Faith Dreaming Dreams from Crosses: Some Incomplete Thoughts Post-Elections

A few thoughts this morning. Flip your phone horizontally for better readability. 

Peace, all. 

Tom

"[A theology of the cross] is a way of life that we live out. It is a practice that involves risk. It is a story that, if truly told, courts danger but moves also into hopeful solidarity, the solidarity of those who are moved by the pain of God in the midst of this world, or by the pain of the world in the midst of God."

~ Vítor Westhelle 

"Hope is to hear the melody of the future." ~ Ernst Bloch | "And faith is to dance to it." ~ Rubem Alves

 

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Pushing us beyond the limits of a Theology of the Cross, our teacher Vítor Westhelle challenged us to develop Theologies *from* the Cross. Well, sort of. But not quite. More than that, he challenged us to discern what it would look like for us to live as theologians *from* the crosses in and around our communities. 

“What does it mean for us to stand in the places where people are suffering, persecuted, and crucified today? What does it mean to see, to perceive, to feel from the Cross, from the crosses?” he would ask. And from there, our teacher Rubem Alves would add, what will it look like to dream the dreams of the Crucified? From the valleys, will we dream the lowly lifted? From the hungry places, will we dream banquets and feasting? From the heart of the abandoned and forsaken, will we dream the isolated and imprisoned among us brought in and celebrated and honored as family? From the grave, will we play the flute? Will we hear the melody of the And Yet and join the skeletons in their dancing?

Learning from these two, we come to understand lived faith as both a place/positioning that influences our theological perceptions, as well as a deeply felt communal desire and wish that moves our shared heart. Again, we gather around crosses. We dream dreams. Or, said differently: we gather in forsaken places and hope against hope against hope. This is the birthplace of solidarity. 

Faith is not an imagined past to be returned to “again.” And it is never faith in a person, whatever their position of power. The dreams of the Crucified are not for projecting onto politicians, but for moving our bodies and communities into action, into “Resurrection practices,” as Westhelle liked to call them. 

We should have no doubt. Much pain is ahead. There are certainly plans to erect new crosses (if we are to take the elected at their word). There are plans to take away rights. To take away care. To imprison. To deport. To continue fueling and funding genocide and aggressions and war. And so on. 

Now is the time to live this kind of faith. To live as theologians from the cross. And to act as Resurrecting communities. Let’s gather. Let’s dream. Let’s rise again. And let’s mobilize. Not for the sake of a party or politician. But for the sake of all who suffer. And for the life of the world. 

Amen.