Heaven in a wildflower and hold infinity in the palm of your hand: Maia Dalager

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour

--William Blake

Check out this video of a starling murmuration: 

Each starling is a data point that is constantly reacting and changing and is a part of a whole. Starlings can just do this. How can I be a data point that is also the change and a part of a whole?

I was talking with someone about Katy Schalla Lesiak and Bjorn Westgard’s podcast The Stories that Data Tell saying, I wonder if and how God is in data?' They were reminded of a moment they had looking out at the ocean thinking about it as an infinite number of data points rolling with and in the waves. I was thinking about the movie the matrix coupled with a line from the William Blake poem above and wondering how maybe so many things in nature are millions of data points that we perceive as a whole and present as a flower or a waterfall or the wind. 

I am continually connecting the To Get to the Other Side series to where it began with Erin Tripolino’s sharing of Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy. She says,

[Emergence] is another way of speaking about the connective tissue of all that exists --the way, the Tao, the force, change, God/dess, life. Birds flocking, cells splitting, fungi whispering underground. 

Adrienne Maree Brown also quoted Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower,

All that you touch

You change

All that you change

Changes you

The only lasting truth

Is change

God is change

I read these and think about my friend talking about the change/data/god within the ocean and find comfort. God is change. The only lasting truth is change. Watching nature constantly react and change in very small movements that create systems and patterns like ocean waves beating up against a shore or a starling murmuration, I feel held and connected to God in everyday encounters and even the natural rhythms in me. Trees are so damn good at being trees, and I can connect to that same energy that lives in me and be a damn good Maia. 

This is my prayer and where I start today.

Excuse Us as We Pivot - again: Greg Meyer

We are a bit of a mess right now as we try to figure out how to be church in the wake of the pandemic and George Floyd’s killing. Yes, I realize that we’ve been saying that since we started 14 years ago. The truth is we hope to be saying it a lot longer because the day we think we have it all figured out is the day we become useless.

You ought to know, however, that the messiness factor is higher than usual as we navigate the racial dynamics of being a ‘mostly but not entirely white-bodied’ community. With all the discovering of homework us white-bodied folks have suddenly done (yeah, I’m one of them), homework that our black and brown-bodied brothers and sisters have known and dealt with forever, there is a need to each go to our corners to do our different work. But yet, we are one community. We are all people, children of God, human beings. And the goal is to pull together, not split apart according to our race or skin color.

So here is what we are trying right now. Our whole community gatherings are going to be designed – as best we can – for everyone. There are a million human hurts and joys that unite us all, no matter the color of our skin. We can and will dig into them. There is also some work we need to do separately. Our white-bodied friends are feeling the need to sort out their whiteness, undo the racism embedded inside, and cause less harm to their brown and black-bodied, immigrant, LGBTQ and native neighbors. We’ll take that work out of our community gatherings and find other places for it. And if you are not white you have special needs right now too. I won’t pretend to know what they are, but I want you to have space for that.

Epilogue – the image above: I was headed to the post office this afternoon and got stopped by the sign, “Construction Zone: No Thru Traffic.” It felt like the story of my life. A-l-w-a-y-s under construction. But, you know, I’m proud of that. And then the “No Thru Traffic.” Ain’t that true! So many people just want to get through it, get over it, not slow down. Well, if that is what you are looking for, sorry, we’re a mess. This isn’t the way through, this is the place for people who are willing to be in the moment and deal with what is at hand. This is the journey, not the destination. The place for people who are willing to be in it with us, not figured out, making mistakes, trying stuff, saying they’re sorry, bumping, jostling around and getting dirty.

So, Sunday mornings and other whole Fabric gatherings – We’ll work hard to fashion them to be for and by all of us, regardless of the characteristics that separate us.

Our individual work, we’ll support and promote that too, but it will be in Groups, special opportunities, and the like.

Stay tuned and excuse our mess.

Pause. Act. Learn. Repeat: Kylie Dalager

After George Floyd's murder, I saw many of my social media friends posting about their outrage. I wanted to post something, too. Because that's what you do in 2020; you post, and then you breathe a sigh of relief. You post, and you're done. 

So I posted about #abolishthepolice and how I initially couldn't even imagine what that looked like, but after talking with my youngest sister who lives in Minneapolis, whose neighborhood had joined together to create a network of night watch patrols after the riots started (because the police shot rubber bullets at the neighbors who were out on their very own porch after curfew), I was open to the idea. 

It took me three days to craft my post, a poem meant to support my sister and her community. I expected my opinion to spark a healthy conversation with someone, maybe even someone who did not agree with me. I did not expect my post to be hurtful.

But it was. I received two comments that made me feel awful. The first was sent by a cousin whom I really love and respect. Her partner is a police officer and in the National Guard, and he had been called to Minneapolis the same day that I published my thoughts on Facebook. The message she sent said that my words were very hurtful, and I understood; if I were worried about my husband, Oscar, and I read that someone I love thinks we don't need people like him anymore because they are bad, I would feel terrible, too. 

I answered that I was sorry, I never meant to upset anyone, and just because I think that our justice system isn't working for us anymore does not mean that I don't care about either of you. 

The response I got was short; Well, I guess we just don't agree. 

And that was it. 

Instead of sparking a healthy conversation with someone who did not agree with me, my opinion squashed it. 

The second comment made me feel even worse, because it came from Oscar. In my post I had used a picture of the two of us, and that made him feel uncomfortable. He felt that my opinion was very harsh, very non-negotiable, and was worried. Oscar is a person of color, and unbeknownst to me, had been very aware of the upsetting comments that were being left on the Facebook page of the brewery where he works right after they posted their #blackouttuesday square. He was scared that someone would connect the dots and threaten us, too.

I wanted to puke. I didn't know he felt like that! 

I deleted the picture and the post. 

But before I did, I reread it, and I was truly embarrassed by what I had written. It was so obviously written by someone who assumed they were now "woke" after the lightbulb had turned on just once during a conversation with their sister. I had not considered how my thoughts would affect the people I love, including the one I love the most!  

I thought about these two interactions for the next few days. I cried over them. Why had this gone so badly? 

That same week, I listened to Fabric's most recent podcast. Melissa talks about how during the past two weeks, a lot of us (read: white people) were processing things using the following steps: Pause, Act, Learn. We paused at the news of George Floyd's murder, the protests happening in our cities, and the riots and looting that followed. After pausing, we acted; went to a protest, donated money, donated food, wrote a Facebook post, responded to a Facebook post. If our action wasn’t the best one, we learned from it. 

For example, I learned that if I want to create a comfortable space for these uncomfortable conversations to be held with my fellow white people, I need to be gentle. Like Sonya Renee Taylor says, "some of you are coming into the conversation and you're not ready to be in this conversation." I need to respect that not everyone is in the same headspace as I am and then meet them where they are, not where I think they should be.

So I apologized to my cousin. Like, an actual apology. Not a fake one like before, the I’m sorry, but. I used the I’m sorry, period. She responded that she appreciated and accepted my apology, and I know that I will eventually be able to talk with her about our different opinions. 

Soon after, an uncle that lives in a small town in northern Minnesota commented something that I disagreed with about the #abolishthepolice movement. I paused, but instead of acting right away, I learned first. I learned that many small cities share their police departments with the surrounding small cities. With more context, I understood how imagining a world with specific task forces instead of police would be very difficult for him. And then I acted. I told him, I understand where you're coming from now. Your city doesn't have enough room in its budget for even one police officer, let alone a social worker and a paramedic. It makes perfect sense that disbanding your police department seems like such an impossibility to you. He then accepted some examples  I sent him of social programs that had been implemented in lieu of law enforcement in big cities, but that were concentrated in very small areas. Because I was willing to learn from him, he was willing to learn from me.

In Zoom church on Sunday, when Melissa asked us to write about times we had paused or acted throughout the week, I noticed that she too had rearranged the steps: Pause, Learn, Act. I think she realized that same thing I had; Why act first and risk making a mistake when you can learn first and avoid it? I had a few more examples to jot down, and I know that there will be many more. The race to true equality isn't the mile run, it's a marathon. Pause, Learn, Act, Repeat. Pause, Learn, Act, Repeat. From now 'til the cows come home. 

Pause. Act. Learn. Repeat: Angie O'Leary

Where have you seen this rhythm: pause, act, learn, repeat, played out in your experience this past week?

From Angie O’Leary

Pause: How am I fitting into what is happening in this world? As a white woman who is differently abled, I could choose to self-identify as a person with a disability but I’m not sure I fit that mold and perhaps that further marginalizes me. I don’t identify with any group. All my life I’ve been told - Angie I don’t see you as different. The unspoken part of this message is that it is bad to be different, there is something inherently wrong with being different. I have lived through people staring at me, excluding me, thinking I must be stupid, deciding for themselves that I can’t do things without first knowing me and my abilities. I have survived medical trauma and the resulting medical PTSD. There is no one in my life who can relate. I’m not saying this to detract from the current racial divide in this country. I am not saying that I have lived the same struggles or discrimination as people of color have experienced. I am saying it because I understand how terrible it is to live in a world that does not fully accept you for you. It is tiring to have to prove yourself again and again as equal again. I am saying because I stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Act: What am I doing about it? Last night my family went to a George Floyd march. Ryan and Eli were off doing something and so I found a grassy area for Lucas to crawl. A black man saw some litter on the ground and began cleaning up the area so Lucas didn’t put it in his mouth. I also saw a few pieces and followed suit. We both headed toward the garbage with the black man leading the way. I held Lucas in my right arm and the litter in my left hand. When the man turned around he offered to take the litter from me by holding out his hand. He was expecting me to easily drop it in his hand, as most people would. If you have ever watched me release an item from my left hand you know that it takes me a little longer and often I have to guide it out with my right hand. This man had no choice but to watch and wait while I dropped the litter in his hand. He was forced to slow down and notice me. I watched him quickly process through a lot of uncomfortable feelings people have when they see me. I could see the light bulb turn on.

Learn: How am I different and growing?  For a long time I have struggled with how to reach out to people of color who are my acquaintances and people of color who I have never met to let them know that I see them, not just from the lens of a white woman but from the lens of somebody who all to well knows what it is like to be marginalized. There is no easy answer, but this man showed me it can be done. I could tell he noticed that I wasn’t just another white woman but I was another marginalized human being who knew what it was like to be discriminated against. He then did what I have wanted to do but didn’t know how without feeling like I was somehow contributing to racism by singling someone out. After disposing of the litter he came back and engaged in conversation to say I also see you. 

Repeat: The cycle continues. Again, I do not share this to take away from the Black Lives Matter movement. I say this in solidarity as a person from one marginalized group to another. A united front is more powerful than a divided people. Together we shall overcome.

Practicing When It's Easier

practice

Maybe you were around for the final week in our series Care IQ where Melissa Lock, Verlyn Hemmen, and Chris Lillehei helped us move from our Care IQ learnings into practicing and reflecting. Melissa and I also recently recorded a Scraps podcast where we intentionally crafted 3 care situations, acted them out, and got reflections on them from Kristin Williams as well as Verlyn and Chris Lillehei.

Groups have started this same process of role-playing, so we wanted to share this graphic tool as an easy way to dive into your own practice with others. Whether it’s with a real situation or one you’re making up to get practice (or a mixture of the two), we’d encourage you to put yourself into it and consider doing it with a couple others…maybe even regularly.

Thanks for caring!

Giving God a Pass

Understandably, we humans turn to the heavens to make sense of suffering. But it doesn’t always make sense, does it? Where have you heard yourself or others giving God credit for good stuff this week? What about the bad stuff? Do you just give God a pass on that?

Taking God seriously doesn’t have to mean minimizing people’s suffering or just not thinking so hard.

Do you see God as being part of the world with us or apart from the world? Even 3000 years ago there was a notion that God wasn’t distant and outside our existence but part of it. And all that effort humans spend appeasing God to avoid or explain suffering didn’t make sense. Wonder again at how the ways of God might be counterintuitive but they make sense as you read Psalm 50.

Listen to the full message from Not One Stone: If it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense.

Does God make sense?

With this week’s message Greg Meyer started a conversation about the fine line between holding wonder and mystery, and harboring illusions. How do you know the difference? Are there things that you’ve carried with you that don’t make sense? Are there ways in which you have squeezed out space for wonder or being called to a deeper place?

This is worth wrestling with. Listen to the podcast and talk about it!

Start Small

Talking to a few people at our Open Space experience in which we were making plans on what we could each do to make the world more an us place, and less an us and them place, I (Greg) heard a common dilemma. There is a tendency towards impatience and fixing big problems. Despite the urgency to change this world in which too many lives are harmed and generational damage is compounding, there are still no short cuts. We must rebuild systems around us from the ground up, and if we want it to last, change within us happens one-step at a time.

Start small. One person was stymied with how to develop meaningful intercultural relationships. The inability to figure out how to get there from where she was in one step was frustrating and discouraging. She was starting too big. Then another person, who was also white-bodied, said she would go to shops where she would be around people of different racial backgrounds and learn how to interact with them in ways that weren’t pushy or inappropriate but conveyed interest, respect and value and take it from there. Small steps. Discovering that such a simple first step might be exactly what is needed was like a lightbulb going off for the first person. “Is such a small step as this person proposed enough?” WRONG QUESTION. This is a Fabric insight: ask a wrong question and you’ll get an unhelpful answer.

What’s a BETTER QUESTION? “Is such a small step a useful next step in getting where you want to go?” That question leads to other better next questions, like, “What do I do with the rapport and understanding of people who aren’t ‘like me?’” and “How do I pass what I am learning on to others?”

Use your people. One of the strategic benefits of a community that is structured around healthy growth is that you aren’t the only one trying to figure stuff like this out. There are others a step ahead of you from whom you can learn. There are others hoping to do what you are to learn from you. And there are others who are right with you. This all creates a friendly atmosphere of mutual accountability, encouragement and learning.

Start small. What is the next piece missing between where you are and where you want to be? Don’t worry about deboarding from the airplane if you haven’t even bought a ticket and packed your bags yet. You’ll get there, but it’s not what’s next for you. (edited)

Step into the growth zone with others. Share ideas here.

Love in Action

It’s one thing to know about hearing about marginalized voices and another to hear, know, respect and respond to them. One thing to dream and talk about being loving and another to love.

Yesterday Fabric folks took that uncomfortable step of putting love into action. Using the practice of Open Space, Fabric folks shared ideas and made plans for action. Want to learn from and with kids? Check this out.

What are you going to try?

Talk with someone you trust about the step you want to try. What do you hope for? What feels hard?

How can you use perspectives, people and practice to help you keep trying stuff and learning?

By the way, Fabric is made to help you have regular, dependable windows for discovering perspectives, people and practice around the deeper questions you don’t get to engage everyday, but yet matter deeply for everyday. Connect with the current conversation in person on Sundays, with a Group and via podcast.

Fabric Kids Explore Brave Listening!

Diving into the planning and preparing for the series Hearing Voices, I wondered how we could create space for kids to both spend some time hearing voices of our neighbors that are frequently ignored or systematically quieted and explore the ways that we can grow our brave listening skills.  What does that look like from the perspective of young people whose lens of time is only a decade or less and who have less control over who is in their circles than we do as adults?

We spent the last month learning what comfort and discomfort feel like in our bodies and how we can pause to examine why.  We also got to listen to the voices of children with physical and emotional challenges with the Pacer Puppets, and we explored the idea of what is fair and unfair.  The overwhelming conclusion is that we have only begun to scratch the surface of the conversations that we could have around this topic. But a beginning is a beginning.

This past week we explored some books written for children that do an excellent job of tackling the subject of race and injustice in ways that kids can understand and be challenges by. The books exposed kids to the ideas of whiteness and how our race affects every corner of our lives.  They tackled the tough subject of police shootings of African Americans, and the idea of white privilege. I’m proud of our leaders and kids and the openness that they listened to the stories in these books and how they were willing to ask some hard questions around these subjects.

These books deserve a second look!  We have copies at the office if you would like to borrow them to read at home or I’m sure the library or local bookstore would also have them.

Looking for more ways to widen your circle as a family?

Visit the RACE exhibit at the Minnesota Science Museum!

Go see the show Ruby Bridges at Youth Performance Company!

Spend and afternoon at the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum!

A Basic Starting Point

"Can we understand that good people that don't know everything could mess up and still be good people?”

This past Sunday, Joanne Reeck named this as the place to start for talking, listening and learning about the complex realities around race. Here are a couple great talking points around this:

• Tell about a recent time you said or heard the words “I didn’t know that” (or wish you had).

• When is the last time you felt defensive or angry related to interactions around race, inclusion or social justice? How could you re-write that interaction with this idea as the starting place?

Joanne Reeck founded United for Change and serves as the Chief Inclusion Officer at Augsburg University. She spoke as part of Fabric Minneapolis gathering around Hearing Voices on November 10. Listen here!

Centering Practices: Creating Focus and Building Community

This fall Fabric Kids have been taking time each week to participate in a few centering practices to help us calm down, gain focus, and to connect together as a group.  One of the things we are aiming at is to help kids to become more aware of their bodies. When we have more awareness in our bodies, we can respond rather than react to what is going on.  A great practice for all of us is to S.T.O.P – Stop what we are doing, Take 3 deep breaths, Observe what is happening around you and then Proceed with awareness.

Here are a few centering practices to try and home:

Slinky Breathing: Hold a slinky in the palm of your hand, settle your body, then with your other hand stretch the slinky up as you breath in and fill up your lungs. As you push the air out of your lungs return the slinky back to your palm, controlling your timing to match your breathing.  Repeat 4-5 times.

Calm Down Jars: You can create a Calm Down Jar using a recycled soda or juice bottle.  Rinse out and then fill 2/3 full with warm water.  Add glitter glue and stir or shake (with lid) until it is mostly incorporated with the water. Then fill up the rest of the way with water.  Put a small bead of hot glue in the lid to secure.  When your body is feeling angry, upset, or worried, shake up the jar and then sit quietly watching the glitter fall back down to the bottom of the jar.  Remember to breathe! 

Tensing and Releasing: Lie down and take a few deep breaths. Say: Tense your stomach muscles for the count of two and then release or relax them.  See how this feels. Say: Now we’ll start this tensing and relaxing with each part of the body, starting with the toes. Clench your toes for the count of two, then release them. Now clench your feet for two, then release. Let’s try your calf muscles. Clench for two, then release. Work your way up your body until you finally finish up by clenching and releasing the top of your head. For added fun, you can ask your child to make a silly face as he clenches his face. Think about how letting go of hurt feelings might feel in your body?

Jungle Yoga: Yoga is a great way to connect with our bodies and the way our bodies are holding onto our feelings.  It’s fun too!  We did Jungle Yoga at the beginning of the year! There are lots of on-line jungle pose ideas or books for kids that you can try!

Cupcake Breathing: Imagine that you are holding your favorite cupcake in your hand. What does it look like?  What flavors would it have?  Now breath in the smell of that cupcake, slowly so you can enjoy every whiff! Now, imagine that the cupcake has a birthday candle on top. Use your inhaled breath to blow out the candle creating an “O” shape with your lips as you are exhaling.  Repeat 5 times.