsaid, I was genuinely surprised at my own reticence during my early months of practicing ENM to let others know. Yes, I’m Polyamorous and proud of it. 

Polyamory, by the way, is only one expression of ENM. There’s also swinging, open marriage/relationship, triads or throuples, and more. Click here for a primer. For an even more profound unmaking of relationship norms, consider Relationship Anarchy – the practice of rejecting relational hierarchies and creating more equality (time, value, commitment) across relationships.

True Justice (love in action) and Liberation (removal of obstacles to a lived experience of equanimity and wholeness) begins with our own decolonization. Take a moment, right now, to pause and notice what you are feeling. If there is any discomfort, consider exploring deeper: How do I really feel about non-monogamy? Is it wrong? Am I curious? How do I feel about being married or being in a relationship, or about others who are? How do I feel about being single, or about those who are? What are the beliefs beneath these feelings? Did I unconsciously adopt them? Can I truly celebrate love in all its forms regardless of my own orientation and relationship preference?

Be gentle with yourself as you investigate. Forgive and make amends if you must. Lean in, love, and find your liberation.

[NOTE: The post pic is the newly adopted (2022) Polyamory Pride flag. A white chevron flows outward to depict the growth and possibility of the non-monogamous community. It sits asymmetrically on the flag to reflect the non-traditional style of polyamorous relationships. The heart reminds us that love in all forms is the core of non-monogamy. Red stands for love and attraction. Blue stands for openness and honesty. Gold represents the energy and perseverance of those in the non-monogamous community. Purple to represent a united non-monogamous community.]

[Originally published in Unity Magazine Nov/Dec 2022 issue. Pic via vendorful.com]

Mark Twain once famously said, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” This might be the time of year we most lean into his quip. From Native Americans and Pilgrims idyllically brunching together, to time-bending circumnavigation and gift delivery in a sleigh propelled by flying reindeer, to the incarnation of God via miraculous virgin birth, the narratives connected to our most cherished holidays require our suspension of truth and fact. 

We choose instead to observe celebrations based on our preferred, more comfortable versions of history. Or, arguably worse, we know the facts and still choose to honor the traditions of holidays built on fabrications. “What’s the harm?” you might ask. Simply this: when we use sanitized stories to bypass painful truths, we help to maintain systems of injustice.

We’re not exactly sure when the Pilgrims had their first harvest celebration, but the one which we often teach our children about occurred in 1621 three years after nearly half of the settlers died because of their inability to feed themselves during a severely harsh winter. Tisquantum (also known as Squanto), a formerly enslaved member of the local Patuxent tribe, showed them how to work the land. To celebrate, they held a feast after one particularly bountiful harvest. Fun fact: the local Native Americans were not invited. They arrived to investigate the sound of musket fire, because no survival celebration is complete without firing deadly weapons into the air. 

Saint Nicholas, the 3rd century saint of Myra, evolved from a generous and humble monk to a magical icon that is not only a mascot of capitalism, but also a creepily omniscient tool used by parents to manipulate their children’s behavior: be good or no presents from Santa who’s always watching, even when you’re asleep.

Speaking of creepy omniscient beings, why do we still celebrate the birth of God’s “only son” at a time when it didn't happen (best guesses: June or October based on celestial events that could explain the “star of Bethlehem”), and in a way it didn’t happen? Sex, and only sex (at that time), led to conception. Also, virginity is not a thing, but that’s another article for another time.

When we blithely ignore the fallacies of our holiday narratives, we lull ourselves into inaction and systems of oppression continue to thrive. As we carve the Thanksgiving turkey, do we slice in remembrance of the estimated 12 million Native Americans that were killed by the European settlers and their descendants? Do we think about contributing to efforts to return stolen land to living tribe members? Do we acknowledge our complicity in the capitalist structures built on the enslavement of over 10 million Africans that continue to benefit the few and harm the many? 

Demigods proliferate mythology: Achilles and Perseus from Greek mythology; Bacchus and Hercules from Roman mythology; are we ready for “Jesus from Christian mythology?” These demigods, by the way, were the product of randy male gods impregnating mortal women often without their consent. Apparently women’s bodily autonomy wasn’t a thing back then either. Again, another article for another time. 

If you haven’t before, I invite you to not be casual about your holiday celebrations this year. Practice mindfulness, as in being fully present to the discomfort of the entire story, the inner conflicts that might arise, and what they may inspire you to do. Have brave conversations. Challenge the status quo. Only then might we be able to create new rituals and a culture that uplifts and liberates all. Oh right… Happy Kwanzaa!

[Originally posted to social media on 9/5/22]

​Like I said before, I’m not on vacation.
 
Neither is my grief.
 
After an amazing previous weekend in Marrakech, I had thought about visiting Tangier or Fes this past weekend. I noticed my first mood shift last Wednesday night. On Thursday I visited the Hassan II Mosque, a breathtakingly majestic sanctuary. Despite my smiles in the pics I posted on Facebook, my mood continued to slump. I couldn’t make up my mind about where to visit next, or even if to go anywhere. Indecision, a second clue.

Friday morning I woke up late, unmotivated, and soon found myself binging season 3 of The Umbrella Academy. Multiple consecutive hours of TV, a third hint. When I found myself weeping at a wedding scene, it was finally obvious: I was in the midst of yet another grief spiral. I don’t know what triggered it. I may never know. I don’t need to know.

It was a bittersweet realization though. At least I could now name what was happening, and that alone began to help me feel more at peace. For a while I turned off the computer and lay staring out the window, the pristine blue sky occasionally blurred by tears. 

I momentarily second-arrowed myself for, after all these years, taking so long to recognize what I was going through. I let any thoughts of wasting precious hours I could be out touristing float away. If any particular losses from the past seven years arose, I let them come and go, not questioning why those and not others. I let myself be in it, and it in me.

Such is the weight and the beauty of grief. It is omnipresent and omnipotent. It doesn’t matter where or when I am. While it may seem dormant for stretches of time, it continuously underscores every moment, even the blissful ones, adding a depth and breadth that is often not appreciated until after the sadness subsides.

I later shared how I was feeling with my companion. She held space for me as she held me. I felt even lighter. Grief is not a burden to carry alone. It is a tender manifestation of love that is meant to be shared so other hearts may open. 

Our losses connect us, and I am here… a safe space if you ever want to share yours.

It doesn't matter where.
​
It doesn't matter when.

[A revised version originally published in Unity Magazine Sep/Oct 2022 issue. Image via boardmanagement.com]

It is an unwritten rule of ministry: don’t talk about politics. I agree. Instead of politics, we should talk about governance. Politics is the partisan theater that exists around governance. It’s a polarizing and harmful distraction from the real purpose of governance: creating the policies that determine how we live with each other. 

We don’t all agree on local, state, and federal laws and policies, which is probably why churches avoid talking about them. And when I say churches, I mean the members of spiritual communities that don’t want to be made uncomfortable by these discussions for fear of creating divisions or driving congregants away. It’s a convenient spiritual bypass: If we don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist, and we can continue living under the delusion of different political affiliations harmoniously cohabitating in metaphysical bliss. Ugh.

Why should we talk about governance? Because Jesus. We call him the way-shower, but do we actually follow the way he showed us? Jesus continually questioned out loud the laws and customs that did not demonstrate love, justice, and liberation, thereby depriving individuals of their humanity. It’s why he declared the Sabbath was made for [hu]man, not [hu]man for the Sabbath: no one should starve to death to uphold a custom. It’s why he stood between the woman caught in adultery (the man conspicuously absent) when the mob were within their legal rights to stone her: human compassion trumps punitive traditions.

He knew such actions were divisive. It’s why he said, “I have not come to bring peace… I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” [Matt 10:34-36] Let’s face facts: if we truly live as Jesus did, we’re going to upset a lot of folks because not everyone places compassion, justice, and liberation as priorities over their own beliefs, traditions, and comforts. 

Governance is challenging. Ever been to a church or school board or home owners association meeting? But the real (and hard) question is, will we govern from compassion and justice, with a goal of liberation, or not? Will we create laws that make it easier to vote, expand support for the most vulnerable, protect the environment, curtail gun violence, and address the legacy of enslavement and genocide woven into the country’s founding that continues to impact us all? 

Or will we create policies that limit access to voting, remove environmental regulations, restrict women’s bodily autonomy, and ban books, discussion, or instruction that address racial injustices? Such policies reflect a time based in white supremacy thinking that denied the rights of anyone who didn’t fit the ideal image: white, heterosexual, middle class or higher, able-bodied, Christian, English-speaking, American-born, or according to the latest coded catchphrase, “legacy Americans.”

The question always before us is, how do we want to live with each other? How do we want to govern each other? Do the officials we elect reflect our spiritual principles and world vision? Do we exemplify Unity principles when we cast our vote? Or do we avoid voting all together, preferring to envision our ideal world rather than help to create it? 
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Jesus also said, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” [Matt 10:38] In other words, if we don’t live the way that Jesus demonstrated, we don’t have the right to claim him as our way-shower. How will we choose to live?