Beauty, Relationship, Action

a Lent read-along

For those who observe it, Lent begins next week. The arrival of that season feels especially poignant this year, with the world in all manner of disarray, and many folks I talk to in a constant simmering state of moral injury. The distress my people are carrying is like nothing I’ve ever seen in decades of ministry, decades that included a terrorist attack and a pandemic. What can we DO? people are endlessly asking. What indeed?

There’s something fitting about that question hanging in the air as we move into a forty day season of self-reflection.

What can we do?

Well, what did the Human One do?

Has there ever been a better time to draw close to the ethic of Jesus, who surely knew where his journey would end—with humiliating defeat on the cross—and yet who stubbornly and luminously refused to waver from the Way?

Could there be a more potent counter-testimony against the triumphalist, nationalist Christianity that’s so determined, so hell-bent, to subdue and dominate, to inflict trauma, to legitimate the ugliest expressions of power?

There remains a prominent strain of theology that says Jesus’ death was necessary for the sake of humankind’s salvation, that he paid the price for our sins, a ransom God demanded. The more acquainted I am with human suffering, the more brackish that theology is to me. Jesus preached an ethic of radical love and outrageous justice, and in response, power did what it always does. Necessary? No, but it certainly was inevitable.

So here we are, about to enter that narrative once again, to read those texts, to hear the last words—to acknowledge for one brief season, in the words of Kate Bowler, what it’s like to be on the losing team.

The timing couldn’t be better.

As a young adult, newer in the church, I would spend untold hours deciding what my Lenten practice would be. Giving something up? Taking something on? I’ve done it all. (My favorite is still the friend who quipped, “Then there was the year I gave up sarcasm for Lent. That went well…”)

I don’t have the energy to luxuriate in the “what to do” decision. I am, however, feeling acutely the five-year anniversary of covid lockdown approaching in a couple weeks; the memory is seeping into my body in all kinds of weird and unmistakable ways. Yes, that feels like ancient history. And still, the body remembers.

It was during covid that I stumbled upon my “big three”—beauty, relationship, and action—that helped me find some hope and some purpose on my most ragged days. That’s where I’m putting my focus this Lent—to make sure each day leans into at least one of those things, however small—and you’re invited to join me.

What do mushrooms have to do with Emergent Strategy? We’ll find out together. photo courtesy of lukelukeluke on Bluesky.

I’ll be doing a deep dive into adrienne maree brown’s book Emergent Strategy. I read this book years ago and felt an immediate pull toward her ideas, but I also felt like there was a piece missing for me, something I didn’t quite understand yet. As I’ve followed the news over the last few weeks I’ve felt brown’s approach click into focus. I think her ideas are as timely and urgent as they’ve ever been, and as you’ll see, she brings beauty, relationship, and action together in ways that are powerful but quite simple, even… small?

From the back cover:

Inspired by Octavia Butler’s explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, Emergent Strategy invites us to feel, map, assess and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.

Emergent Strategy has six elements, which I’ll respond to in the Blue Room each of the six Fridays during Lent, bringing brown’s work into conversation with that desperate question I keep hearing, What can we do? Emergent Strategy has some wisdom to help us address that question in a less desperate, more life-giving way.

You don’t need to read the book or have any familiarity with it in order to read along, though the book is powerful, and I recommend it. I’ll also host some conversations here and there via Substack Chat.

(For supporting subscribers, The Art of Onward continues, and I suspect we’ll find some powerful connections between the work there and what’s happening here.)

I also want to watch more movies during Lent, picking up some classics I missed along the way. First will be The Way starring Martin Sheen, inspired by Ed’s reflection on the film and Psalm 32. Any other recommendations?

~

What I’m Up To

Guess what? The book is so close to DONE! I managed to shave 15,000 words off the manuscript, and once I get the 75 footnotes formatted it will be out of my hands. I’ll be celebrating with the good people of Unity Presbyterian Church in Ft. Mill SC this Sunday (Charlotte area), preaching on hope and transfiguration at their two worship services and doing a Q&A during the Sunday School hour.

Speaking of The Art of Onward, we took up the topic of courage this week, and I’ve removed the paywall so all can listen to my conversation with Karen Wesley.

Steady on.