Well, it’s been a week! Sitting in suspense for election week instead of election day felt like a year or so, lol. And then good news, we get a second chance. As I wrote on my facebook profile on Sunday:

Four years ago...

Four years ago we woke up (if we’d slept at all), grieving, angry, and some of us were disoriented. We came together in greater numbers than we had in a long time. Built coalitions across movements. And started to understand that none of us are free until all of us are free.

Some of us joined in the movement for the first time thinking it was mainly about getting Trump out of office. But it was never only about that. While problematic, Trump is not the deeper problem. He points to fundamental injustices codified at the very beginning of our nation and upheld over time by members of both parties to different degrees.

She’s made grand promises, this country of ours, of liberty and justice for all while standing on the stolen land and graves of an indigenous genocide, building grand buildings and a booming economy on the back of stolen people and a second genocide.

We’ve never made good on those promises, and we never will until we work on making those first two great evils right.

All the work we do going forward—for there is so much to be done—must be even more intentionally intersectional. And we must take seriously reparations and rematriation.

It’s time to believe in abundance. To believe that my neighbor having enough to thrive doesn’t mean there’s less for me. And it’s time to realize the planet isn’t just a resource we need to manage better—she’s our mother, and we owe her the respect she deserves.

This win isn’t a final victory. We snatched the country back from authoritarianism, but just barely. This win means we’ve been given another chance to do this all better. And if we don’t take it seriously, it may not come again.

So let us seize this second chance with renewed energy to ensure a better future for our neighbors and their children. Because if the world is a better place for those currently oppressed, it will be a better place for all of us.

And I don’t have much to add to this right now because in a not-so-fun turn of events, I was so distracted by all of this, I failed to notice I was feeling crappy (because honestly, with chronic illness, I just sort of try to ignore it a lot anyway), until this Wednesday night I realized I had a fever and that it was probably connected to the increased discomfort in one of my teeth. Now again, this tooth has been a problem from the beginning. It came in without the proper enamel so it’s been patched up, sealed, and finally crowned a number of times. It always gets sensative if my sinuses are irritated so basically seasonally with spring and fall allergies. I thought it was particually bad this fall, but until the fever didn’t think anything of it.

I believe the tooth is infected or abcessed, but the super fun twist is that with a fever, I can’t go to the dentist without a negative covid test. So I got to go do THAT yesterday. Couldn’t find a rapid result in my area so I’m waiting 3-7 days! Sigh. Well, my dentist has called in antibiotics and I hear that may be necessary to get the swelling down before she can work on it anyway, so fingers crossed and if you’re a praying person, I’d appreciate prayers on this. I don’t love feeling crappy and knowing there’s this infection sitting in my face. I’m glad my dentist is being careful though. It’s just this complicating nature of this pandemic, and it stinks, friends, it stinks.

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In a time of great upheaval, we often hear the sentiment of longing for things to “go back to normal.” But if we look around at our world, “normal” was never really good enough for most people. Injustice, oppression, scarcity mentalities, and hatred abound in our world. Our current political and societal realities leave our heads spinning and our bodies exhausted. We want a place to belong: for us, our families, and our neighbors both near and far. We are longing for justice and equity we have never known. The restoration we crave lies not behind us, but before us. Come with me on a four-week Advent journey (Nov 29, Dec 6, Dec 13, & Dec 20) where we will look through Scripture and our current realities, and together imagine a place where we all belong.

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Movement Chaplaincy

Two weeks ago I started the Movement Chaplaincy Class from Faith Matters Network via the School of Global Citizenry. I highly recommend it for the next round for any of you who are interested in learning more about spiritual accompaniment in movement spaces.

What I’m Reading this Week

• Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

• Schitt’s Creek. Because it’s awesome and I have an infection in my face! And no, it’s not technically reading, but did I mention? Face? Infection? yeah…