My root is long Far longer than what you see I am strong Cut me and I’ll grow back Scatter me And I will multiply Can’t you see? I am the resistance You’ll never be rid of me
The Becoming
When I can’t change the government I change myself When the news is bad I create good news for someone When “they” profit off our fear Our disconnection I connect I turn “them” off I go to the library To the woods To places that don’t charge me to exist I invite a friend for tea I don’t worry about the state of my house as much I refuse the prison of perfection And choose the possible The imperfect The progress The journey The becoming
Has it Never Occured to You
I find bits of a dismembered rabbit Outside the uptight iron fence Promising safety from nature For these people with their frozen swimming pool Living in their tiny boxes People stacked on people Leaving for work Coming home Numbed by blue screens Into fitful sleeps Jolted awake To do it all again Buying into the lie That life is currency to be spent For what? For continued existence? Why don’t we all rise up At the concept that this one life Is only lived at the behest Of those who profit off our years Hiding behind the bars of the iron fence Will not save you from being the rabbit Has it never occurred to you You’re scared of the wrong thing
Snow Day
Just for a day The world is grey and white Snow blankets turning sound down Soft squeaking under my feet Soft feathery flakes on my shoulders Just for a day I curl under my blanket on the couch Drinking tea to warm back up Mystery novel in hand Snow in Tennessee means Everything stops Just for a day Maybe two And I need it all to stop Really for longer But I’ll take this day These fictionalized problems Over a world that rang the new year out with floods And the new year in with fire Devastation for the devastators Except Those responsible for the devastation And those devastated Are as always separated by Money Race Gender Sexuality Neurodivergence Those who bomb and who bombs fall on Those who shoot and who are shot Separated by the same Those arrested And those who are found guilty yet walk Rich white men commit felonies Lady Justice shrugs School children in Tennessee say the wrong thing Text the wrong thing Arrested Stripsearched Confined to solitary For being thirtee…
“I wish I could still believe in God, but I can’t be a Christian anymore because of ______” Fill-in-the-blank with racism, misogyny, homophobia, toxic capitalism, and so on. I’ve had this conversation with different people almost word-for-word over and over. White American Christianity has so defined God that many people cannot separate God from the toxic theology they were taught.
But this isn’t the God I see in the Bible. The Bible shows us a God meeting people where they are and nudging them towards justice and total thriving for all: shalom. The Bible details arcs of justice and societal reform. If we understand how radical those arcs were in the context of the day, we can extend them forward into the future and figure out how to work for justice, total thriving, and societal reformation in our day.
I grew up in that first world view. Come along, and I’ll tell you the story of how I escaped, and I’ll show you a theology that I believe paints a more accurate picture: a faith for the common good where everyone thrives and no one is left out.
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Anna Elisabeth Howard writes highly caffeinated takes on shalom as a lens for everything from her front porch in Hendersonville, TN where she lives with her husband and two sons. She is a community organizer and movement chaplain with a background in youth and family ministry and is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary. An avid hiker and backpacker, many thoughts start somewhere in the middle of the woods, or under a waterfall. She is a regular contributer to Earth & Altar and her latest book is Inward Apocalypse: Uncovering a Faith for the Common Good.
Buy Inward Apocalypse: Amazon | Independent Booksellers
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