The Linchpin of a Chariot: Caring for One Another

There’s a story passed around about Karl Barth. I don’t know if it is a true story, but it’s the kind of story that tells the truth, whether it happened or not. The setup is simple: the community is asking pressing questions of the theologian. One concerned and earnest woman asks, “Is it true that we’ll see our loved ones again in heaven?” It feels clear that this question was about the existence and nature of the afterlife. So - “Is it true that we’ll see our loved ones again in heaven?” And the doctor replies, “Not only the loved ones.” 

"Out of Hand": Tyre Nichols, Police Brutality, and Nonviolence

Even as we begin Black History Month in 2023, the powers-that-be insist on adding new entries into our long history of violence and inequality. Fresh in many of our hearts is the brutal murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police in early January. There has been some initial accountability, as five police officers have been fired and charged, and three EMTs were fired for failing “to conduct an adequate patient assessment.” But that accountability cannot erase the tragedy of Tyre’s death, or the continued brutal assault on marginalized, especially Black, communities by those with power and authority. 

Black History Month, the College Board, and Accountability

        The continued attacks on studying Black History have ramped up, even as we begin a month dedicated to celebrating that very history. If you haven't heard - in late January, Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida’s Department of Education rejected the Advanced Placement course on African American studies. DeSantis called the move the “pursuit of truth,” accusing the AP course as being “the imposition of ideology or the advancement of a political agenda.” Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. went further, calling it "woke indoctrination masquerading as education."

Gun Violence, Trauma, and Wholeness

        While I was working at Peace Bridges in Cambodia, my friend and colleague Mony once explained how terrifying it was to live through the civil war. One description particularly stuck in my heart: it was cheaper to buy bullets than rice. 

I spent a very busy weekend last week welcoming the Lunar New Year with my Buddhist community. It was a great joy. We chanted and meditated, packed emergency meal kits for a local shelter, drank tea, shared delicious meals, sang karaoke, gave and received new year dollars and oranges and red envelopes, bowed in gratitude, took group photos, cleaned up after ourselves (more than once!), and generally celebrated the joy of sharing life together. I felt at home and safe. And yet, in the back of my mind, I was aware of the grieving communities in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, California. Then, on Monday, two high school students were shot and killed at a charter school in Des Moines, Iowa in an apparent feud between rival gangs. Three days, three shootings, three settings: community dance center, workplace, and school. As Stephen Collinson observed on Tuesday, “Everyday life is a soft target. Anywhere can become the venue for the next preventable tragedy.”

Claiming Space, Disrupting Structures: Communities of Resistance & Social Determinants of Health

        The tragedy was set in motion in August, 2020, but, like probably many of you, I didn’t learn the story until last week. That was when the family of Larry Eugene Price, Jr. filed a civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit after he died in solitary confinement in 2021 in an Arkansas jail. The 2020 arrest wasn’t the first time Larry had encountered the police. After all, he was a Black man with multiple mental health issues who was often homeless. As Newsweek reported, “Price’s hometown police knew him well,” “mostly for criminal mischief, squatting in buildings, disorderly conduct and for wellbeing checks when he, for example, would hurt himself.” But when Larry wandered into the Fort Smith police station on August 19, 2020, and pointed his finger like a gun, “threatening and cursing,” police “arrested him on a state felony – terroristic threatening in the first degree.” 

“Thinly Veiled Attempts” – Thinking about CRT and MLK

        On January 10, newly inaugurated Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed seven executive orders. One of these banned teaching critical race theory in Arkansas schools, continuing a trend we’ve consistently seen over the last two years. EducationWeek has documented that:

“42 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Eighteen states have imposed these bans and restrictions either through legislation or other avenues.”

“Give Up All the Other Worlds” (Learning to Hope)

        How you feel about hope likely depends on your own experiences and circumstances. It’s been portrayed as both salvation and delusion, and many things in between. An important criticism is that passive hope may give us the excuse to just stand idly by, waiting for others to do something. Meanwhile, we can get lost in an imaginary future, postponing our personal and collective wellbeing to some other time. We can even use hope as an excuse to avoid confronting difficulties, from places in ourselves that need healing to unhealthy situations that need to be addressed. This “pie in the sky” kind of hope can too easily just become a practice of accommodating injustice and oppression. As Joe Hill observed, it also makes you an easy mark for religious hucksters looking to get your money and your labor.