Thanksgiving is canceled. With the alarming rise of COVID deaths and infections, we are a nation that is collectively grieving. Some of us are grieving the loss of life as we’ve known it. Others are grieving the loss of loved ones ravaged by the virus. And yet in reality, grief gets much closer to what this holiday is all about. For many Native People, Thanksgiving is a National Day of Mourning.

@mrotzie, “For what it’s worth, canceling our Thanksgiving celebrations to prevent the spread of COVID gives us a great opportunity to talk to our kids about how entering someone else’s home to intentionally spread a deadly disease is foundational to the holiday in the first place” Twitter, 12 November 2020, 1:22 pm, https://twitter.com/mrotzie/status/1326998703685705734.

Admittedly, I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. It was a time when my big family came together to celebrate. And celebrate we did! Aside from the inevitable family drama, we would sing and dance and play games and laugh ’til our guts hurt. And unlike other holidays that were commercialized to be about shopping or candy baskets (ignore Black Friday), this one day was about being grateful! Yes, I was all in!

Except.That it propagated the myth. The myth of Thanksgiving. This idyllic picture of Pilgrims and Indians feasting together in a harmonious and mutually beneficial relationship. True, there was some beauty in this first feast they shared. However, we simply cannot stop there without acknowledging the atrocities that came next as white colonizers exterminated millions of indigenous people who had occupied America for millennia. Nor should we ignore the atrocities that continue as the racism, greed, trauma, and structural violence continue today. One of the most prolonged and sustained genocides of a people with the goal of complete and total erasure. All cloaked in this idea of Manifest Destiny and done in the name of Christ. It’s enough to make my stomach turn. Maybe no turkey for me this year.

Until.

I read an article featuring Dr. Randy Woodley. Dr. Woodley is a man I deeply admire and have learned from, a Keetowah Cherokee, a Christian, and a professor at Portland Seminary in the Master of Arts in Intercultural Studies program. And thanks to Dr. Woodley’s gracious and profound wisdom, I was shown a place at the Thanksgiving table once again.

In spite of our ugly history, no…actually, because of these atrocities, I want to suggest that we all continue to celebrate Thanksgiving, but with a caveat.

Settler folks must be educated to realize that Thanksgiving in America didn’t begin with the Pilgrims. For thousands of years, many feasts of thanksgiving have been characteristic of all our Indian tribes. This phenomenon continues today. Settler-immigrants should reorient their thinking to view that First Thanksgiving as the first opportunity for them to join millennial old traditions among America’s Indigenous peoples to thank God, who was already present before they arrived, and thank the land upon which they were living. They should view the Plymouth feast as the land welcoming them, and as a result an opportunity to express gratitude to all creation, especially those plants and animals that provided the feast and extended their lives another day. They should see themselves as good guests of the Host Peoples of America and rethink their social posture with more humility.¹

Eat Humble Pie.

Yes, you heard him. If we are to eat pie this Thanksgiving, let it be humble pie. It’s time to discard the myths of colonialism and white supremacy and sit in the discomfort of grief, lament, disorientation, and feelings of powerlessness. For isn’t this the invitation of Christ in Philippians 2:6–8. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

So let us be humble, and let us be grateful. And let us learn from those who host us and honor and care for the land, acknowledging the Creator that sustains our very breath. And yes, let us make room for truth and lament as we educate ourselves concerning the real history of America.

No matter what your Thanksgiving Day looks like this year, the disruption of 2020 invites us to continue to learn the real history of this holiday and to acknowledge the tribe whose land we are on. May we use this time to learn about the rich traditions and wisdom of indigenous peoples. And may we partake of much goodness and feasting and leave plenty of room for gratitude and Jesus-inspired, humble pie.

Decolonizing Thanksgiving

Celebrating True Thanksgiving: One Native American View

The Thanksgiving Myth

Thanksgiving Promotes Whitewashed History, So I Organized Truthgiving Instead

“All The Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans

​Thanksgiving is canceled. And I’m heartbroken. Feasting around the table with family, friends, and neighbors is a small taste of heaven here on earth. And frankly, I could use some heaven right now in the midst of all the hell of 2020. Our family had already decided not to do the big, crazy gathering with extended family. But with COVID-19 surging across our county and the nation, we made the agonizing decision to forgo gathering with our own kids. Since they are in their twenties without family traditions of their own, this is difficult.

There is a debate happening on the public stage in regards to COVID, freedom, masks, social distancing, and restrictions. Facebook is a minefield right now. People are angry, and rightly so. Anger is part of the grief process. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are all grieving so much. The loss of community. The loss of stability. The loss of loved ones. The loss of church, school, jobs, and life as we’ve known it. It’s a lot.

I don’t pretend to have the answers. I am not a scientist, disease specialist, or economist. The response to the pandemic is complex. However, I would push back on those that would minimize the staggering death tolls of this virus and its worldwide impact. There is no conspiracy big enough to encompass the globe. And if your privilege keeps you at a distance from the virus’ ravage, that’s something to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. In talking recently to a pastor in New York, she has lost 20 elders, pastors, and sages to the virus within her own black community. I can’t imagine! And no matter where you stand on these issues, I think we all are missing the kind of leadership that would pull us together in this critical moment.

As followers of Jesus, I believe our response should be unique — not driven by the culture wars of our day, but by Jesus’ radical example. As COVID cases and hospitalizations skyrocket across our nation, what does it mean to follow Jesus?

Jesus made it really clear. In the gospel of Mark, we see Jesus’ ministry gaining momentum as he preached and demonstrated a message of freedom and liberation. To a people who were crushed under the tyranny of empire, this was indeed good news. And just when the disciples begin to catch on that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah upon whom rested all the Jewish hopes, their world was rocked. This kingdom was not coming in grandeur, dominion, or political power, but in suffering, humiliation, and death. It was not a “make Israel great again” campaign. If the disciples were excited about the inauguration of a new kingdom, they most likely had grand visions of greatness (Mark 8:31–33). But Jesus actually rebukes these worldly ideas about power and gives one of the most provocative and challenging invitations that rings true today.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:34–35).

Individual Rights
Much of this debate has been framed around individual rights and freedom. But let us be clear, the promotion of individual rights is not a Christian value. Jesus says the exact opposite — to follow him is to lay down our rights. The kingdom of God does not come in the flexing of one’s own self-interests and political power, but in subservience, sacrifice, and the abdication of power.

The better question is, “What does it mean to love our neighbor as ourselves?” This is the most crucial discourse of our time and the greatest command. It is also the grid in which we as followers of Jesus should consider our response. This is the thinking behind our decision to cancel Thanksgiving, sacrificing our own desires to be with family in the hopes that next year, more people can be with their families. Laying down our own lives so that others can live.

But I am well aware that this view isn’t shared by all. I’m afraid the gods of individualism are now inflicting a devastating cost. Jesus said that the first would be last and this seems to hold true. “America First” is now last in the effectiveness of our pandemic response with the highest death tolls across the globe. I am no expert, but the countries that have had the best response either have leadership or a culture that is valuing the collective good over the individual. Admittedly, this is complex. We are balancing our social fabric and economic well-being against our health and the loss of lives. And yet “what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?” (Mark 8:36–37)

This virus has exposed how connected we truly are. We are “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.]

Saint Paul said it this way, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it,” likening us to a body, interconnected and interdependent (I Corinthians 12:26).

So as followers of Jesus, how do we sacrifice our own self-interests on behalf of our neighbor? What does love require?

As Christians, love must be the lens through which we respond.

Self-Preservation
On the other end of the spectrum, we have those who are motivated out of fear and self-preservation. They have holed up in their homes with copious amounts of toilet paper and provisions to wait it out. Loving neighbor is somewhat counter-intuitive as we are being asked to distance ourselves for the good of others. However, there are many who do not have the privilege to do so. Doctors and nurses and essential workers. Our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness and poverty or living in close quarters of prisons and detention centers. Again we must ask, what does love require?

Historically, the Christian response to plagues has been to care for the sick and consider our own lives less important than our neighbors. In fact, it was the response of the Christians to the Antonine plague and the Plague of Cyprian across the Roman empire in the second and third centuries that triggered the explosive growth of Christianity.

There are so many hurting today. Isolation, anxiety, and depression are rampant. People are spiraling under the weight of financial loss, hunger, and instability. Mental health is a huge concern. I know of pastors who have performed more funerals for suicides than Covid-related deaths. While the Christian ethic would require us to never endanger others through our negligence or recklessness, what is the invitation to love? How are we to lay down our lives for our neighbor?

Perfect love drives out fear.
Love looks different for every person. For some, love compels them to be on the front lines caring for the sick. For others who are or are caring for the vulnerable with chronic health issues, love looks like staying home. For my community, love has meant taking some calculated risks at times (still using precautions and masks) to love our unhoused and immigrant neighbors. Love has meant checking in on our elderly neighbors and those who live alone. Love has meant cultivating connection and meeting practical needs however we can. Love has meant giving our stimulus check away to those who truly need it. Love has also meant the sacrifice of staying home, wearing masks, and taking precautions so as not to endanger our neighbor.

Regardless of our political, cultural, or sociological differences, as Christians, we must resist the inclination to seek individual freedom or self-preservation. Rather, Jesus calls us to a radical, self-sacrificing love. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) The self-denial and suffering of Jesus is actually the prototype for the Christian life. As this pandemic continues to rage, love beckons us, provokes us, and compels us. Love is the litmus test.


by Jessica Ketola

The never-ending drone of commentary across the channels. The blue and red map of the “United” States of America that is in actuality more divided than ever. The roller coaster of hope, fear, and outrage. The prolonged, nail-biting suspense without final resolve. Election week has not been for the faint of heart. 

Admittedly, I may have succumbed to copious consumption of comfort food, profuse pumpkin candle burning, and an inordinate intake of media. How did you get through?

Along with the election madness, I was simultaneously pushing through mounds of classwork for my master’s program, trying not to be distracted with news cycles and social media alerts. And midst the pile of weekly required reading was the classic text by Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination. And of all the weeks to read such words! Words still as relevant and provocative as ever. Words that I believe we desperately need to hear right now.

For certainly, we are living in a time of imperial totality, not unlike Old Testament Egypt. With the religion of static triumphalism manifested in much of the American church today and the politics of oppression and exploitation, we surely are in need of deliverance. If only we can fight through the enculturation and amnesia of our present state, perhaps we can remember and reclaim God’s new work of liberation found in the Exodus story. On one hand, we see the dismantling of the oppressive empire of Pharaoh; and on the other hand, the formation of a new community oriented around God’s freedom, justice and compassion.

And as I read Brueggemann’s words, his call to action resonates. In order to live into God’s vision of freedom, we must grieve and we must hope. And this week, as the newscasters drawled on and on and on, this felt appropriate. Left and right. Rich and poor. Rural and urban. Black, brown, and white. We are divided and polarized. We are incensed and outraged. We have demonized each other in lieu of the imperial gods of our enslavement.

Perhaps I was channeling the insanity of the moment, I can’t be sure. But I shouted at the television, “We must reclaim the narrative!”
​
Grief That Dismantles
For I felt grief. In spite of my candidate of choice pulling ahead. In spite of the ground-breaking, glass-shattering of Madame Vice President-Elect. I felt joy and relief for sure. I even shed some tears. But the grief remained. For while I welcome back sanity to the office of the president, I know many others don’t see it this way. And here we all are, part of the same family, “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) Yet we are divided more than ever, and it hurts that we cannot hear one another. Even more, it hurts that we remain deeply committed to white supremacy in spite of horrific and enduring injustices. There was no landslide of repudiation for our black brothers and sisters. Our deep fragmentation remains.

For I’m afraid we have sold our souls to the American Dream of consumerism and individualism predicated on the violence of racism. Regardless of your politics, I think we can agree. Trump is not an aberration, but a mirror of a society given over to narcissism, greed, and the evils of white supremacy. We have been promised a counterfeit “freedom” that leads to death — that puts individual rights over the common good, that dehumanizes others in pursuit of power, and permits our consumption without regard for oppression and exploitation. 

But “what good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Matthew 16:26)

Prophetic Critique
The mythic claims of the gods have been exposed — America is anything but great. We have worshipped the gods of empire, ease, success, and satiation, and we are now formed primarily as consumers and not creators, colonizers and not co-laborers. Numb people do not discern or fear death. We work and we shop. We click and we watch. We consume products, and in doing so, become the very products consumed. We are slaves to the machines we build for ourselves. 

We have taken what is not ours. We have raped and pillaged, killed and maimed. We have violated, extracted, and depleted as if people, creatures, and resources are disposable. And now we wonder why there is fire in our streets and fire across our land with no air in which to breathe.

We must grieve and lament and tear our clothes like the prophets of old. We must weep and wail as a prophetic critique of the looming death all around us. People are in the streets. Hospitals are full. Graves are in mass. Families are at war. The world is on fire. So many suffering, oppressed and dying. The earth is groaning, heaving, and sighing.

“History consists primarily of speaking and being answered, crying and being heard. If that is true, it means there can be no history in the empire because the cries are never heard and the speaking is never answered. And if the task of prophecy is to empower people to engage in history, then it means evoking cries that expect answers, learning to address them where they will be taken seriously, and ceasing to look to the numbed and dull empire that never intended to answer in the first place.”(Brueggemann, p.13)

We must stop looking to the numbed and dull empire for answers that only a God who is truly free can answer. The radical new vision of liberation that Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated birthed an alternative community in which the oppressed were lifted up, the ostracized were embraced, the prisoners were set free, and the broken were healed. God’s good and just kingdom upends not only the religion of the day but dismantles the imperial politics of oppression and exploitation.

Hope That Energizes
This is where hope comes in. For Brueggemann insists that it is not only the prophetic critique of grief that brings liberation, but the prophetic energizing of hope to imagine an alternative reality. To be clear, there is plenty of reason for despair. In the midst of a global pandemic, it is hard not to feel a sense of powerlessness. The reigning consciousness militates against hope or any prospect of change on the horizon. There is no room for anything outside the dominant narrative of totality and permanence. Thus, despairing people do not anticipate or receive newness, nor do they believe they have to power to move toward new life. And yet hope persists in a God of resurrection in which “all things are possible.” This is why we must fiercely hold on to hope, to call upon the artists, the poets, and the dreamers to imagine an alternative reality of God’s good and just kingdom.

“Hope, on one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk. On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.” (Brueggemann, p.65)

What if…our present reality is not the only reality? What if… this kingdom is not the only kingdom? What if…there is another way to live? What if…we are called to be creators, not consumers? What if…there is an alternative community of freedom, justice, and compassion?

An Alternative 
I believe with all of my heart that there is hope — for the church, for our neighborhoods, and for society as a whole. God’s future is here and is unfolding in a people who turn away from the false gods of empire and who imagine and orient themselves around a new social reality that includes and liberates the most vulnerable and oppressed. God’s kingdom is demonstrated in authentic, incarnational communities that are embodying compassion and justice on the ground, creating a new social fabric in the neighborhood.

So midst the mind-numbing hopelessness of polarization, dehumanization, and fragmentation, I am holding stubbornly onto both grief and hope. For there is no relief in the empirical binaries of black and white extremes. Rather, there is a third way, another way. A way of love and mercy, repentance and forgiveness, compassion and justice. 

To be sure, it is a way of disruption. It is disruptive to grieve and to offer prophetic critique when peace is maintained at all costs. It is subversive to hope midst the crushing clench of empire. And yet we are invited into a vision for the beloved community of God whose practices of lament, protest, and complaint give rise to fierce hope and imagination for a new social order —a prophetic demonstration of God’s revolutionary kingdom of resistance, restoration, and liberation.

​So let us begin to imagine a new world for the poor, the persecuted, and the pure in heart — where the grieving will be comforted, the meek will inherit the earth, and those who hunger and thirst for justice will be filled. (Matthew 5:3–10)

"We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was never normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, My friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature." — Sonya Renee Taylor


by Jessica Ketola

Cultivating A Daily Practice of Love

In difficult times, how do you stay grounded? The onslaught of 2020 continues with the ferocity of pandemics, protests, and politics. It is challenging to maintain our equilibrium in the midst of so much chaos, change, and loss. And yet we know the harshest seasons push us to grow. During winter, a tree is dormant to the naked eye. But underneath the surface, it is hard at work growing and expanding its root system in search of valuable nutrients. So it goes with our souls. It is precisely in times like these that we are invited to root and ground ourselves in deeper ways.

But how you ask? In the midst of work deadlines, spinning plates, and bleak headlines? How?

Love. Love is the answer.

Love has the power to strengthen, nourish, and ground us in the midst of all the fray. The tumultuous storm that surrounds us is not of our own choosing. And yet, we can choose to surrender to love in the midst of its pounding waves. These are the waters of transformation.

Cultivate a Daily Practice
In order to access the power of love, you will need to cultivate a daily practice to ground yourself. This is easier said than done. So much competes for our time and attention. And yet in the midst of the fray, how are you making time for what is most important? Or do you find yourself scattered and weary from the demands of the urgent? There is plenty of research about the health benefits of prayer and spiritual meditation that make us less anxious and more resilient, present, and hopeful.

Are you finding some minutes of your day for stillness, reflection, prayer, or meditation? Are you sitting in the loving gaze and tender affection of God?

If you are daily immersing yourself in love, most likely you are beginning to experience what it feels like to be grounded in what is most true about your life. Love has a way of ordering and reordering our lives. The unimportant things begin to lose their pull and what is most core to our being increases in its desire.

Curiosity Can Cure Our Cynicism
If a daily practice eludes you, you may be feeling a sense of frustration, guilt, or cynicism. But guilt does us no good. And self-flagellation moves us away from love, not towards it. Here is where curiosity can cure our cynicism.

What do we believe that is keeping us from abiding and resting in love? What are we afraid of?

Often times, it is our subterranean fears and hurts that unconsciously drive us. We are afraid we won’t be productive “enough” if we take moments of stillness out of our busy day. Many of us have distorted images about who God is and what God demands. We are afraid that God cannot be trusted. Or perhaps we are afraid we are unworthy of love.

It is here in the rawness of our wrestling where love comes rushing in. God meets us right where we are, not in the place we want to be. In all our frustration, desire, avoidance, longing, and unbelief — God is near.

So don’t give up. Lean in with curiosity, honesty, and vulnerability.

Love Awaits.
​Love is calling and inviting you. The lovingkindness of God chases after you. This is not a duty, but a gracious invitation to live life in union and communion with Love — to let love heal you and empower you to bring healing to others.

Imagine for a moment that you lived fully, authentically, and vulnerably out of a deep and abiding love. What would be true about your life? Imagine what would be possible if you were free from all the fear and self-doubt that constrains you. Imagine the powerful good of a life given over to Love. Is there any other pursuit more worthwhile?

The Miracle of Practice and of Becoming
So this is the opportune time to cultivate a practice of love. New practices take time to establish, so give yourself plenty of grace (There is so much grace!). Keep on keeping on; and whatever you do, don’t give up!

No one becomes a marathon runner, concert pianist, or “saint” overnight. Over time, as new neural pathways are formed and new “muscles” are developed, consistent practice gives way to proficiency. What once was hard becomes automatic. This is the miracle of practice and of becoming.

They say you become what you practice. So let us practice love, and in turn, become people of love.

Love is the most powerful force in the universe, and there is no storm — no pandemic, politics, racism, quarantine, hurricane, or fire — that can overcome it. Though we will continue to lament, to work for change, and insist on justice, we will rest in Love. For we know that the tumult of this season will do its work if we let it — to secure us, nourish us, and ground us in Love.

by Jessica Ketola