Melt the Ice

Father God, Baba, Padre Dios…

our hearts cry out for your love & justice
to melt the ice seeking to destroy your work.
Comfort to those who mourn,
to all of our hearts in anguish
over so many losses.

Keith Porter, Jr., Renée Good,
Geraldo Lunas Campos, Víctor Manuel Díaz,
Heber Sánchez Domínguez, Parady La,
Luis Beltran Yanez Cruz,
Luis Gustavo Núñez Caceres, Alex Pretti,
Linda Davis, & those precious unnamed
are held in love & power.

Keep Oscar Vasquez Lopez safe.

#MeltTheIce

jruthkelly2 Comments

The Things We Say

…and don’t say.

We’re compelled sometimes by forces beneath the surface and even around us that evoke reactions and responses to different events. Events include the words of others because words are events. They are the movement of energy from within one human into the world. Our words, our facial expressions, our online posts, the way we drive, the threads of communication weave their way around and through us into our world. And sometimes we look back and cringe, and we hit the delete button because we don’t want to be misunderstood. Or because of wounds unhealed, we believe that anything we say in criticism of another is somehow wrong. There are so many reactions we all manage consciously and even more unconsciously.

I know personally there are freezeframe moments of reactions to the genocide taking place in Gaza (and yes, other vital places) that I wish I could put into context, the context of who I am and what motivates different reactions at different times. I have been severely harsh at times. I called Biden and Harris both vipers because they were ignoring, as far as I could tell, the genocide taking place in various places around the world. But do I know everything at play in the job of presidency? I do not. Sometimes there are times when the work of growth within your own heart and mind requires you call someone a viper. It’s that complex. And I sit with what I said then and know I opened something up within myself that needed it. And I know neither of them are vipers. They care.

(And if you want to get on with my main point, scroll to the last paragraph. I understand!)

At the very same time I utter a harsh rebuke, I am striving to see every human being on this planet with the eyes of love and hope. Love of our shared humanity and hope for our growing into truth and love as we weave our way into the stories of life. Yes, that love includes our favorite enemies. I want to always hold to a spark of hope that the worst out there will one day emerge free of the rule of all that would destroy and devour. At the same time, a number of them would likely only receive rebuke from me until I see change because the lives they’re devastating require it of my heart. This is what First Lady Michelle Obama meant when she said, “…we go high.” We hold to the good in all humanity.

We each have unique needs to assert, to support, to pull back and to ignore depending on where we are at any given point on our paths. Some of us may seem not to care about what many are screaming about. As a result, some folks want to declare those who are silent to be in agreement with bullies et. al. But are we going to see our own complexities and not see those of our fellow humans? I know that silence in the vicinity of turmoil or oppression is so very often, if not always, not agreement with bullies or “the enemy,” but confusion, exhaustion, trauma, ignorance and fear. Some folks are deeply into a work of healing and nothing else can take their time or attention. And they long for those who’re being oppressed to be free. But they just cannot give time to anything else. Silence can also be an awareness of one’s limits and a sensitivity to the causes one has committed to. And it can be about sensing the timing of when to speak up.

Given all these complexities, we often must choose a cause to devote our time to for seasons because there is that much need in our world. Some folks have so many things to tend to in their daily lives, they literally must prioritize the causes they feel deeply about so that the very point of life itself is not devoured by advocacy or fear of not supporting all who need support. You can advocate to the point of depriving yourself of your own humanity and losing sight of the needs of yourself and your loved ones to great detriment. But you will look very good to everyone else. What are you fighting for when you leave no time to love those around you? And with thoughtful strategy and intention, we can all pitch in where there is need. When more of us are in agreement about different causes, the burden is lessened. So, why not move with assurance that your needs are legitimate?

We also advocate by choosing to focus exclusively on our own lives and learning how to walk our talk and be there for those in our lives. Any time we honor our own value, we are honoring all value.

I believe we can and will all one day know that, just as this earth holds venomous creatures, she also holds butterflies and birds singing to the heavens in the same vicinity of what lies beneath. And as it is with the earth, so it is with the human. The hope we possess rests in a longing to see our lives ruled by a love and awareness of these polarities while we traverse a path up the middle, reaching sometimes into extremes as we weave the truth of all our value in love. We really don’t want the worst of our swamp creatures to decide what we do or say, do we?

So, the words we say empower or devour, inform or obscure, or, or, or…the possibilities are endless. What we desperately need is a world of people growing ever more aware that we have more than enough love to hold each other in faith that we will ultimately grow beyond any presumed failure of truth or justice or love. In other words, hopefully we can give people room to be who they are in love. And we do that by acknowledging that damning any one person for a thing s/he said (and yes, even what s/he did) way back when, serves none of us. It’s the pattern of the life itself and that life is still speaking, and we’ll know their truth by what they create in this world. Who knows, maybe if we hold the seemingly worst of us in love and faith for change while holding them accountable, our world will transform and truly new days will bloom beyond what seemed to be impossible wreckage.

The Minnesotans who sang from the streets, lifting their voices to ICE agents, telling them it’s okay to change, to see where you’re in the wrong, are an example of the truth that there is enough love to redeem us all and save our world from the forces seeking to destroy our humanity and to devour the work of love. The most extreme of us are literally in need of compassion along with accountability and you will find their wounds are what lead them. They don’t realize it, but their actions are weeping a call for healing and release from fear. But we can, by being sensitive to why we’re saying what we’re saying when we’re saying it, hear that call within ourselves and in the lives around us.

To many things there is a season, and knowing when and how to speak is a work in progress for everyone who gives a damn about life and love. I hope we can all cover each other in grace and love at every possible turn.

On with it…

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Prayer #4 (in the aftermath of rape)

Let me not do more than slam, hammer, pound
and send all the contents smashing against the ground,
the wall, glasses, books, whatever in the vicinity of this holy rage.

Let me not grind my teeth endlessly or linger too long
in the fantasy of obliterating the one who trampled innocence.

Call the gatekeepers, please.

Call the standard bearers, too.

Rouse the warriors against the wave of scurrying human cowardice
that reaches rapidly to blank out, redact accountability
and stroke, stroke, stroke the enablers.

Let me not be so done with children posing adulthood
so fury-blind that I alienate them every last one
in the fallout of the brutalization of one actual child.

Open our eyes to the beasts we pursue in the hopes to subdue,
subsume and subjugate, feeding our own inner monsters
while we weep under the light of the moon
wondering why our children have been devoured.

Stop the generational wreckage smash and crash
rolling through the fast lane in the here and now.
For once, end the long game, the one where the children pay
and pay, and pay for the violations of the fathers.

Keep us all sane, keep us all open to being better people
so the ones who’ve paid a price not their own,
can know safety in our presence.
Make our lives, our days, our minds, our hearts
and our actions a refuge from delusion and insanity.

Waken the dead, the walking dead
who thrive more in pretending love
than the doing of care, of forethought, of protection.

Wash over the blistering wounds made,
the whispering haunt and the innocence fade.
Conjure from the cracks a tree more resilient,
refusing that perpetual derision as it rolls downhill,
mocking how precious the sighs and pulse
of our children, our heritage, our hope.

Conjure creation’s cure, a resounding war cry,
calling from the heart of mother and father divine a raging justice,
insisting growth, smashing lies and building newness in the after.

photo by j. ruth kelly, all rights reserved

 

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Prayer #3 (for protesters)

Each step taken, every chant and cry,
every movement for justice,
every insistence on equal rights,
every standard and arm raised for safety,
for the end to brutality and racism at the hands of…

police, government, the system,

each one land home, right to the heart
of what brings true change, what sets aright
the system set in motion against humanity itself.

Revolutionize hope, radicalize grace.

Every effort met with heaven’s support,
earth’s nurturance and the flesh and blood strength
of all who embody truth and justice.

Each one held safely by love.

jruthkelly2 Comments

The Unborn

“’The unborn’ are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn… You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”
Dave Barnhart

jruthkelly5 Comments

I Believe Her

One of the reasons Republicans can go ahead with Kavanaugh’s confirmation while a good many of them find Dr. Ford’s allegations credible is that they place such a low value on the sanctity of a woman’s right to her own body, her own space, her own time, her own mind. And, yet, at the same time, they place a premium on her ability to smooth ruffled feathers, look “pleasing”, be “pleasing”, and basically push all the buttons that mommy presumably failed to do so many years ago, or did so well they’ve never realized the world isn’t mommy.
We are, at once, compelled to nurse and coddle our men while simultaneously empowering them to be all they can be, as if the fact that they require our perpetual hand-holding isn’t enough to challenge the very idea that they are empowered, much less that it might present the credible question of whether or not the whole paradigm needs to be tossed.
This speaks to why a man can speak up after 40 years of silence and declare a priest his abuser and not be ridiculed. He is not a responsible party in that paradigm of the feminine burden; he is, instead, the one who receives the benefit of the doubt and the one whose sexuality – especially if it fits the hegemonic mold – precludes him from any doubt, for surely, as a man, to admit he was overpowered and violated (since his role, his duty is to be perpetually empowered and in control) is the greatest violation of the paradigm. Why would any man admit to something happening to him, something especially that challenges the myth of masculine domination and strength?
Women, on the other hand, are responsible for perpetuating the myth, for being the ones who, by their less than, second-class, weaker status affirm the superiority of the male. We are meant to be inspiring and inspired, independent and yet not to the point of challenging male superiority, accommodating, brilliant, child-bearing, gorgeous and never-failing in the face of unyielding criticism even when we are called out for abandoning the great paradigm or for merely stepping a toe out of those maddening realms – we must first be sure we held our faces just right. If we cannot make everyone around us at least comfortable, then we must not either try too hard to make folks happy in too obvious a way otherwise, we may make folks ill at ease. We must grin and bear it when the product of our efforts to fall in line do not always go according to plan. The great white God is truly, intentionally a motherfucker from where I’m sitting, for he is a creation of patriarchy.
I was told by my father when on the cusp of my 20’s that “anything that happens between you and a guy is your fault.” Anything. The great burden. You wore those clothes. You looked him in the eye. You didn’t look him in the eye. You smiled. You didn’t smile. You had an attitude. You spoke your mind. You rocked the boat. You left the house, the car, the building.
I believed him for many years. I believed him until I birthed a daughter. Then it all fell apart.
Besides the feminine burden of upholding it and a host of other common human frailties, the myth of male domination rests on the brute power of the male form and the ability of a man to hold a woman down, to take the time to put his hand over her mouth, or tower over her with his fists balled, or to quote scripture at her about her wifely duties or to yell and bluster in the face of accountability before a judiciary committee. Ad Infinitum.
The GOP and many who claim Christ as their great Saviour (as did my father at the time he declared me wholly responsible for all the actions of a male towards me) rely on the work of the Cross as one that requires nothing more than that you accept it. And from there? Well, much like the t and c club, you’re a member. You can do anything except challenge the paradigm. If you’re a woman, forget it. You can’t do anything. There are only certain things and only in certain ways especially if you have had a child. This slice of “Christianity” doesn’t actually possess a moral compass apart from the paradigm that upholds the myth. You must not challenge the paradigm. That is their great “morality” and they believe in it fully.
I watched Dr. Ford yesterday and was simultaneously grieved, devastated and beyond thrilled that someone would embody such power and courage in the face of that myth. And that Anita Hill did this very thing years ago enduring the violation and ridicule, that we are still right here enrages me.
We are not going to progress by pulling back and we aren’t going to be free of the paradigm if we don’t upend it fully.
I’m so very proud of Dr. Ford and of everyone who has rallied for investigations and, at the same time, I salute those men who stand with women outside the myth, who know their true power rests, not in domination, but in welcoming the dance.

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