Election Season, Wk 3 (Kinship and Belonging)

“And who is my neighbor?” Led by the work of Kaitlin Curtice, Hayley discusses how an indigenous vision of kinship can help us navigate the 2024 election season. (Art: Alanah Jewell)

SPEAKER NOTES

Election season wk 3: Kinship and Belonging

Introduction

We are continuing in our series of messages around navigating the 2024 election season. This can be a charged and demanding time, so Vince and I have wanted to offer some hopefully helpful words as we get closer to the election.
As we get going I just wanted to remind us of the goals of these messages that we set out at the beginning:
- practical: We hope you feel encouraged to vote! To participate! From the presidential election down to local politics- To know that your voice and vote matters, you have agency to shape an unfolding future.
- pastoral: In this demanding time with divisive headlines and endless doomscrolling, we hope that you’ll find comfort in this community and in being here. The encouragement is always to slow down and know you are not alone
- teaching goal: that we all would gain the language and tools to communicate a mature vision of democracy that is Christian…and doesn’t have to look like Christian nationalism or authoritarianism. There is a mature, healthy vision rooted in Christianity- there’s a different picture out there! And we’ll continue to talk thru that what that looks like
And today I wanted to spend some time casting a vision for how we navigate belonging in a time that feels increasingly disconnected.
In the midst of overwhelm, even in the changing seasons and darkening days, it can be tempting to isolate ourselves.
But today we are going to look at why maintaining a culture of belonging is essential for our wellbeing - individually, communally, politically.

Kinship intro

I recently read the book Living Resistance by Kaitlin Curtice (this is the book for our book club on Nov 2! So if anything today sparks your interest and you want to unpack more, let me know!)
I was encouraged and challenged by and found such beauty in Kaitlin’s vision for belonging and wholeness. And she centers her work on a word that fully captures this reciprocal, necessary belonging: Kinship - I’ll put her definition up for us to give us a better understanding of what Kinship means:

”Kinship can feel like a very abstract thing, but imagine it like this: I have a string attached to my body, to my heart center, and it goes directly from my heart to yours, and to every other living creature on this planet, to Mother Earth herself. Whatever I do with this heart, with this body, affects you; it travels across that thread and finds its way to you…we do not get to escape each other.”

Living Resistance talks through an indigenous vision of Kinship and how it can transform us and inform the way we live our lives.
And her use of the word vision is intentional — I totally felt called out by this one, in a good way.
In the book, She talks about how it would be tempting to lay out a “framework” instead. And y’all, I love a good framework, a list, a three point outline maybe with some alliteration, set parameters to work with.
But a vision is more fluid- it’s living and can shift and change just as a course of treatment may change as new symptoms come to light. A vision is expansive and rooted in dreaming.
At one point in the book Kaitlin lays out a helpful exercise for dreaming and I’d like to use that to guide our time today.
She asks 3 seemingly simple questions: think of three dreams you have- for yourself, for us, for Mother Earth. Write or draw them.
This vision casting, the dreaming of what could be is what I’d love for us to feel grounded in as we navigate the current realities we are faced with- in our personal lives and on a greater political scale
As Curtice says, casting vision grounds us here and ushers us forward
And so we’ll use these three, intersecting areas of dreaming for the rest of our time:
- what do you dream for yourself? For us? For Mother Earth?

Luke 10: Who is my neighbor?

I also want to ground our time in a piece of scripture I think is helpful in unpacking this idea of kinship, of belonging. This story comes from the book of Luke, one of the gospels that tells the story of Jesus’ life, teachings, death and resurrection. We’ll put it on the screen:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

And who is my neighbor? Let’s keep this question in mind as we walk through a vision of Kinship together.

What do you dream for yourself?

For some of us, the love yourself part of “love your neighbor as yourself” may actually be more complicated than the loving neighbor piece
STORY: I can remember a book I had growing up that was supposed to give a little exercise for prayer using the five fingers of your hand.
- You held your hands closed to you, classic praying position, and starting with the thumb, you prayed for different categories of people in your life.
- I can’t remember the specifics but something along the line of praying for family, and friends, teachers, leaders and then all the way at the end, when you got to the pinky, you could pray for yourself
If you grew up in a religious tradition or particular family dynamics or gendered expectations that gave you the messaging “put yourself last”.
- That modeled shame instead of self-compassion, the work of dreaming for yourself and loving yourself can feel really difficult!
Living Resistance begins with care for the self — healing in the personal realm — not as an optional piece but as an essential beginning for Kinship.
The phrase Curtice sets at the start of the book and returns to throughout is “I am a human being. I am always arriving.”
There are so many threats to feeling settled in who we are and it’s helpful to keep in mind that we are always arriving
- We’re a work in progress, not because we are failing but because we are human
- And so is everyone else around us
Self-love, self-compassion is not selfish
- It is a calling to be present to ourselves, just as we are present to the world around us
- You can pay attention to all of the pain and division around you but if you are not paying attention to the pain and disconnection within you, you won’t have what you need to be sustained in the long run
And this work of self-discovery, of healing in the personal realm, is done in partnership with God
Because the most true thing about you is that you are loved. You are loved by a God who accompanies you throughout life.
- Not a love you have to earn, but a love that flows within you.
- A love that radiates out from you.
- The essential basis of Kinship
And this love involves curiosity— we love ourselves in our present form and we look to the ways we can grow and heal and change. This requires work, it is not stagnant or passive.
When we model radical self-love, honesty, and a willingness to repair when damage is done, we create more space for others to be human.
- Shame can be contagious — shame leading to more shame
- But healing can be contagious as well — healing brings about more healing

What do you dream for us?

What do you dream for community? For a divided nation and world? For a fractured church? For a cultural climate that is often trapped by constantly “othering”
We can go back to that question that the expert of the law asks Jesus in Luke 10: And who is my neighbor?
- You may be familiar with the story that Jesus tells in response to his question, The Good Samaritan
- In it, Jesus tells a story of a man who is robbed and injured and left to die on the side of the road
- People pass him by instead of stopping to help
- And the one who does stop to help is the Good Samaritan
- We can gloss over that phrase but the key to this teaching, of answering the question “And who is my neighbor?” Is that Samaritans were seen as enemies of Israel. They were seen as corrupted and traitors
  - And so for the expert in the law to hear that the Samaritan was the source of help? The one who had compassion for the injured man? The enemy was good? That would be shocking!
- I think sometimes, whether we are aware of it or not, it’s easier to view the one hurting on the side of the road as neighbor in need of help and to assume the worst of the ones we have deemed enemy or corrupt.
- That question: “And who is my neighbor?” Is a test
  - It’s an example of what Vince referred to as a “purity test” a few weeks ago. A litmus test of belief. What are the parameters here?
  - The elite trying to get a read on Jesus - what kind of teacher are you? What kind of person are you?
- And I think it’s important that Jesus takes a limiting question meant to differentiate identity — who is included and who is not — and answers it with a story and with action

Excuse v. Explaination

Storytelling slows us down. It humanizes those around us. Much of Curtice’s work in Living Resistance talks about this!
- We can learn to investigate and be curious around the why behind the beliefs and actions of those around us, especially those we view as enemy or other
The expert in the law was asking “Who is my neighbor?” for a reason— there’s a backstory there, there’s an underlying current of beliefs that have been shaped by culture and religious dynamics
And a helpful distinction I’ve heard before is that there’s a difference between an explaination and an excuse
- We ask and having a listening heart (talked about last week) because we know that humans are complex and inevitably shaped by their context and experiences
- The reasons we uncover, the whys, do not excuse unhealthy, divisive, abusive behavior — they are not an excuse
- But they can offer an explanation
We stay curious because we belong to one another— we don’t have to adopt the methods of the very systems and ways of thinking we are critiquing or distancing ourselves from
We can be skeptical, investigate, honor complexities and maintain integrity
- We can understand the why without excusing the behavior
- We may look at those who are spewing hate in the name of Jesus, understand that there is a backstory behind those words AND come to the conclusion that there is no resemblance to the picture of Kinship Jesus calls us to
- Vince’s phrase of: “I see no family resemblance”
As Curtice says, “We do not get to escape each other” — we can set boundaries without resorting to shaming or othering.

Ancestors in the making

Who is my neighbor can be transformed from a limiting purity test to an open-ended question of curiosity- How do I neighbor well? Teach me about my neighbor. It can be an expansive question, one of dreaming about a future we can co-create.
A gift of indigenous beliefs that I think many of us often overlook in our own cultural and religious settings is an emphasis on a connection to ancestors
We can draw from those who have come before us — maybe someone comes to mind for you of an ancestor that has shaped your life, your way of thinking — and we can keep in mind that we are “ancestors in the making”
We are creating “whys” behind our children’s actions and beliefs — biological children or the collective children, the future generations that we have a role in shaping, of setting the stage for
Are we being good ancestors? Are we neighboring well? Are we contributing to the fast-paced, demanding mindset or are we modeling a different way?
- A slowed-down and curious life
- An interruption to cycles of violence and hatred
- An intentional model of self-care and rest
- An emphasis on dreaming and re-imagining a new, more beautiful vision for the future ahead
- An understanding of an all-loving God who is partnering with us as that future unfolds
Curtice writes (can put on screen)

“If we remember that history isn’t just linear but happens in cycles, then we can disrupt a cycle — a cycle of white supremacy, of ableism, of homophobia, of sexism, of colonialism, of body shaming, of hate. Find your spot on that timeline, and ask what can be done to remind those who come after us, and those who came before, that we care about how history unfolds and that we are willing to make our lives about that care.”

Find your spot. What would it look like to make your life about that care?

What do you dream for Mother Earth?

Maybe for some of us, thinking of “Mother Earth” as an entity, a being feels a little challenging
The deep connection and honoring of the land, of all of creation is beautifully modeled in many indigenous practices and teachings and Curtice spends time speaking on this in much of her work.
And I think of it as a invitational calling to see all of creation as divinely infused with the presence of God. There is a prevailing sacredness in eveything around us
Over the course of these messages we have referenced a little book called Democracy Needs Religion by German sociologist Hartmut Rosa
- And Rosa talks about how our primary way of interacting with the world is aggression
- He says that we’re overheating in our own lives (all the mental energy) and we’re overheating the atmosphere and the climate. Both are burning out
Indigenous visions of creation care are such a necessary counter to the aggressive view of land as commodity. A move away from domination/ aggression toward honoring and care
Engaging with nature— having a reciprocal relationship with Mother Earth — steadies us and is an essential part of liberation work.
- We cannot envision a new, more liberating way ahead without honoring our connection to the sacred earth
So much of policy language that involves the climate and natural resources disregards those who have been stewarding the land and honoring it as they go. Those who model maintaining a profound connection to Mother Earth
- Curtice says “Sometimes I think of the climate emergency as Mother Earth screaming that she’s done… a people-centered climate argument isn’t really a climate argument at all”
We must remember that this vision of Kinship — with ourselves, with our neighbor— includes Mother Earth, includes sacred creation, includes the Divine
There’s a story Kaitlin tells in Living Resistance about a prayer she would pray when she was young.
She longed for kinship with the Divine, with Creator God so she would stop and ask “How are you doing with all of this?”
And throughout her life that question has expanded — asking the waters “How are you doing with all of this?”, knowing that Mother Earth has stories to tell and our tether of Kinship matters
Her prayer actually reminds me of a moment I had with my son Oliver about a year ago. Sometimes kids accidentally say something profoundly deep when they’re just being curious - this was one of those times
- We were praying before bed and he paused and asked me “Mama, is God sleeping?”
- And I kind of laughed and said “No God isn’t sleeping. Why?”
- And he responded “Well, do you think God is tired?”
I stayed in the question the rest of the night and I have thought of it often ever since
I do think God is tired - I think God experiences weariness and longing and deep sorrow alongside of us
And God is expansive enough to hold the hopefulness and full trajectory of justice and life while remaining with us in our pain. A God of both tomb and resurrection

Closing

And so maybe the starting point for Kinship in our lives is to stop to ask the question “How are you doing with all of this?”

To ask it of ourselves “How are you doing with all of this?” And to be open and honest about the answer, refraining from judging wherever we may be right now.
To ask of one another “How are you doing with all of this?”
- With an ever-expanding view of neighbor in mind
To ask of creation, of Mother Earth “How are you doing with all of this?”
- Taking the time to evaluate when we have honored the Earth and when we have been disconnected from her sacred nature
To ask of God “How are you doing with all of this?”
- As a reminder of the reciprocal relationship we have with a loving God
  - Not transactional, not rooted in shame
Asking because we long for Kinship.
Asking because we need help beyond what we can offer ourselves.
- When we find our “spot on the timeline” — we need the partnership of a loving God that is influencing us, influencing the world toward healing and flourishing
When we hear the loud voices and prevailing systems are profiting off of division, keeping us disconnected from ourselves and each other and the earth, we need to have a vision of a different way
Fear cannot set the parameters-
- “and who is my neighbor?” needs to transform into “how can I neighbor well?”
We need to listen to the voices that are calling us to remember that we belong to one another

Final image:

I want to leave us with one more story today-
This actually comes from a study that I heard referenced recently on a podcast I was listening to, interview Dr. Jameel Zaki
(talked about last week— the Stanford psychology professor who was talking about the dangers of cynicism and how it’s more helpful to be a hopeful skeptic)
In the interview Zaki brings up this study where a group of sociologist went into 2 villages in southeast Brazil
- The villages were very similar to one another
- Both fishing villages
- And they went to study the nature of social relationships and trust
The biggest difference between the two villages was that one was on the ocean, and one was on a lake
- Ocean fishing requires a lot more people, you’ve got bigger boats and machinery, bigger waves, bigger fish. Your livelihood relies on needing other people. You can’t do it alone
  - And so trust and collaboration, seeing others as a source of help was the main mindset
- But with lake fishing, it was actually encouraged to go out alone. You don’t need others — in fact you don’t want others. And as a result, you view people as your competition rather than a source of collaboration. They’re a threat to your survival
And one of the big conclusions he draws in applying this to our context is that historically, we are in a lake town— zero sum bias, hyper-individualism, people as competition and threat instead of a necessary source of help
So if we hold to this vision of Kinship — of inherently having a reciprocal relationship with one another, with the Earth, with the Divine— we can move from a place of viewing the other as threat and toward an embrace of neighboring well.
- Being good ancestors, mending the fractures we are called to mend, within us and around us
- Modeling abundance instead of being limited by shame and fear
- We can find our spot and model a vision of Kinship in the intentional ways we live our lives

Lovingkindness meditation

Prayer that has a ripple effect — extends beyond ourselves, prayer of reflection and of casting vision

Get comfy

Start by bringing to mind a longing you have for yourself: What do you dream for yourself?
- For joy, for peace, for hope, for comfort, growth, for rest
- Take a moment to pray that longing over yourself
Bring to mind community- the messiest of a whole bunch of humans navigating complex stories but brought together in some way.
- Maybe it’s this community, maybe it’s another community in your life:
- What do you dream for us?
- Take a moment to pray your longing over this community (for joy, peace, hope, comfort, growth, rest
Bring to mind Mother Earth - Creation - Divine Love - Nature (WHatever language feels right to you)
- What do you dream for her?
- Take a moment to pray your longing over Mother Earth (For joy, peace, hope, comfort, growth, rest)

How are you doing with all of this? May our journeys inward and our actions outward fall in line with your love and goodness, God. Would we feel accompanied in all the complexity and nuance. Would we begin to - or continue to- accept a radical self love that is contagious. Would your influence in a tired world bring about more justice, more love, more peace. Keep us from despair and isolation. Guide as we learn how to neighbor well, how to be a good ancestor. And would the hope found in you and those around us sustain us along the way. AMEN

LukeVincent BrackettOctober 22, 2024Election Season 2024Comment