Healing the Wound

“In the Trump years, white supremacy showed up in more overt ways. This can be a good thing. Like my momma says, you cannot heal the wound until you know how deep it is.”—Monica Lewis-Patrick, Executive Director of We The People of Detroit 

When Trump was elected in November 2016, we had just packed up our Toyota Corolla and moved after two years living in Southwest Detroit. Since then, we’ve witnessed a rise in counterfeit forms of news and blasphemous brands of Christianity. We’ve struggled to keep up with the magnitude of lies that millions of white people consumed straight off of Trump’s twitter feed. The Trump years might be in the rearview mirror, but we are driving on an unpaved road around a bend, not knowing what we are going to roll up on next. We fully expect for Trump’s mob to gain steam as cries of “socialism” flood social media. We know that more violence and misinformation will be manifested. We will remain vigilant.

In the wake of the Trump years, we also want to double-down on our own accountability and healing. The goal is that we all get free from what Dr. King called "the giant triplets of evil:" racism, materialism and militarism. In the New Testament, these spiritual forces come up as unclean spirits. We get possessed by these lesser gods because we are constantly breathing them in. They must be cast out, consistently and creatively. We believe this takes intentionality and community. Spiritual practice and a lot of patience and tenderness. We know how easy it is to get bogged down by denial and get distracted with the demands of life. There's a strong temptation to just blame the Trumpers for all our ills. 

As we move forward into an indefinite season of global pandemic, economic recession and mobilized fascism, more and more of us are discerning how we might specifically salt the world with more intimacy, community and justice. We are entertaining new paradigms of healing the wounds created by white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and more. We are experimenting with new ways to stay connected with others who also want to do this work. We are exploring new ways to be in solidarity with oppressed people. In 2021, Kardia Kaiomene remains committed to watering this mustard seed movement of kindreds coming up through the cracks of empire. We offer prayers, long distance check-ins, spiritual direction, writings, community organizing, lectio divina bible studies, discernment sessions, anti-racist teach-ins, retreats and more.

We are especially excited about utilizing Zoom to offer more lectio divina bible studies because we are hearing from so many people yearning to process with other people like them. Lectio divina is a practice that we’ve been facilitating for the past decade. We’ve participated in these reading-and-sharing circles with friends in Orange County, Oregon, Minneapolis, Detroit, Baltimore and at the Benedictine Monastery in Berkeley. We have consistently heard Spirit speak through short, structured sharing around the circle, tapping into a diversity of experiences of hope, struggle, pain and joy. It is a reminder that we should never be surprised to find God wherever people are willing to be vulnerable and open-hearted.

Lectio Divina is a 1500-year-old way of reading and rehearsing small chunks of the bible with the ears of our heart. We support the sharing of common life together through listening and feeling. We huddle around the sacred text for open-hearted sharing, not head knowledge. It is intimate. It is intentional. It is inspiring. It is authentic. In the coming weeks, we will be hosting lectio divina circles on Zoom for anyone who wants to check-in for an hour or so in the midst of a week that probably ranges from isolated to frenzied to overwhelming to lonely. We hope you will consider joining us.