To Rise, to Bow and to Touch the Ground – An Embodied Practice to Survive the Next Four years
To the skies I rise
To the earth I bow
To the ground I touch
In God I rest
This election was like a volcano of emotions taking over my body, my mind and my heart. I have had nightmares all these nights. Last night I dreamt with Elon Musk! This is how utterly poisoned my mind is….
During this week I have read everything about this election and the future government, perhaps way more than I should. And I feel I have so much to say and yet, I do not know enough of anything that is going on. Have you ever felt that way?
And before I continue, I need to make few things clear: I am speaking as a father of three kids who need to live in the next 60-80 years at least and their children for more 100-200 years. My kids need to have the earth to survive. And all of the kids in the world need the earth too!
I must say that I am speaking as an immigrant. I am speaking as a former pastor of an undocumented community in Massachusetts. The undocumented community is the community I feel the closest to my belonging in this land. I need to say that my allegiances in life are not to this or any country, any patriotic symbol, be it a flag, an anthem or a certain way of being. Instead, my allegiances lie with those who can barely make it, with those who are struggling to put food on their table, those who area forgotten, those who are sleeping in tents, cars and streets. I feel I need to think about those who are in prison.
My highest commitments are with the rivers, with the trees, the forests, the possums, the squirrels, the jaguars, the elephants, the bees, the fireflies, the lighting bugs, the ladybugs, the hummingbirds, the birds of all kinds. My worries lie with the plants, the seeds, the flowers, the pollinators, the fungi, the mycelium, the vegetation and the soil. My heart is with the oceans, the coral reefs, the octopuses, the sealions, the dolphins, the whales, the sharks.
My heart hurts when I think about the poor who are dying everywhere and all of the species who are disappearing, the landscapes that are vanishing and a beautiful world that is being extracted for a very few people and then turned into expendable things that will go to the trash.
Fundamentally, I believe I am speaking with and from a gospel of full liberation. I follow Jesus Christ, a peasant who was born as a refugee, was part of the lower class of his time and was killed as a political prisoner by the politicians of his time.
These are the places I am speaking from my friends. I hope you won’t leave. I hope we can continue this conversation through these days.
I don’t know about you but it has been a battle for me to go back to a place of self-assurance, trust, courage, fierce hope and the most difficult thing of all: joy.
There is one good news only: Trump’s victory was not by a landslide of votes. The difference between Trump and Kamala is only 2%. And one third of the population didn’t vote. It is not true that 50% of this country is with Trump. We must remember that.
But we have heard all of the disastrous news about Trump’s election. Let me mention a few:
Racism – a deep seated fear of white people over minorities. In about 10 yeas or so this country won’t have a white majority anymore. That is causing white supremacy to be scared.
Immigration – The targeting of immigrants as criminals, as pests, as diseased people, as rapists are shadowing the very reason of all of the problems the white political class created. Stephen Miller, Trump’s new deputy chief of staff for policy is the architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. He wants to reengineer the demographics of the United States. He wants not only mass deportation, strangling the asylum system and destroying the immigration policies in place.
His new policies are not about animosity towards people who break the law or undocumented immigrants only. That’s a façade. HIs policies wants to target one hundred percent of legal immigrants, naturalized citizens and US children of undocumented people. His goal is a homogenous white country.
But there is Patriarchy holding this whole country in its hands, impeding us to see women in their full force. So much of kamala’s suspicion came from males and females caught in patriarchy.
Class – the richest people are hijacking what should be common and using only for them. The few rich people becoming richer are making the middle class disappear in the United States.
Poverty – 140 million people are poor and low-income, which is 40% of the US population. 60% live paycheck to paycheck. They are U$ 400-600 away from total personal ruin! They live without affordable health care, decent homes or quality education.
Economic Development – We are doomed! All of the biggest polluters are now free to do whatever they want with the land. The earth will suffer immensely. Animals, species, rivers, soil, mountains, everyone will suffer deeply.
Or we could say in other words: there is a war raging against minorities, a war against the women, a war against the new generations, a war against the middle class people, a war against the poor, a war against the immigrants, a war against the earth. A war against the 99% of the entire global species!
The more we see where this country is heading, the more we realize what is the core of what this country fully is and we cannot hide that. This is who we are. I think it is not far from the truth to say that many people are now starting to feel like the people whose lives were endangered in the entire history of this country and up to this very day. People who were constantly attacked and killed and yet, they are still here.
I remember the story of Plenty Coups, perhaps the most important chief of the Crow Nation. Right before he died he told this story to a white man called Frank Lenderman in Montana in 1885. It goes like this:
Plenty Coups refused to speak of his life after the passing of the buffalo, so that his story seems to have been broken off, leaving many years unaccounted for. “I have not told you half of what happened when I was young,” he said, when urged to go on. “I can think back and tell you much more of war and horse stealing. But when the buffalo went away the hearts of my people feel to the ground, and they could not lift it up again. After this nothing happened. There was little singing anywhere. Besides, “He added sorrowfully, “you know that part of my life as well as I do. You saw what happened to us when the buffalo went away.”
The lives of the Crow people were so connected with the buffalos. But with the white people killing the buffalos, the stories of the Crows were broken off. That was the end of his people as they knew it for centuries. When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people feel to the ground, and they could not lift it up again. After this nothing happened. There was little singing anywhere. Besides, “He added sorrowfully, “you know that part of my life as well as I do. You saw what happened to us when the buffalo went away.”
Plenty Coups had a dream when he was young. In his dream, he saw the white people taking over the lands of his people in Montana. He saw them coming. And he realized he had to change if his people were to continue to live. His need to change had to do with a strategy of survival, to the point that he embraced the white people notion of education so his people wouldn’t be completely erased from the earth.
Plenty Coups once said this: “Education is your greatest weapon. With education you are the white man’s equal, without education you are his victim and so shall remain all of your lives. Study, learn, help one another always. Remember there is only poverty and misery in idleness and dreams – but in work there is self-respect and independence.”
One could say that he gave in to the white ideology and sold his soul and his people to the white settlers. Another way to see that is to realize that his changes were a way surviving inside of the belly of the beast. What incredible change he must have undergone to come to that statement. For the life of his people was based on a certain form of idleness and grounded in dreams. Now he is reproaching all of that and saying: let us go with the ways of the white people.
Plenty Coups encouraged his people to go to school even though they had ancestral knowledge.
Plenty Coups encouraged his people, known as warriors, to engage in “peaceful pursuits”.
Plenty Coups encouraged his people to transition to reservation life even though they had lived in those lands forever.
In that way he was helping the Crow Nation to survive. Plenty Coups encouraged his people to continue practicing their traditional ways, knowing that these practices would keep their hearts alive.
However, it is also said that Plenty Coups was not always loyal to white people, he was critical of them and he also went on to attack some white settlers who had stolen the horses from his people.
How brutal colonialism has been and still is! And in spite of this massive attack, Plenty Coups’ believed that the spirit that had carried his people throughout their lives would continue to carry them through the white massacre. They would be able to survive in the worst circumstances. And the Crow nation survived! They are here amidst us all. They are still going, very much alive. About 11 thousand people are still alive.
Remember when Plenty Coups sad that during this time the hearts of his people had fallen to the ground and there was very little singing? If we look now, the crow nation continues to sing. Crow singer Desja Eagle Tail is one of my favorite singers, a very accomplished singer with music awards.
Since last week I feel that the hearts of so many people felt to the ground. And there has been little singing. There is little joy. There is little beauty. And there is little spirit to breathe. Thinking and feeling about it all, as soon as we heard about the results of the election, many of us at Union Seminary went to the quad to sing and play and dance. We sang for 12 hours nonstop. Singing will hold our spirits alive!
What can Plenty Coups teach us today? What we can learn with Plenty Coups about moving with and against the system to stay alive, to protect what we must, to foster what is possible, to sustain what is needed, to hold on to what is life giving.
Each one of us must figure out a way to survive, living in a shifting grounds with plenty uncertainties and piled up difficulties of many sorts. This figuring out must be done in community and not alone. If we stay alone we will die!
So for these four years, and beyond, I want to suggest is an embodied response, a spiritual gesture for you to take with you as you live your life where you are, while you do your ministry the way you can. I hope that this gesture will help make your hearts sing again, learn to breathe the breath of life every day and keep an undercurrent joy that nothing will take away.
The gesture I want to propose has three parts, namely:
To Rise, To Bow and to Touch the Ground
And there is a song that goes with it: SING THE SONG
To the skies I rise
To the earth I bow
To the ground I touch
In God I rest
We will do this gesture together at the end. Bear with me.
For this gesture, we would usually start with rising. But I want us to start with the Crow and Plenty Coups, when they hearts fell to the ground. So with our hearts on the ground we will start by touching the ground. What does that mean?
First to literally go to the ground.
Perhaps we can start by sitting on the ground, or laying on the ground, or kneeling, or prostrating. Again, we will actually do this whole gesture later. For now, we need just to imagine sitting down with our hearts on the ground and weep for ourselves, for this nation and for the whole earth. Everything will be disturbed from our social life to the life of the earth. As you see yourselves losing your bearings, touch the ground and remember this:
We belong to the earth. God has made us out of mud. Our God is made of mud. We came from mud and to mud we shall return. The earth will hold us!
Remember where you truly belong: the earth! Sit with your pain and give it to God. Let your anxieties and fears go to the ground. When you are depressed, touch the ground. When you are hopeless, touch the ground. When you lose somebody or something touch the ground.
And when you go to the ground, remember you need to rest, you need to slow down, you need to sleep. Pay attention to your body’s voice. Don’t go running all the time! Rest! Our capitalist society runs on the squeezing and overwhelming of our bodies. We are always pressed to work more, to show efficiency, results, goals, outcomes. At my school all they want are goals, outcomes! But we are not made of goals and outcomes alone. We are also made of wonder, of pause, sleep, rest and dreams. As you are touching the ground, rest, sleep and pay attention to your dreams. We are all made of dreams. What are your dreams telling you about how to survive?
One day writer Toni Morrison was asked: “How do you survive whole in a world where we’re all victims of something?” Toni Morrison paused and said:
“Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt, is not about that solution, it is about being as fearless as one can and behaving as beautifully as one can under completely impossible circumstances. It is that elegance that makes it more complex, more demanding. Evil is silly, it may be horrible but at the same time it is not a compelling idea. It is predictable, it needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs blood, fingernails. It needs all that custom in order to get anybody’s attention. But the opposite, which is survival, is about blossoming, enduring, those things are more compelling, it is more spiritual, a more fascinating job. We are already born and we are going to die. We have to do something interesting that you respect in between.”
Yes, that is what we will do! We will sit on the ground every time we need, pick up our hearts and engage in the grandeur of many attempts to live fully, being as fearless as one can and behaving as beautifully as one can under completely impossible circumstances.
Second gesture: To Bow SING THE SONG
To the skies I rise
To the earth I bow
To the ground I touch
In God I rest
After we grounded ourselves we must stand! And standing, we will look around slowly, closely, paying attention to everyone around us: people, trees, rocks, plants, birds, squirrels, flowers, waters, and every species. And we will bow to them. Claudio BOWS.
For what will change our perceptions and our ways of living is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life! The Holy Spirit will be a peaceful guide, a comforting balm, a wise counsellor, a healing presence. But more than that the Spirit will that wind that disturbs our frail beliefs, that will disrupt our practices, that will call on us for higher forms of living. During this time, nothing better than have our beliefs shattered, our assurances broken and our certainties disappear. Then we will start to fully lean on God as that holy presence that will unveil our deepest desires. We will be free from conventions, theological, ecclesiological or otherwise and will discover that there is a deeper life waiting for us. We will discover that our lives are not in institutions but in communities of struggle.
Psalm 138: 2 says:
I bow down in front of your holy temple
and praise your Name
because of your love and faithfulness,
As we look around, the spirit will shows us that the God’s hoy temple is everything and everything praises God’s name. There is joy in the natural world and everywhere a landscape is alive, there is noise and plenty of singing! So we bow to the entire earth as God’s holy Temple
As we look around, the spirit will shows us that the presence of God lives in every leaf we see, in every tree we wonder, every bird flying, every worm moving, every movement of the rivers, every seed flourishing, every spider knitting its webs.
The Holy Spirit will bring about a new Pentecost where we start to hear the voices and the sounds of every bird, every ocean, every fox, every capybara, every slow moving of the sloths. A new cacophony of sounds from the animal, plant and water worlds will make us rejoice without ceasing! When we hear a bird singing, it will be God’s song sang to us!
That is why we bow. In gratitude, in awe, if wonder! In thanksgiving!
Finally, we will understand that our emancipation can only happen when we connect deeply with everything around us! And we will be able to sing with Bob Marley: All I ever had: redemption songs!
As we bow we also remember those who came before us and prepared the ways for us to be here: Our human ancestors, our rock ancestors, our plant ancestors, our animal ancestors. They have made a way for us to be here today! We will bow in deep gratitude honoring them.
The Holy Spirit will be our vital force, coming from the ground we stand, around us and above us. That vital force will keep us alive!
And now we can rise. RISE STRETCHING MY HANDS TO THE SKIES
SING THE SONG
To the skies I rise
To the earth I bow
To the ground I touch
In God I rest
To Rise
This system we are living in is exceptional to make us fall. And there are very few assurances in life and one of them is that no matter what, we will fall. But that fall will be fundamental to teach us to fall better. And also to learn how to rise! The better we fall the better we rise!
Psalm 121 says:
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from God,
who made heaven and earth.
When we lift up our eyes we are able to rise, to elevate ourselves above the circumstances and become winners even when we are defeated. We learn to rise with our precious black people and their notion of elevation, a concept that shows up in the nineteenth century. It was the work of Black women to uplift black folk, making the church more responsible for “racial promotion,” and training young women for parenting and leadership roles in church and community.
That is the work of a collective rising up! We could say that the story of the black people is a full-fledged history of elevation, a constant creation of many forms of mutual uplifting!
I learned this elevation with my mother.
For a long while my brother was unemployed. More than two years. After a while he didn’t have what he needed to pay his bills and survive. He and his family had a comfortable middle-class lifestyle but with unemployment things started to change: his daughters had to leave private schools, he lost his car, health insurance, and had no money to buy clothes. The church and friends helped with food. He didn’t even have money for public transportation and walked so much that he lost a lot of weight. He tried to find jobs and did a few temporary services here and there but life was really, really difficult. One day after 18 months or not having a job, he walked 20 miles to visit my mother. When he arrived and entered a long corridor into my mother’s house, she came to welcome him. But Jose was so exhausted that he walked slowly with his head down. My mom, a very powerful Christian woman shouted at him: RAISE YOUR HEAD SON! But he couldn’t. So, she continued: SON, RAISE YOUR HEAD! RAISE YOUR HEAD RIGHT NOW!
As they met in the middle of the corridor, mom held Jose’s head up and got him to look up to the sky. Then she recited Psalm 121:
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
“Now say it with me” she said: “I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Yet he still couldn’t. He was crying and without any strength to continue. Mom who is a petite woman, held Jose’s head up again and repeated it with a louder voice: “Say it with me: “I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” But all Jose could do was to cry as she persisted. “I won’t let you go until you repeat it with me. Say it:
“I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” And she repeated this passage several times until José had cried all that he needed to cry, and was finally able to lift his head and mumble some of the words of the Psalm. Then my mother took him home and fed him. They were quiet the rest of the afternoon. My mom told him to trust God would give him a job at some point. Few months later he got a job and his life began to find a way.
My brother fell hard but he didn’t collapse. Why? because there was a church, friends, and my mother to hold him. A whole assembly of people to keep his life from disappearing. Every month during the Lords supper they would tell each other: Lift up your hearts! And they would respond: We lift our hearts to God!
To find ways of elevating each other is to find our true beliefs, our deepest utterances, the bodily gestures of elevation, the sounds of our fears, the cries of our hearts. It is a shout for life when death is too close.
We are called to rise each other! Ana, rise! John, rise! Diane, rise!
Conclusion
By touching the ground, bowing and rising, we will be able to respond:
With Beauty – We will create beauty in the midst of chaos
With Joy – We will not let joy go away from us!
With Singing – we will keep singing, no matter what
With Community – We will not live by ourselves.
Sing One love One heart Let’s get together and be all right.
Let us hold this prayer throughout these 4 years: The peace of the wild things by Wendell Berry
And to end let us all do this pledge together
In response to shock I pledge to calm myself down
In response to fear, I pledge to find courage
In response to brokenness, I pledge to gather my pieces together with the help of those who love me
In response to apathy I pledge to make beautiful things
In response to depression, I will listen to the birds, I will plant a garden, I will sit by a tree
In response to sadness, I pledge to rejoice
In response to the absurd, I pledge to continue to sing and sing louder
In response to despair, I pledge to call on the name of God
In response to loneliness, I pledge to draw near a community of struggle
SING THE SONG
To the skies I rise
To the earth I bow
To the ground I touch
In God I rest