To be scary and dangerous enough to confront

From D.W.: A "Hate America Rally?" Really? Is that the best you can do? I can't say for sure whether or not Rachel would have been at the No Kings rally in Houston this weekend. But I can say that she would have full-throated-ly supported it. She saw this current moment coming from a mile away. Even when I tried to reassure her that the foundations of our democracy were resilient enough to withstand whatever rising tide may have been pooling at our doorstep, that it may be uncomfortable for a while, but never pose imminent, existential threats, she knew better than me. And here we are. She recognized hate for what it was, but, in the midst of it, always led with love.

Here's a couple of posts to illustrate the points. All written about different events that feed the current narrative. The first is about a confrontation between Border Patrol and a caravan of asylum seekers. The second was about the Republican National Convention. The third... just take it for what it is.

Facebook. November 25th. 2018

My tax dollars paid to teargas children today. I am utterly disgusted and demoralized. Explain to me how teargassing children is ok under any circumstances. Explain to me how this makes us safer or justified. Explain to me how this is ok, how people are just fine with this. Please explain this to me. 

Facebook. August 27th. 2020

If you ever wondered what it would have been like to watch a really bad remake of the Nuremberg Rallies (which were terrible and never should have happened in the first place), wonder no more. I watched it on CSPAN. All four nights were disgusting and not based in reality or fact. Tonight was a truly vacuous display of inelegant propaganda that couldn’t even pull off clumsy deception in the midst of a three ring circus of lies on lies on lies wrapped in flags on flags on flags and platitudes and garbage copy and...fix it, Jesus. Whoever wrote those speeches needs a young priest and an old priest and a kiddie pool full of holy water WITH A QUICKNESS.  

I just cannot. Cannot. How in the ever loving deuce is this even real? How is this still happening? Every. Damn. Day. Will this dumpster fire ever be hot or high enough to make a difference, to be scary and dangerous enough to confront and deal with ‘til it’s done? Or are we just waiting ‘til more black people get shot in the street and brown babies and mamas get put in separate cages and criminalized for trying to reach safety and more people die from a disease that is brand new and mysterious and particularly hard on people living lives that are already plenty hard enough on a regular day? 

I don’t know what enough will look like. I know that for many other empires, the ‘enough’ moments brought them to their knees and left them in the dust of time. I do not have any inclination to believe that this empire will fall with any more grace than any other. I suspect when the fall finally comes, it will be swift and messy, and the pieces will be hot and jagged and painful to all but the tenderest touch for longer than any of us would like.  

I hope on hope that hearts are being softened and eyes are seeing new colors and angles. I hope on hope that we can be joyfully uncomfortable in waging truth and peace together. It is going to take a long time to make things better.  

I am so tired of seeing babies and old people and marriages and communities offered up to Moloch masquerading as the stock market. I’m so tired of the denials and the doubling down. Of the obfuscation. Or the outright lies and pungent meanness. The ugly words and refusal to be decent, the insistence that there are ever reasonable circumstances for treating any person as less than human, as less entitled to be alive and free and about their business—I am sick of it.  

Having any other skin color besides Indoorsy Cracker should not determine how you are treated by anyone ever, including and especially by the police. My God. How is that even a thing we argue and split hairs over?  

I’m not interested in the powers of principalities. But I am deeply invested in the power of Love and how that empowers the people. All of us. None of us are free if one of us is in chains.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about militancy — my own and that of others. I’ve been sending prayers of thanksgiving for every person who has radicalized me. I’ve been talking to Jesus about Babylon and gardens a lot. And I’ve been pondering the deep wisdom of the women (the nasty and the immaculate) who have come before us. I feel them close beside me, urging me with the Auntie voices, telling me that the way to whoop ass for Jesus is with a tough skin and a soft heart, just like Muhammad Ali and Sophie Scholl. I’m praying they are singing in your heart, too.  

Love,  

Rachie 

Facebook. March 17th. 2020

Get some sleep, my loves.  

You’ve done just fine today. We’ll have plenty to do tomorrow.  

I am so proud of you.  

May love meet you where you are, right this minute. May it lift your heart and deepen your breath. May love come alongside you and make whatever you can bring be enough. May the God who armed our brother Patrick with a mighty breastplate of faith keep you in love tonight and tomorrow and whatever comes after that.  

I love your guts.  

—rachie