Worship As Resistance by Katie Mulligan

my mind is swirling, whirling, twirling all over the place as I sit down to write an essay. How to focus my thoughts, my spirit, my hopes, my expectations? How to write about worship as resistance…how to write about worship at all, in the midst of so much…

a Black boy gunned down by police, leaving a house party…someone called the cops, he and his friends jumped in a car to get away…you remember, don’t you? You were some place you shouldn’t have been, your parents were waiting at home, they thought you were at so-and-so’s house (and the parents were home), they thought you were at the library studying with that girl…maybe they knew you were at the party. you remember, don’t you? or you can imagine? someone called the cops and you gotta go, man. so you jump in the car to get out of there before you get in trouble…

and then the police officer shoots into the back of the car…and one of you is dead and everyone else is holding your body, traumatized, begging you not do die…wondering if they’re gonna die too…and in a way they die with you…

my mind is is swirling, whirling, twirling…to write an essay about worship…a white man, drinking a beer, pulls out a rifle at the pool–AT THE POOL–and casually shoots seven people of color, killing one, injuring six…random, the news says…but the shooter, a white man, called his ex-girlfriend while he was shooting…is it random that he killed a woman while talking to the woman he hated? random this white man shoots seven people of color? wait, the news claims one of the women was white…#notallwhitepeople #notallmen  #LaJollaIs82PercentWhite… #dontmakeuslookatourselves don’t let us be naked like the people at the pool mostly were…bathing suits, relaxed in water and the sun and then out comes a gun and an angry white man and death and fear…

whirling, swirling, twirling, mind racing to a picture of two Black girls in a classroom, focused, studying, minding their business…their classmate, a white boy, snaps the picture not asking…posts on craigslist: slavegals in good condition, $470…

twirling, swirling, whirling, resources needed, gardens and books and banners and kids to mentor, cats to feed, children to raise, bills to pay…is surviving resistance?

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.      Amos 5:21-24

Amos 5 whirling, swirling, twirling whenever I step in the pulpit, enter the sanctuary, offer prayers to the assembly, participate in the work of the church…a church 90-something percent white…a church that abandons poor people, people of color, trans and queer folk…a church concerned with the condition of the parlor carpet while people sleep outside…a church that–#notallchurches you say…#notallworship…#notallprayers…

I sit to write and think WHAT IS WORSHIP FOR? WHO IS WORSHIP FOR? WHAT ARE WE RESISTING…how does one resist when one is complicit…why would one? Why and how do I resist…or worship?

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I watched, recently, a documentary on the Ovarian Psycos Bicycle Brigade (https://ovarianpsycos.com): Established in 2010, we have supported and fortified young womxn of color leadership through a credo that believes in “feminist ideals with indigena understanding and an urban/hood mentality.” Ovarian Psycos…riding around Los Angeles communities connecting with one another, community, deliberate, unapologetic.

At one of their meetings, a discussion broke out about attendance at events…not enough people showing up for events, and one of the women said, “I can only come to these meetings once a month, maybe we need to communicate better.” and another woman said, “maybe you need to figure out how to make yourself more available.”

Becoming Available…it has stuck with me all month…stuck with me as I watch the news, stuck with me while I organize, stuck with me while I preach and enter the pulpit, while I listen to people tell me why they can’t get involved, can’t get away, can’t can’t can’t…

Becoming Available…Resistance…what if Resistance is simply Availability? What if whiteness and empire and cisheteronormativity, what if ALL that is simply a way of keeping us busy, occupied, otherwise engaged so that we can’t see, can’t evaluate, can’t plan, can’t connect…can’t be available to the work, to justice…?

What, then, is worship, but the process of Becoming Available as Resistance? It is a mode, a posture, of practice, practical resistance, a refusal to stay closed off, frightened, alone…to worship is to enter into relationship with Spirit in the company of others, to open to music and prayer and scripture and learning…to engage with one another with touch and greeting and care…to open the floodgates of what is possible and dreamt…to enter into the sorrows and griefs of this world…

Worship as Resistance is to Become Available to a firehose of pain and ecstasy, the fullness of sorrow and joy in this life, and to learn how to swallow, to drink it in, to be taken by the waters of life without drowning, at least not today…

Worship as Resistance is learning to say yes after a lifetime of no. It is practicing giving when you have little left. In our music, our offering, our liturgy, our scriptures, our rituals, the eating of the bread, the drinking of the wine, the sprinkling or dowsing of the water, we open ourselves to the divine and to one another, and then we are sent out to Become Available to the world, to Resist death dealing narratives of #can’t and #won’t and #thatsnotmyproblem and #notall________

Cláudio, my friend and colleague, once spoke to my students about communion. He told them that they might not understand about the bread and the wine today–that perhaps it might seem a silly ritual (and perhaps that it is). A strange ritual of eating flesh and drinking blood (what IS this thing we do??)…but we come to the table and participate in a meal, we make ourselves available to one another in the sharing of food and drink, and we connect ourselves through Spirit to all who have come to this table before and all who will come after…and one day, when we find ourselves lost in grief and sorrow and anger, and we need to know we are loved…that we can find a church, any church, that serves the cup and the bread…go into that church, he said, and eat and drink and be connected to those people there, and know that in that act of Worship that you are connected to THIS time and place, when you ate and drank with people who loved you.

To Worship is to Resist living death. It is to come alive to all that is around. It is to leave the church and SEE what is happening…to whirl and twirl and swirl with the Spirit so that life becomes a dance…it is to disrupt that which holds us captive and fearful…to Worship is to Become Available…to confess #YesAllWhitePeople…

To Worship is a Beginning

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…on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here…Luke 24:1-5

He is not here…the tomb is empty…God is not in the church…the Spirit has gone on…and so must we. To Worship is turn and walk out the doors, to enter the world, to Become Available to the suffering and joy beyond…

to be naked by the pool…to face or run from danger…to say HOW DARE YOU to death dealing, outrageous behavior…to Resist dehumanization in all its forms, even of ourselves…

to Worship, to Resist, is to Become Available…to show up, to give freely, to share deeply, to drink in the waters of life…to come up for air…to refuse life at the expense of others

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whirling, twirling, swirling…like water, like wind, like Spirit…how? how to worship? how to resist? where are the resources? what book can we read? what liturgy? which prayers? WHY DOES THIS BLOG POST NOT COME WITH INSTRUCTIONS?

go…Become Available to this world…open yourself to it, put your bare feet on the ground, get in the water, get your hands dirty, work…Be Available…and the world, in it’s crying out in pain and ecstasy will tell you what it needs…and you will go there…and you will live.

 

Katie Mulligan is Co-Pastor at Collingswood Presbyterian Church in New Jersey and serves as Chaplain at Rider University. Previously she led a three-church youth collaboration in and around Trenton, NJ and continues to mentor youth in the city. She is the author of “Long Thread, Lazy Girl” published in Intercultural Ministry: Hope for a Changing World. She blogs about queerness, racial justice, parenting, and spirituality at http://insideouted.blogspot.com.