A Permanent Earthquake

what to do when the ground beneath our feet is ribboned with fault lines

I live on two fault lines that are both well overdue for their Big One: the Hayward fault, short but deadly, and the long arm of the San Andreas fault. The other day, my phone yelped at me to stop, drop and cover because there was an earthquake on the way. It turned out to be a small one. But that night at 3am, my phone woke me up again–the Great Shakeout annual earthquake drill going off 7 hours early. Someone better have lost their job for that! The adrenaline flowed, and some subset of 8 million Bay Areans, including me, were done sleeping for the night. 

When I first moved here I read a lot about how to prepare: taking care to put the right-sized wrench next to the gas shutoff point; stocking an earthquake bin on our patio with food, water and mylar blankets. I even put a crowbar under our bed to pry debris off my beloved Peter and kids with my suddenly Herculean strength if the quake arrived at night. 

Seven years has gone by since then, and I don’t think about earthquakes every minute of every day. The body is designed to counter the fight-or-flight response (sympathetic nervous system) with the rest-and-digest response (parasympathetic nervous system). It can’t consistently sustain a high state of arousal. Of course, people with PTSD and anxiety disorders do, and it harms every system in their bodies. And now the world is doing its best to keep all of us from resting and digesting, not just those living with PTSD.

How many of us live with this kind of low-key omnipresent activation all the time? Kids who have to do active shooter drills at school. Those who live with severe weather and under climate threat (which is increasingly, all of us). And of course: people all over the world who live in or adjacent to conflict regions. 

I had a dream about Israel and Gaza last night. I was leading a tour group in a part of Israel far from the current conflicts. But then I watched a missile arc toward our building at dusk. I raced to find a mask to protect me from smoke and dust, then stopped, dropped and covered my head. The rocket destroyed the uninhabited building next door and we all breathed a sign of relief.

We looked down and noticed people having dinner at an open air bar next to the destroyed building. There was music and laughter, the tinkling of glasses. How could they carry on enjoying themselves when under constant risk of death or dismemberment? 

I woke up from the dream, and thought about how people living in Israel used to carry around gas masks as they went about their daily business, should shelling or a suicide bomber strike. Even in a war zone, people can adapt to the threat and carry on. When I visited to Bethlehem years ago, I was stunned by how sweet life seemed within those apartheid walls. Weren’t these people supposed to be mad as hell, or deeply demoralized? But here they were, whistling through a graveyard. Of course, I wasn’t privy to their inner thoughts…

None of this is to say that people living on the fault lines created by human conflict should have to adapt. A Christian organization working in Gaza reported a father saying: “It is a permanent earthquake. We try to hug our children and relieve them of fear and terror, and many times we cannot, because of the force of the strikes.”

It’s worth remembering that when the prophet Elijah beheld the presence of God (I Kings 19), before God came in the form of a “still small voice” or alternately translated “the sound of silence,” a ragin wind, a fire, and an earthquake tore through the place where Elijah was shivering. But the Bible is explicit that God was NOT in any of these. Hear this: God is not in the earthquake, but in the silence that fell afterward.

I’ve thought a lot this week about what to say about Israel and Gaza, as a Christian leader. Of course, I want to talk about Jesus’ third way of nonviolence, neither returning evil for evil nor being a doormat. But weighing in with my religion seems a little suspicious coming from someone who isn’t directly impacted by the current conflict. And doubly sus coming from a tradition that has so often failed to live up to its own ideals, Christians bearing responsibility for many of the bloodiest and most wicked wars since Jesus unwisely left us to our own devices. 

What can and should we do, then? Last Thursday 21 religious leaders came to my church for lunch: women rabbis and historically Black church clergy, Quakers, Buddhists and Catholic priests. We were in a heat wave, so I made gazpacho and cold potato leek soup. It was the first time in many years that the faith leaders of Berkeley had come together in person in this way. We’d planned this lunch months ago, but it felt serendipitous, God showing off. We wanted to be together because we were were all sick at heart, scared, and disoriented. And we wanted to hear from those most impacted in our midst.

When we were checking in, one rabbi was fierce, and one wept. How lonely it is to be suffering and scared when the rest of the world seems to be going about its business, something Palestinians and Jewish people alike here in the U.S. are feeling keenly. 

Religious leaders are often called on to tend the needs of people who are grieving and traumatized when we are grieving and traumatized ourselves. We have to fake a courage we don’t feel. We are called upon to speak–to offer words of comfort and hope, a call to action. To bring a sense of safety, even resolution, when all is still mystery and mess. 

I don’t know what it is to be part of a marginalized group that regularly experiences denigration and threat against my person (unless you count being a woman), but on more than one occasion I have stood up to preach at my queer-affirming church, spotted a solo white guy with a shifty or nervous affect in the 7th pew, and wondered idly if I should be wearing a bullet-proof vest. 

A few things the rabbis asked the rest of the Berkeley faith leaders to do, expanded with some Molly-isms:

~Check on impacted people you are connected to, neighbors, friends and family. Right here at home there are people going to worship services and rationally wondering if they will be murdered for practicing their faith. They’re fearful of going to the grocery store in hijab or wearing a yarmulke. Do a simple act of kindness for them: bring dinner, give them a date night, send them a love note. If it’s appropriate and with permission beforehand, show up outside a synagogue or a mosque in your town holding paper hearts, offer to be additional eyes out front keeping worshippers safe inside, or worship with them in a quiet show of solidarity. 

~Get off social media. Really. Delete your Twitter/X account. It’s very polarizing and full of bad takes, disinformation and active propaganda campaigns from chaos agents. (see what I am reading for news below)

~Do not make the Jewish people in your lives performatively condemn the Israeli government before they express grief, anger and fear. Do not make the Palestinian/Muslim people in your lives performatively condemn Hamas before they can likewise express feelings. 

~If it’s not your story, don’t center yourself in the narrative. Listen more than you talk. 

~Resist the urge to take sides to feel more of an illusion of control over all that is happening. Don’t oversimplify an extremely old (between 80 and 3000 years old) and extremely complex situation.

~Cultivate compassion. Adam Grant said recently that we risk burnout from “empathic distress,” feeling *too much pain* about situations we feel helpless about. Pray longer than you doomscroll, then set the global situation aside and do a local, loving act for another human being: give the unhoused guy 5 bucks or a full meal, call someone at church who is shut in and lonely, take a shift at the food pantry. 

I’ll add another one I’ve heard a bunch: whatever you think you think, whatever you feel you feel: be hard on systems and soft on people.

There is so much more to say, but it’s not mine to say. Just this: no one should have to live in constant fear, wondering whether if that tremor will turn out to be the Big One that will take everything and everyone out.

And last but not least: God didn’t send this disaster. But She will use it. How, we can’t yet imagine. But you’ll know it’s God by the sweet silence that falls like a hush.

Love love and more love,

Molly

~

News and recommendations! 

As always, the Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg has so much wisdom and real-ness for this moment. 

I started following this retired Black spy guy who seems to have a lot of interesting deep-divey background on fault lines in the Middle East. I read Ha’aretz, the Israeli newspaper, and Al Jazeera, the Arab newspaper. 

Come and see me in DC tomorrow night with the other Stillspeaking Writers! I don’t know if it will stream. 

Last week I preached at City of Refuge UCC (home of Bishop Yvette Flunder, the best living preacher I’ve heard)! It was a peak life moment. Seriously, that congregation is the most spirit-filled, most fun, most loving, this-one-goes-to-11 I’ve ever been blessed to worship with. 

Next week is How to Begin When Your World is Ending’s 1st book birthday! Happy Birthday baby! If you haven’t yet read it and feel like your world is ending, you can buy it most anywhere books are sold or ask your local library to pick up a copy.

When all else fails: read historical fiction. It will remind you that humans have always been kind of f*cked up, and take you out of the current conflict into one that (sort of?) resolved, eventually. I’m loving the new Ken Follett Kingsbridge novel.