Being Love’s Voice

In my training as both a writer and a minister, I have come to understand the power of stories as opposed to bare facts or structured arguments. Human beings love stories, from childhood on. The advice to writers to “show, don’t tell” is as relevant in nonfiction as in fiction. Stories reach beyond the intellect to the heart, and are more likely to draw someone in than statistical research or well-constructed debate points.

I am a minister, a poet, a mother of a young adult son. Like most of us, there are ways in which I am privileged—I am a cisgender white person without obvious disabilities, with multiple graduate degrees, and with a job and access to healthcare. There are also ways in which I am marginalized (ever more so under the current administration). I am a woman. I am queer. I live with chronic illnesses. I have more debt than savings.

I live in a country whose current leadership does not want to hear what people like me have to say.

That makes it all the more important for me to say it.

In my work as a congregational minister, I serve a lot of people who have at least as much privilege as I do, but also some with significantly less. The stories I tell in worship may sometimes need to educate the privileged congregants, but in this particular historical moment, it feels more important that they provide spiritual nourishment and affirmation to the most vulnerable, most marginalized, in the room. Those worshippers need to see themselves not only as present in the stories, but more specifically as present in a way that celebrates them for who they are, rather than only depicting them as victims of oppression. The oppression is real and must be named, but it is not the whole story of any one person or group of people, and to reduce their story to that one dimension is to commit additional harm.

The storytelling I do, both as a minister and in my non-congregational writing, is in service to something better than the reality we live in today. It is in service to widening the circle of “we” and leaving no one at the margins.

My favorite genderless name for the holy is Love. I want the stories I write to bring Love into the world, and into the hearts of my readers. Early in my ministry career, I spoke of our faith calling us to be Love’s hands in the world; I also believe we are called to be Love’s voice in the world. Sometimes this means speaking truth to power forcefully, and even in righteous anger. Other times it means using imagination to speak a better possible future into the world so that it might become reality.

There is a dominant story being promoted by the current Republican administration and those who support it. That story says that some people have more value than others. It goes so far as to try to deny that certain people even exist. It rewrites or erases history in an attempt to control the future.

In times like these, we need stories that lift up the value of every life, stories that offer hope, stories that extend love.

In this time when the US government is feeding us so many lies, telling so many untrue stories, it is crucial that we continue to tell stories that are true. Stories of the existence and sacred worth of people outside the false construct of binary gender. Stories of immigrants. Stories of real people (though anonymized to protect them), to help others recognize their humanity. Stories of history that acknowledge facts rather than promoting propaganda.

Many of the stories that we are telling and receiving today are stories of trauma–true stories of the terrible things happening as a result of actions of the administration. It is all too easy for those of us who oppose the administration to tell stories that are perhaps true, but not told in the most helpful way. We are encouraged by the nature of social media, mainstream media, and our divided culture to join in by expressing outrage, to share stories that may traumatize others (and especially may retraumatize survivors of the very kinds of harm that these stories illustrate), to speak and write from a place of what some may call “holy rage.”

While witnessing what is happening is important, and holy rage may have its place in activism, there is a danger in having the dominant storyline be that of all the harm being done. We need stories of hope, stories of courage, stories of resistance, alongside the stories of harm. We also need stories that inspire us to action, rather than allowing us to feel that venting our rage or grief is enough.

The stories we consume–our media diets–impact both our quality of life and our ability to tell a more true, more helpful story. If we are overwhelmed by stories designed precisely to overwhelm us with fear and anxiety, there is a danger of sliding into numbness, into believing that our voice will make no difference against that onslaught of stories full of harm and hate.

We can choose a different path by seeking a diet that is more “wisdom” than “media”--by seeking out those who tell the kinds of stories that fortify us rather than weaken us, that speak of what is possible rather than only what is lost. (For me as a white cisgender woman, that also means making sure that my wisdom diet includes generous servings from storytellers who are trans, BIPOC, or from other marginalized communities to which I do not belong.)

When I studied Holocaust literature, there came a time when the tragic stories so thoroughly overwhelmed me that I couldn’t read them anymore. Instead of turning away from the topic entirely, I found stories of rescuers and resistors to broaden the scope of my study. Stories of those who demonstrated compassion even at the risk of torture and death. Stories of resistors who fought back against oppression despite the nearly impossible odds.

What stories do the potential rescuers and resistors of today need to hear, to galvanize them/us to action? What stories do we all need to hear, in order to not only survive but thrive in a time like this? Stories of resistance. Stories of love. Stories of people who changed their minds and stepped away from hate.

May we tell stories that center the wholeness and holiness of those being harmed, without denying the underlying humanity of those doing the harm. (We can affirm the holiness of all people while also affirming the unholiness of certain actions.) May we live stories that model a more loving and compassionate way for us to coexist in beneficial rather than harmful ways both with other humans and with the world we all belong to. May those of us who were taught to be timid or silent in the name of “politeness” choose to be more kind than “nice.” May we write a better story for a better collective future.