Years ago David Dower taught me to look at the abundance in a situation. I had trained myself to rattle off the sheaf of reasons that I couldn’t be a great theatremaker and never to highlight the unimaginably large foundation that allowed me to be the good theatremaker I already was. It was a lovely gift. It prepared me to be less defensive in a cultural moment where my demographic hegemony might just have a few holes poked in it. Greater awareness of my abundance gave me a foundation to be able to bear witness rather than to feel the need to shout. It also sharpened my awareness of actual scarcity and need. There is real hurt in human society, almost all of it self-inflicted. We hurt each other and ourselves, feel trapped in that pain, lash out and spur the cycle on. We react to hurt out of our brokenness
My extended cardiac pause at the end of last year was cause for reflection, which I think most folks would find pretty common. That period of reflection combined with a political environment running so hard against what I believe to be my and my broader community’s best interests left me reeling a bit. Is this political moment a call to more explicit political action? How can I improve the community in a more direct way? And how do I define that community in this new place?
Kim Davis’ great mistake is that she hasn’t read the owner’s manual on her faith yet. She read the poster. She saw the trailer.
I am a non-believing (formerly-believing) son of genuine believers. I spend a lot of time in this strident cultural moment understanding the Christian impulse being expressed while no longer condoning (or working towards) the cultural hegemony that that cohort is so hungry for.
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