Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Habits

I woke up to a text this morning from a dear friend asking about the role of ambition in the spiritual life. Specifically, they were asking for a kind of cure for spiritual lethargy and fatigue. The first thing that comes to mind for me is this little verse in 2 Timothy about possessing a spirit of power and love and self-discipline. I like how this trifecta weaves wonders. Self-discipline is crucial, but on its own it is mundane, rigid, dry and burdensome. It requires passionate energy like divine power and a kind of crucified love—in order to be sustainable and to bear fruit.

I see self-discipline as momentum: a daily rhythm, a commitment to habits that are vital for my own healing and liberation. Every morning, I read and reflect on a passage of the bible and write an entry in my "feelings journal," an inventory of fear, guilt and resentment from the previous 24 hours. I reflect on the moments when I felt alone, unknown, devalued or disrespected--feelings I am well-acquainted with. I reflect on the times I was stuck on autopilot in counterfeit ways, when I distanced or went into production mode to try to earn a (false) sense of value. Then I reflect on what is true about my world: that I am soaked in inherent belovedness and that I belong to every living Being because I am an extension of a God of steadfast love, social justice and faithfulness to the most vulnerable. Lastly, I reflect on my intentions going forward: to incessantly center myself in this divine crucified love so I can maintain the capacity to stay connected and be present and emotionally available to Lindsay and others.  

I also have commitments to bible study, intercessory prayer, reading works of liberation theology and other prose and poetry from women and people of color, al anon step work, lectio divina, sharing struggles with kindreds, couples check-ins, the examen with Lindsay, sabbath rest days, aerobic and anaerobic exercise, a grains-greens-beans based diet and sleep. A good friend of mine has compelled me to incorporate Wim Hof breathing exercises. I am going to commit to it for the month of June--and then see what happens.

For me, spirituality is about being intimately connected to Spirit soaked in steadfast love, social justice and faithfulness to the most vulnerable. This charged current flows through the land and is the heart of all living things, a sentient energy that seeks to aid us, to foster us, to tend us. In al anon, spirituality is animated as constant contact with our higher Power. A big part of this work, for me, is getting free from white supremacy and patriarchy, lesser gods that haunt psyches and societal structures. These principalities have possessed me (and everyone else) from a very early age. My friend Sarah Nahar calls this inner work "shedding colonial codes of conduct." Rev. Lynice Pinkard describes it as "learning to speak treason fluently." Anything that swims against the tide of empire is treasonous!

Dr. Eddie Glaude writes that the best way to get free from racism is to change our racial habits: the things we do, without thinking, that sustain the value gap (the belief that white people matter more than everyone else). Everyone naturally responds to racial segregation, to different schools, neighborhoods, jobs, wealth and Covid-19 rates habitually, without understanding context, without knowing or assessing the policies and postures that produced the segregation. So the assumption that white people are better/smarter/thriftier runs everything. The value gap is magnified because of the silos that we operate in. 75% of white Americans report that their social networks are entirely white. An anti-racist spirituality, for me, requires intentionally changing life habits so that I will constantly be confronted with the backstory of living in a split screen society. Where I can learn, firsthand, that the segregation of two Americas happens by design. So I can metabolize this and move in a different way. 

I was reminded of this last night when we had dinner with our friend Cait, a public defender in Detroit. She was explaining how gun laws work. In Black-majority Wayne County, folks are waiting for a year to get their concealed weapon permits. In white-majority Macomb, it takes about two weeks. So when Black men in Detroit are getting pulled over for minor traffic infractions by police, their gun is in the trunk and their clip is in the glove box and they are getting felonies for not having permits or appropriate "lock boxes." On top of this, Cait tells us about how police lie on reports all the time. They say that they see the gun on the backseat, but the body cam tells another story. I've read stuff like this in books, but it's transformatively different when I hear it from Cait, a living breathing friend who is moved emotionally by it. 

If we didn't move to Detroit, we would not be scripted by what Cait is bearing witness to every day. We wouldn't be able to see for ourselves how spaces are being gentrified by water shut-offs and housing foreclosures and state subsidies and all sorts of other shenanigans. We wouldn't be seeing Black people every day on the street, in cars, at the grocery store. We wouldn't get to march with Detroit Will Breathe and witness the response of police officers. We wouldn't be praying and partying with people of color. All of this (and more) shapes us spiritually. 

My “ambition” too often counterfeits spirituality with content and head knowledge. It is a classic white male move. Whiteness and patriarchy shit! Lindsay and a few friends model the alternative for me: dropping down into my body and feeling and moving with the rhythm of Spirit. More and more, I am realizing how crucial tears, laughter and dance are to my spiritual life. My ambition is actually my own red-flag warning. I need to learn to lean into permission to just chill the fuck out, to take a day off and to know that this has absolutely zero effect on my inherent belovedness and that I am still an erotic extension of the divine. No matter what. Just because. 

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