This week, I wondered what it would have been like for Jesus to be at the Republican National Convention. I wonder, if he had the opportunity, if he’d ask the Christians there, “When it all comes crumbling down, the Christianity you’ve built by stacking the stones of your faith with the stones of the empire, what will happen then?”

Perhaps like the bamboo stick of James Bridle, we need the natural world as a sort of measuring stick of movement, of birth, life, death and resurrection. When we pay attention, we may notice how seemingly stationary things are constantly expanding on their growing edge towards more favorable conditions.

To remember, to reacquaint ourselves with the profound wisdom of our lives epiphanies may be all we need to be in the presence, at every moment, of a world filled with light.

A 38-year-old learns a life lesson while playing basketball after a decade.

Throughout his life, Jesus spoke of this “other way” by referencing the Kingdom of God, which operates outside, and oftentimes against, the norms of the world. Jesus’ own life and ministry depended on his accessing this other wisdom, this other vision, and we read in the accounts of his life, the way in which this got him into trouble with authorities who depended on the populous to be good and loyal citizens to the Roman Empire, and its goals and culture. There is a purposefully contradictory tone to most of what Jesus says and does, and the following he created became so in tune with this other way that for a long time, they were simply known as “followers of the way.”

Transformation around our understanding of how change works will happen when we stop feeling bitter about it, and instead seeing the liberation available to each of us the more closets we fall into.

Throughout my 13 years in Quakerism, I’ve been to countless business meetings. They can be long, and emotionally draining. The work is slow and requires one to be patient. Hardly a month goes by where a business meeting doesn’t have some kind of “drama.”

Because, the gift of the artist is that an invisible reality is brought forth into the visible and returned again to enrich the invisible in us. So it is with the work we each do of listening to Spirit each time we gather. We bring that which is invisible into the light in our vocal ministry, in our singing, in our business, and it touches the invisible in us, and inevitably that which is invisible in another speaks to something that has felt invisible in us, and we feel less alone, and more in the presence of something overwhelmingly Divine in nature.

…we see the reactions to troubling the waters of white supremacy, heteronormativity, the gender binary, or capitalism…how quickly the systems and people who support them react, often using the full weight and power available to them, whether that be with police forces, armies, or lining pockets of politicians to ensure that things settle down, and return to normal. I have begun to notice when systems of oppression react this way, what is it telling us about who we are?

“If we have any hope to more closely approach unity with the Divine, we must seek to be transformed by that measure of the Light that is only available to us through someone else.”

It feels like all of our communities are asking the question, "Why are things so frustrating right now?" Why aren't we bouncing back from the pandemic? For this message, Mark explores the idea of liminality, of the space between one thing comign to an end, and a new thing emerging. Are we, as the human collective, in a liminal place? If so, how might this help us make sense of why everything seems so frustrating right now?

May we find in our tradition that permission to be a Holy Pain in the butt to Empires. May we pursue the leadings of God, even when they may require us to bear witness to the hypocrisy of powerful Christians who’ve given away their allegiance to idols of the American empire.

A few weeks ago I wrote (on Facebook) about the unnerving realities of Artificial Intelligence entering into the mainstream. I am not so sure we are ready for it. In that piece I wrote, “In the near future it seems entirely possible and quite easy to type in a search bar, "A sermon about the feeding of the 5,000 for a Quaker audience, inspiring yet challenging, 12 minutes in length" and in the blink of an eye have a ready made sermon ready to be delivered just minutes before I walk to the podium.”

Maybe it wouldn’t feel so scary or disorienting if we accepted that each of us may go through this seasonal transformations.

Perhaps the idea of “not-existing” is not about making our impulses feel shameful, but to make ourselves no longer usable to systems that benefit from the manipulation of our desires.

On Tuesday night, when I giggled with my son on his bedroom floor, I accepted Jesus’ invitation to let the 11 year old boy, who missed the opportunity to have his dad read to him on his bedroom floor, to come out. In this moment, I knew, without needing to check whether or not I was good enough, that I belonged in the kingdom of Love. I belonged in this sacred place, forget the kingdom language all together, I belonged in this sacred place, of safety, of comfort, of playfulness.

Perhaps all the permission we need is to remember that Jesus didn’t call us to worship him, but to follow him. And sometimes the first thing we need to do is recognize the resurrected Jesus, the resurrected Church, who now looks different walking next to us. Worship can sometimes feel like a static action, but following is unmistakably active.

An apocalypse isn’t something to always celebrate, even if it is an effective teacher. That is because the truth has either been festering under an intentional covering or has been purposefully hidden by something. More than likely, someone is suffering because of this veil, and those of us who have been hidden from it can benefit from its continued concealment. Yes, apocalypse leads to liberation, but often liberation that is far too delayed.

Speaking Truth to power, or speaking our personal truths, will almost always be met with internal and external resistance. We will need communities like ours to be nurseries for our hearts and minds. Places to tend to the Truth within us, and a place to train and sustain our efforts toward Truth-telling. Places to celebrate what the soft animals of our bodies love.