(I adopted this post from myself, www.faithhousemanhattan.org)
On the days like today, I doubt. I wonder if I should quit.
All afternoon, I walk aimlessly, stopping to eat, only to walk out of the joint without food. It is not that I don’t have anything to do. There is so much to do, I don’t know even where to start to make a dent on the list. My inner monologues go in circles, “How did I ever get myself into this? The city is crushing me. Resistance of established religiosity is crushing people’s spirits. New supporters will not step up and the current ones will forget about us. How did I get myself into this? The city is crushing me. Resistance of established …” On and on the tape goes.
After standing on the street, staring at nothing for fifteen minutes, I say a prayer and walk into a coffee shop one block further down the road, and resolve to tackle the to-do list. There, I sit aimlessly for another half hour. I drift from self-pity to fear. I start talking to myself, then laughing my pain out loud, then talking to myself again as I walk back down the same block.
At times, I have been propelled forward by the sheer happiness of what this life and this world can be. But on days like this, I feel sad and discouraged. It takes enormous energy to comfort myself.
That’s when I turn to my friends for glimmers of hope. Years ago, my friend from Emergent Village, Damien O’Farrell e-mailed me a picture that his friend had taken in Israel. It’s a picture of a wall that separates Muslims and Jews.
Somewhere in my files, I found the original quote from Arundhati Roy:
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen . . . with our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe . . . . Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
I have noisy days, when the voices in my head chant songs of fear I have picked up along the way from the empires of our religions, nations, and corporations. They have been yelling one thing, but God has been whispering another.
What do you think my friends? Is a new world possible? Has it been possible in your country, in your town, in your family? What do you hear God whispering while the empires are yelling?
Your advice, stories, poems, and prayers have power and influence. Thank you for stopping by and sharing them. If another world is possible, let’s help each other hear her breathing.
