The Struggle Is Real

It's overwhelming.

Everything. It's everything. Everywhere I look, there is evil triumphing. In politics, religion, the economy... all of it. Everything that defines the course of who we are as a people and all of the things that direct the course of our lives.

I'm struck silent by the terror and tragedy that doesn't just occur, but has woven its way into our lives so thoroughly that we've normalized it.

Evil is being normalized.

Every tweet, legislation, bomb, lie that we endure is another step towards the normalization of this tire-fire that is the current era we live in.

Like David Dark says, we become what we normalize.

I'm sorrowful, shaken to my guts, and stripped of hope.

I hesitate to even write this, because what good does it do? What darkness does it beat back? What can my writing do in the face of oppression, domination, and violence on a scale I don't ever remember seeing so starkly, done without remorse?

I (try) to write against the powers and principalities of this world system, this evil empire, and shit keeps getting worse, worse, worse.

A person can only cry out in the streets for so long before I begin questioning if any of it matters, if the sound even reaches the ears of my neighbors, my family, my community.

It's just too much to handle.

Hope is far from me.

Despair is catching at my heels.

I struggle to see the point, wonder if the effort is worth the fight.

Capitalism is crushing me paycheck by paycheck.

Patriarchy continues to rule in tyrannical ways.

White supremacy has crawled out of the shadows and now struts the streets in broad daylight, proud of what it is.

If I sound bleak, it's because I am. I hurt internally; depression threatens to take me under the waves; panic sets in with the force of a raging fire.

I have to acknowledge what is going on in me and out there in the world. As bad as it is, honestly facing it is the only way to survive the onslaught. We can't go around it. Can't go over or under. Gotta go through it.

Even if it kills us.

However...

As scorched earth as everything seems, there is still fight left in me. It might be more spite than hope these days, but still, I struggle on.

Still, we struggle on.

The struggle matters. The struggle means that empire hasn't won, hasn't stolen all hope, hasn't changed us so completely that we abandon the ways of love.

But it hurts to hope. To feel my way to the points of life and light means navigating the thornbushes of grief and sorrow. We can't get around the pain around us, the pain in us. We are a wounded people, and triage hurts. But it keeps us from bleeding out.

Sometimes all we can do to struggle against the death grip of empire is heal.

Maybe there are enough voices calling out evil. Maybe there are enough watchmen on the walls, predicting when the next upheaval with come. Maybe—I pray it's so—there are enough journalists telling the bold truth in our news cycles.

Perhaps my voice isn't about naming empire. Could it be that what I can do, the way I can struggle against the raging dumpster fire that the world is caught up in right now, is to use a prophetic imagination to help people believe they can heal, even as the struggle continues?

I've always wanted to be a firebrand, someone with a voice like John the Baptizer, naming serpents and calling rulers to account for their sins. I've wanted a voice that echoes across the canyons and makes a difference on a large scale, because the large scale is so obviously ready to fall.

But when all we do is name evil as evil, we normalize it as the enemy, and our enemy needs a face. So we demonize people, writing them off as lost cause and convincing ourselves that these people are the real enemies.

Captives in a system that demands they play by its rules to survive need freedom just as much as anyone else.

People aren't our enemies. They are our neighbors, made in the image of the divine, in need of liberation and freedom, no matter how entrenched in the system of violence and oppression they are.

They need healing.

To speak plainly:

Christian nationalists need salvation, triage, and transformation.

War mongers need to face the fear inside themselves and heal from the trauma violence has caused in their lives and bodies.

Liars need to know safety to speak honestly without shame.

Those grasping at power and dominance need love modeled to them through story, song, and speech so they can come to know security.

Maybe I'm not a fiery prophetic voice in the public sphere.

Could it be that I'm a bit softer then, touching wounds gently, gathering the hurting tenderly in my heart, lovingly whispering hope?

The world needs healers and peacemakers right now. The world needs artists and poets. The world needs people who can see that there is another way, another world, a rebirth and resurrection that we can all go through.

Curiosity and creativity can lead us into places where we can find transformation, heal from shame and trauma, and build security.

Lately, I've been questioning the point of the chaplaincy program I'm in with the Orderof Hildegard. It has just seemed frivolous to me, spending all this time developing skills I'm not even sure how I'll use. But, if I am being asked by the Spirit to be part of the triage, healing, and rebuilding of people hurt by empire, if I am called to be a holder of hope, If I am being urged to remain soft and tender for the sake of my neighbor, then I need things like chaplaincy. I need things like poetry. I need things like literature and art and beauty and nature preservation, and good food, and everything that brings nourishment and joy to the body, mind, and soul.

My struggle isn't against flesh and blood. My struggle is with myself, to remain curious, imaginative, creative, and open. My struggle is to remember hope so that I can whisper it to those around me, help them believe that what we see isn't the end all, help us heal from shame, trauma, navigating through lament and grief.

Yes, the struggle is real... but perhaps it's not the struggle I felt swallowing me whole. Maybe it's the struggle of gestation, the struggle of birth, the struggle of life. Maybe this is the struggle of love, the struggle to love, to be like Jesus, unsullied by the world's systems of dominance and violence—as much as I can be anyway.

Whether it is a calling or a choice or a bit of both, this is a time for healers. There has been so much damage done to my neighbors, so much hurt and fear and shame that permeates us all just by having to navigate these systems of power. But that isn't the end of the story. Death never is. Dandelions still bloom and seed, and bumblebees still fly. There are still songs to sing, poems to write, and healing work to do.

Life is happening, and it means everything.

It's overwhelming.

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