Resistance is Rest

How I stopped worrying and got back to The Work

Hi loves! I have been having a ball for the last month, travelling hither and yon to help out people I love and also just have fun, then coming back to get some of my new side hustles up and running (more on that at the end of this post).

One thing I have not been doing much of? My part to keep our country from sliding into irreversible autocracy. I haven’t been in nonviolent direct action trainings. I haven’t been making phone calls. I haven’t been Singing Resistance (except maybe in the shower). On May Day, I didn’t join my siblings in the streets. I was at the San Diego Zoo with my 6- and 8-year-old niece and nephew. This might be my favorite photo ever. I’m officially entering my Crazy Auntie Era.

Molly making an accidentally unhinged face with her family at the San Diego Zoo

I don’t feel guilty about my absence from the movement (not really). I know there are seasons for everything, especially where family, illness, aging, and work that pays the bills are concerned (and sabbath! Don’t forget that).

But I also know it’s time for me to get moving again. My involvement makes a difference. So this is an accountability post. Join me?

Pretty much everyone I know is worrying constantly, and with good reason. The War(s). The Economy. The Climate. The Greed and Grift and Corruption and General Hatefulness.

And REALLY, SCOTUS? You are not even pretending to be a nonpartisan highest-court-in-the-land anymore. Everyone on the right, it seems, is done fronting about fairness. This is the absolutely disgustingly scornful graphic Benny Johnson posted after the Supreme Court put what remained of the Voting Rights Act (and with it all southern Black representation in Congress) into a crematorium and then baking the ashes into a MAGA cake:

I have been worrying too. But on the last leg of my travels I finished re-watching Schitt’s Creek (Comfort Mode™) and remembered this gem from Moira Rose:

Moira in a sparkly fez saying, “Worry is but Undernourished Enthusiasm”

It’s time to worry less and work more for the world we want to live in. Especially you, white people with any smidge of privilege. And by you I mean me! And also you!

I wrote this UCC daily devotional a while back called Resistance is Rest (inverting Nap Bishop Tricia Hersey’s catchphrase), but I was constrained to 300 words, and I had a few more things to say that wouldn’t fit.

One was: getting involved in resistance efforts is inconvenient. There’s always something else claiming our time and attention away from the collective, unpaid work of supporting democracy and social change (whatever they say about George Soros’s checks to us ruffians…I haven’t gotten mine yet).

Dentist appointments. Oil changes. Camp paperwork. Exploding closets that will not organize themselves. Seasonal allergies. A hundred daily demands crowd out the calls to action.

But the world and its ills will not wait until it’s convenient for me to do my part of The Work. My friend Donna, age 78, is a wonder at integrating The Work while still having all The Fun. She once showed up to our writers’ group meeting in New Orleans a bit late because she had scheduled an impromptu political teach-in at Tulane down the street. Later that night we went dancing on Bourbon St. I got the sleepies at midnight and left her still shimmying with the musicians. The next morning she suggested we spend just a wee bit of time keeping company with the picketers for a local labor union.

I have not mastered the art of integrating The Work and The Fun. Whatever I am doing, I tend to do with singleminded purpose. But I have done enough of The Work that (even if I tend to forget in between times), The Work actually IS a different kind of “fun.” As I said in my devo,

”Jesus understood instinctively that ministry is in the interruptions. Author Tricia Hersey coined the phrase “Rest is resistance,” an antidote to the empire that wants to keep us overworking, distracted, and feeding the monstrous machines. But for some of us—particularly those of us who bear white skin and other forms of privilege that protect us from the worst of the harms happening—I suspect the resistance might be rest.

“Every time I clear my morning or afternoon of all the things I think I need to do and spend it supporting immigrants showing up for their ICE check-ins, or showing up to a city council meeting, or interrupting injustice anywhere, I find myself with more joy, strength and restfulness than if I’d had a spa day.”

If we’re tied in anxious knots, or feeling numb to the pain, getting MORE involved not less is probably what some of us most need.

For years, The Work was easy to integrate into my day job. As a pastor, I was expected to, or at least supported in, faith-based activism. Also, I wanted to be a role model for my congregations.

It’s different now. Nobody’s watching in the same way. These days, I need to find motivation when mine falls off just because it’s the right thing to do.

And one more thing. The Work right now is pretty clear: call, give, show up, support, organize, Say The Thing to your congressperson, neighbor, mother-in-law.

At some point, that Work will change: when we flip Congress, for example. There will come a time for new legislation, a radical alteration of our current course, and equally importantly: accountability for the harmdoers. When that happens (again, I’m mostly talking to myself and other white people),

PLEASE OH PLEASE

Resist the impulse to say (even to yourself) “let’s just put it all behind us and get back to normal.” Decide right now that you will not say that once this fever breaks. Or the midterms happen. Or Somebody dies. Or November 2028 finally rolls around.

We can’t go back to normal, because normal wasn’t working even before the rise of Drumpf and MAGA. The ways in which our society and economy are falling apart with alarming speed should make it abundantly clear how destructive invisible structural racism and misogyny, and extractive capitalism, and a private health care system, and extreme income inequality, and zero sensible immigration or housing policy is and has been.

Also: while you might think you are saying “let’s put it all behind us and move on,” out of exhaustion, or kindness, or a misguided errand of mercy to bring the right wing of America back into the fold, that sentiment is shot through with racism. To forgive and forget the architects of this reign of terror (against people of color, immigrants, trans/queer folks, women, poor and working class people) is to consign those groups of folks to be abused all over again. White people gonna whypipo, instinctively, chasing the mirage of (white) unity. But we don’t have to.

Remember Reconstruction, and post-Reconstruction? How white enslavers got to keep their political jobs, and even got reparations? And the benefit of the doubt that they had reformed, and were willing to play by the new rules? Read any Heather Cox Richardson article and remember that not holding harmdoers accountable (I’m not talking everyday voters, but policymakers with wealth and political access & power) is the blueprint to give wealthy white people the means to keep wrecking the earth and most of the lives on it, including yours and mine (unless you are reading this post, Jeff Bezos or Peter Thiel, in which case: surprised to see you here! And you won’t be as happy in your bunker as you think you will be).

So Beloved: if you’ve fallen out of Resistance mode like me, time to stop worrying and nourish your enthusiasm, re: Pastor Moira Rose. I’ll meet you out there.

Fist bump,
Molly

Some news!
I’m hosting a daylong renewal retreat at Folkenvale on July 20! There are 6 openings left! You can also join my (super low volume) Retreat Mailing List to learn *immediately* about future such offerings.

Our legal ketamine clinic, Transcendent Medicine, is officially open! Dr. Rob and I are ready to see a wide range of people seeking ketamine treatment for its nootropic/neurologically-emotionally-and-spiritually beneficial properties. You can book a free consult with us. Even if it’s not something you are looking for, please refer us to friends, families, others who might benefit!

The United Church of Christ Psychedelics Working Group has put together this amazing teaching toolkit! For immediate use in your setting, if you are UCC or any other stripe of progressive Christian, and want people to get better information about and access to this spiritual medicine.