One of the first major books I'm reading for my Directed Reading course is a book by Luke Bretherton called 'Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy.' It's basically an overview of political theology, which is the stream that the rest of my readings and writings will fall within.

Anyways, I came across this interesting idea while reading this morning; Bretherton makes a distinction between politics and war, suggesting that war and violence signals the end of politics and the start of something else.

"The bullet and the ballot box are mutually exclusive routes to solving shared problems."

He gets there because his view of politics is based in relational power with others rather than power over others. It is an understanding of power that requires a commitment to listening and negotiating rather than coercing and dominating.

It also requires a commitment to non-violence, something that is largely lacking in our society these days.

Been a wild past few weeks so I haven't really put down any thoughts on here.

• Throughout the holidays my sister was diagnosed with colon cancer and then had surgery to have that removed. She's doing well and the surgery went great so we're all thankful.

• As a result of that, my own health anxieties have been elevated and I've had to have a few tests done to ensure I'm clear.

• I'm in the process of putting some of the essays I've written in the past onto this site. It's a bit time consuming as I have to convert them and make a few edits. Yesterday I put one up that I wrote last year that I quite enjoyed.

• I'm doing a reading course right now that should inspire more writing on here so hopefully that kicks this habit back into gear.

I haven't really used this for personal updates like this in the past but I thought maybe I'd jot a few down for context.

Really enjoyed this interview with author Haruki Murakami. When asked, if he believes that humanity has any chance of righting itself, Murakami responded,

“I want to believe so. Since it’s also the reason that stories exist.”

Love that. Humans tell stories to inspire hope. A hope that calls us to be better than we have been because it truly believes that we are capable of change. Stories that call us to work together, to sacrifice, to overcome; even when the evidence isn’t always there. A mentor of mine once told me that it is the job of each generation to dig through the rubbish heaps of history and pull out forgotten or abandoned stories and reclaim them for themselves. It seems that stories that can inspire that sort of hope are what we need most of today.

A coworker shared this article in which the author describes the social media version of motherhood:

Where life-style accounts feature memes about maternal exhaustion and infographics detailing various reasons a woman raising a child might crumble under her several thousand daily tasks. (“Hey mama ❤️ I see you out there with the weight of the world on your shoulders,” an average caption might begin, gesturing toward support while suggesting that an impossible individual burden is simply what motherhood means.)”

(Emphasis mine)

There's a lot more to the article, it's worth reading in full.

Something I’ve noticed over the last two years (gestures in global pandemic) is how guilty so many people feel all the time. Guilt that they’re not doing enough, guilt that they’re stretched too thin to perform well, guilt that they missed that deadline, guilt that they’re ruining their kids by giving them extra screen-time, guilt that they’re getting a booster shot when other countries haven’t even had access to first doses, guilt that they saw their extended family over the holidays even when public health advised them not to, etc…

Non. Stop. Guilt.

To them I say, you should stop.

You should stop because guilt is an unproductive feeling that an already broken system wants you to feel in order to avoid structural repair. As long as you feel guilty, the system never has to change. Its brokenness becomes your burden to carry.

Overworked employees, underfunded healthcare or education settings, unpaid and undervalued childcare, our most vulnerable populations abandoned by the system and the burden of their care falling on already burned out PCWs. These are the people (most often women) the system unloads its burden on.

Unhealthy, abusive systems thrive on guilt.

Guilt is the domain of governments who strip essential services bare in the name of fiscal responsibility. It’s the way of employers who cut costs by rewarding overwork rather than hiring more people to carry the load. It’s the weekly reminder from a church that tells you’re not giving enough, doing enough, or trying enough. It’s plastic straws as opposed to dealing with fossil fuels.

These broken systems want you to feel guilty because it keeps you looking at yourself.

If you’re looking for a more productive feeling, my suggestion is anger. Anger - directed at the broken system, on behalf of those who have been exploited and oppressed by it - is how we change things.

The system, and those who benefit from it, fears your anger because it gets you pointing fingers. And I know that many of us were raised in settings that taught us not to point fingers in blame. But have you ever noticed how often that is used to avoid critique? Also how those same settings had no problem with you blaming yourself?

The system fears your anger because it knows that if enough people get angry at its brokenness or abuses we might actually hold them accountable.

Imagine what we might build in its place.

Thanks for reading to the end.