Spiritual Formation in the Face of Fascism
This was delivered as a guest message to Redmond United Methodist Church on July 28, 2024.
Many of us who have spent significant time in progressive Christian spaces know the scripture today quite well. We’ve heard it many times before:
He has shown you, oh human one, what is good. And what does God require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
But the last few weeks have been anything but familiar.
The last few weeks have in many ways brought to center the question offered in this scripture: what does the Divine require of us? In the midst of this moment, what is the invitation for each of us as individuals, and all of us as a collective, in our movement toward healing and living with the full dignity of that which has been given to us?
When the scripture asks and then answers that question the way it does, what does that mean for us, really, right now?
In the last three weeks, there has been an assassination attempt on a former president and current nominee, another to-be nominee chose to-be no more, one of our political parties hosted a massive celebration that, while supposedly “toning it down” and “focusing on unity” highlighted signs with the phrase “Mass Deportations Now” and hosted what felt like were open-mic nights with open and proud white supremacists.
Meanwhile, our other political party wondered quite openly what to do with themselves while a fog of uncertainty and no small bit of despair washed over many of us worried about the state of our democracy, and a new to-be nominee was endorsed and rallied around, just to face an immediate onslaught of racist and sexist attacks, likely forecasting what the next few months are going to be like here in the United States, and likely longer than that.
Did you feel a tightening in your chest or a hitch in your breath reading that? Or a spike in anxiety or stress or irritability over the past few weeks?
“Things have been happening” is a massive understatement.
And on a personal level, just to put all my cards on the table: in those same three weeks, I sank into one of those spaces of deep questioning and emotional turbulence where it becomes hard to do much of anything at all. Watching the news everyday, checking at least once-an-hour between work meetings and beginning a new school program, writing and sending out my weekly email, which has in this context felt like a Herculean task, herded my two kiddos through their days, purchased a Roomba that, turns out, scares our dogs, entered into my busiest season at work, and tried to prioritize us-time with my partner, who herself is in the midst of a job change and beginning school again at the same time.
And so when I come to the scripture this morning, in the midst of all of this, there is exhaustion, deep grief, and fear in me.
I am terrified as fascism becomes more and more mainstream: a white Christian fascist nationalism predicated and rooted in racism and misogyny. I am afraid for my kiddos and their growing up; I am afraid of thinking for years looking elsewhere through history, “If I were in that situation, I would have done something” but here we are and am I doing something? And alongside that fear, I feel an invitation percolating within me – perhaps you feel it as well – toward real, collective, and everyday application: for finding the things that are mine to do within the context of everyday life and the communities around me with so much resilience and power and, also, fear.
In the aftermath of the January 6th insurrection, Resmaa Menakem, wrote that he would hear folks, especially white folks, describing any future or more widespread revolts as “unimaginable.” You’ve probably heard variations of this, too: “It can’t happen here – this is America.” “This was a blip on the radar and, as long as we elect the right person, and prosecute the folks involved, there will be no more issues.”
And what he realized is what they actually meant was “My body hasn’t been conditioned to handle the energy of this moment: of an attempted coup or the potential for widespread mob violence.”
“My brain can’t imagine fascism here in America, normalized street violence, continued attacks on democracy and potentially the shifting of our government as we know it – because my body hasn’t been tempered to handle the energy of that, even as an idea.”
And so when the idea comes up, there are the attempts to bypass it, push it away, deflect it as possible…and therefore – and this is key – we don’t need to prepare as if it might be.
Notice what’s happening in your body right now – notice any shifts, any tightening, constricting, the intake of breath, the desire to shake it off. Perhaps you’re experiencing some of my favorite Christian moves: the internal thoughts of “this is too political for church,” and “what does this have to do with God or Jesus?”.
One of my greatest fears is that here we are and that none of us are ready.
That too few of us have the embodied capacity built, the spiritual formation to hold the energy of this moment, to stay connected to a visceral experience of the Divine, to our collective imagination and resilience, and to not be shocked into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn in the face of that which we would much rather say is impossible.
What are we prepared and preparing to do to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with a Divine presence that doesn’t shrink from the messiness of our lives and the life of this world but enters into it alongside us with a depth of intention and soft-eyes-yet-eyes-wide-open attention and focus?
In a moment such as this, what does it mean for us to take seriously this task, and intentionally move through our defensiveness, our discomforts, our comforts, our “that can’t happen heres,” our hesitations to engage the world honestly, and our desire to safely observe from the distance and the background? How do we name our discomfort, what is going on in our body, and hold that energy, while choosing to take our next imperfect step, nonetheless?
How do we fiercely, if not fearlessly, opt for action in the face of the abhorrent?
My belief is that spiritual formation means nothing if it does not bring our lives into this moment with active movement.
That spiritual formation is an active pursuit, an active process, an active and ongoing dedication we get to make over and over again that says I am a commitment to justice – to mercy – to humility, and so what does that mean for me in this moment? And in this moment? And in this moment? The moment-by-moment choices we make are our spiritual formation.
And they will be the only way we become resilient enough, skillful enough, prepared enough, practiced enough, to meet the threat of fascism and white christian nationalism here in America.
This is a task for all of us.
This is spiritual formation that is necessary now.
Resmaa Menakem, who wrote this amazing book The Quaking of America – one of the most important books to read in this moment – shares that we build our capacity to hold this energy and keep moving by putting in reps. That’s his language for actively engaging those moment-by-moment choices.
He says as tension increases in our country, which is to say our family gatherings, our workplaces, our churches – putting in the reps is what builds our capacity to hold the energetic charge of the moment and stay in it.
We might say these practices build our capacity for honest and fierce acts of justice and mercy. Practices that forge us and form us in the midst of the mess and the crisis. Helping us to make the embodied shifts, small and big, so that we can as adrienne maree brown says “feel the tingling, prickling aliveness of futures becoming possible.”
So what does this mean? When I say reps or building capacity, what are we really talking about here?
There’s three types of reps — these are the things we can do to begin to process, metabolize the energy of this moment into real and active and engaged movement.
3 Types of Reps as Spiritual Formation
The first are Living Reps.
These are the ones we’re most familiar with. Your co-worker misgenders someone and you have a choice: do you lean in and say something or do you ignore it ever happened. That’s a chance to do a rep.
Your friend comments that all parties are the same so voting doesn’t matter. That’s a chance to do a rep.
Someone on church council comments on crime going up and ties it to immigration and you have a choice to lean in and say something, ask a question, engage, or sweep it under the rug for the good of “not rocking the boat.” That’s a chance to do a rep.
Resmaa writes:
“Life regularly – and often unexpectedly – presents us with challenges. These are usually unwanted, and they will almost always make us uncomfortable…Life reps force themselves upon us – and force us to grow (or choose to refuse to grow).”
When faced with the potential of a Life Rep, which most of us are everyday, we build capacity by noticing our discomfort and staying in it to the point that we can safely, or we maintain the status quo by moving right along.
For those who, like me, struggle to engage in these often quick moments, here’s a question you can always ask: what do you mean by that? Asking that question is a rep: choosing to hold the tension, hold the energy, to stay in it.
The second kind of rep is Invited.
These are the reps we actively go and find. Resmaa writes they “help us get used to pushing beyond our limitations and leaning into discomfort, rather than reflexively recoiling away.”
Here’s an example from my life:
Last week, my partner and I had an honest conversation around the question: what are we prepared to do when violence escalates in our area? This was an invited rep for us – uncomfortable, uncertain, and scary. We talked about our willingness to show up to protests with pepperspray milk for folks who need it, who we could leave the kids with for safety, we talked about getting gun safety training – which is a huge discomfort for me – we talked about things we weren’t willing to do, and we talked openly about the discomfort of even having that conversation.
Invited reps might include practicing the lines you can say when you’re entering conflict-ridden spaces — like “what do you mean by that? — and invited reps could be choosing to get involved in your local activist network or group; or choosing to connect existing programs to politically active networks who can provide folks with political education, voter registration support, citizenship exam support, activist training; it could be joining the local mutual aid network in your local area. Or you could engage in invited reps that are very familiar to what we think of when we think of formation: intentional journaling, visualizations, meditation, body scans.
The third kind Primal.
Primail reps are the reps we engage to help us become more aware of and process the energy in our bodies. They’re primal — core to us and our bodies.
Swaying, humming, self-touch, stretching, crying. Those of you who have been in my workshops know I’m a big fan of the phrase “seeing with soft eyes” – that’s a primal rep practice of softening our face muscles.
In the midst of crisis, these primal reps – done individually and collectively – help us move the weight of the world we’re holding and metabolize it through our systems. This is why our body cries when we become overcome with anxiety. This is why running is such a great stress-reducer. This is why Christian and other religious and secular ceremonies and protest movements all involve singing, dancing, lament, swaying, humming, chanting, and so on.
All three of these types of reps – living, invited, and primal – are formative for us.
They help build our capacity to stay connected and connective in the midst of great upset. That’s spiritual formation – practices that help us stay attuned in an embodied way to what it means to be deeply human within something much larger than ourselves.
When the scripture says what does the Divine require of you? When our current reality brings us into moments of active choice, face-to-face with fascism and a white Christian nationalist movement that says some are good, some are bad, some have choice, some have none, some are human, and some are less than, when we are faced with a real and embodied question of what does it mean to act justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, it’s going to take reps.
Because it’s going to be uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable. When those signs saying “Mass Deportations Now” are waved so proudly, it needs to be uncomfortable.
But we can’t let that discomfort be displaced or be bypassed – it needs to be named and metabolized and turned into action and movement.
When I asked that question of what are we prepared and preparing to do, it’s a question predicated on our capacity for being present to what is real: to what is happening outside of us and happening within us. To doing the reps, to processing the discomfort and keeping our gaze on the beauty of what is possible. To becoming embodied commitments to justice and healing and presence in our everyday lives. In our everyday conversations. In the little moments with family members and the big moments of showing up in protest spaces where we might feel that discomfort so acutely and we just feel out of place.
This is spiritual formation in the moment we are in.
We must choose to do the reps. And it’s going to look different for each of us. But this is the task for all of us.
