Power and Choice...Boundaries and Consent

In my last post, I wrote about power and choice in times of limited options. Today I want to offer my still-forming thoughts on boundaries and consent. In the age of coronavirus, we are being invited to explore boundaries and consent in new and very obvious ways.  

Here in Kentucky, as in many places in the U.S., we currently have a mask mandate for public indoor spaces. Wearing a mask in these spaces is something I’m willing to do. Based on the information I’ve gathered from a variety of sources, I make the conscious choice to follow the mandate. It’s not because I’m blindly following authority or because I am particularly fearful.

I don’t enjoy wearing the mask, but I consent to doing it in the interest of public health. I practice social distancing for the same reason. I also know that, along with the public health benefits, my decision to do both brings a greater sense of peace, a lowering of anxiety for those who face greater risks than I. In a time when so many people are experiencing anxiety for so many reasons, if I can help bring a greater sense of ease to someone, I will.

Last week I was standing in a long line and as the line moved along, I noticed my extreme discomfort with how close the person behind me was. She was not following social distancing guidelines and I could feel her near me. I was actually a little surprised by my discomfort because in other circumstances, I haven’t been so uncomfortable being in close proximity to others. As the line moved, I tried to move in ways that kept us farther apart. She continued to be closer than was comfortable for me. Finally, I turned around and said something like, “Hi, I’m feeling uncomfortable with how close we are. Would you be willing to stay a little farther back?” I didn’t know what she’d say, but thankfully, for the remainder of the time we were in line, she stayed farther back. She respected my boundary. I relaxed.

Earlier that same day I walked with a friend. When we met up, she was wearing a mask. I asked if she wanted me to put my mask on, too. She said yes. Normally when I go for walks, I don’t wear a mask, but because my friend said she’d prefer I wear it and because I want to respect her boundaries, I put my mask on.

This morning I walked with a different friend. She was wearing a mask. I asked If she wanted me to put my mask on, too. She said no. I asked if she was sure about that and she said yes, so I didn’t wear my mask. In both circumstances we negotiated boundaries and came to a place of consent.

I haven’t had negative encounters with people around masks or social distancing, though I’ve seen many stories about people aggressively crossing those boundaries. Refusing to wear a mask in public spaces. Refusing to social distance. Getting angry when asked to respect someone else’s boundaries, whether an individual’s or a business’s. In some cases, ignoring boundaries suggested or mandated for public health reasons has increased the spread of COVID, and even led to some people dying.

Is this really the world we want to live in? Where one person’s comfort and desire is more important than someone else’s safety? Or public safety?

With these questions, my mind flies to the theme of comfort vs. safety, power, choices, boundaries and consent as they relate to the movement for racial justice. That topic merits its own post (or two, or three, or four…) and so I mention it with the intention to return to it another day.    

Until then I will answer the above questions for myself. I’d be curious to know your answers, too.

I don’t want to live in a world where we can’t trust each other to respect boundaries, whether related to masks, social distancing, sharing personal information, sexual behavior and other issues of body autonomy, or anything else.

I want to live in a world in where I can state my boundaries and trust that you’ll respect them, even and especially when your comfort or desire is different from mine.

I want to live in a world where we’re willing to consider that we may not know the full story of someone else’s boundaries and that we don’t need to know the whys in order to respect them.

I want to live in a world where we put communal safety before personal comfort.

I want to live in a world where asking for consent in our interactions with others is common practice.

As with my last post, there is so much more to say. I haven’t touched the idea of boundaries and consent in relationships where power is unequal. That, too, merits more than just this mention. Maybe I am the one to write about it, maybe you are…

I’ll close with this: This work is deep. It is complicated. It is messy. It is hard. It is beautiful. Navigating boundaries and consent is a practice. And so again, I invite you to explore these themes for yourself and, if you choose, to practice with me.

Power and Choice in Times of Limited Options

I‘ve been thinking A LOT about four concepts lately-

Power.

Choice.

Boundaries.

Consent.

These are, I dare say, always important ideas to grapple with, but in a time like now,

·         when some people are feeling disempowered and believe they’re choiceless because their options are more limited,

·         when some people are awakening to their own power and discovering that they can choose options they didn’t know they had before

·         and some people are feeling powerless in some ways and empowered in others,

it feels like a good time to do some digging into these ideas.

Today I’m going to explore power and choice, I’m not sure if I’ll get to boundaries and consent. I feel certain that anything I write is going to be incomplete…thoughts in process. I’m ok with that because my hope is that my incomplete thoughts will get you thinking, too, and maybe we can have some sort of discussion (virtually or in some nice outdoor socially distanced setting) about it all.

March 2020. After a few months of hearing about COVID-19, all of a sudden life in the U.S. changed practically overnight. Many of us found ourselves without work, without social lives, without childcare or school for kiddos. Without entertainment. Without certainty. Trips, whether for business or pleasure cancelled.  In our homes 24/7, perhaps feeling trapped.

Most of us weren’t the ones choosing to shut down businesses, workplaces, schools, daycares.

Many of us felt scared, anxious, angry, vulnerable, lonely, and a whole other host of feelings. Some people equated the lower number of options to a lack of choice.  

Some accepted that there was much over which they had no control and consciously embraced the choices they could make: to clean the house, to go outside for a walk, to connect over Zoom, to plant a garden, to make meals for people who lacked food security, to ask for help, to offer help.

I want to emphasize a phrase from above: consciously embraced choices. Even when our options are limited, we can make choices. The reality is that we’re making choices all the time but we may not do so with much awareness. My hope is that we can get better at making conscious choices.

I say that knowing full well that for many of us, it’s one of those easier-said- than-done sorts of things.  We may have been taught to trust “authority” and not to trust ourselves, so we deliberate over every option until the options disappear or we second guess the option we’ve chosen. We may have been socialized to believe that in some situations there is only one right option and that if we choose something else, we are bad, so we don’t dare choose what we actually want. We may suffer from anxiety, depression, unhealed trauma, or any number of other things that may make recognizing, accepting, and making choices more challenging.

But not impossible.

I believe the more we can embrace the idea that even with fewer options, we can always make a choice, we’ll make strides toward greater wholeness. If we can bring deep consciousness to our choices, we’ll be doing revolutionary work.

Conscious choice could look something like this:

I hate my job and am really miserable now that I don’t have the distraction of co-workers or things to do after work. I could leave my job, but then I’d lose the security of my paycheck. I am choosing to stay in my job right now, because security feels like the most important need to meet right now. I’m also choosing to think about what I’d really love to do instead, so that later on, I can explore other options.  

I can’t go into the office to work and I’m sick of being in my house. I’m aware that I need a change of scenery, because I’m feeling claustrophobic and annoyed with everyone else in the house. I’m choosing to go for a drive.

I’ve lost my job and I’m worried as hell about how I’m going to pay rent or for groceries. I don’t know when UI is going to kick in. I’m panicking and I feel so damn lonely. I’m choosing to call my friend to talk through some of this.

Those choices don’t necessarily address the biggest needs, but they might meet some other needs. Having another need or two met might help us realize we do have power. We might feel more resourced and ready to think about the bigger needs, the other needs, in a more creative way.

Again, this is simplifying something that’s not necessarily simple.

But it’s possible.

I have too often lost my sense of agency and choice.

Told myself “I can’t” for made-up reasons in my head.

Told myself “I have to” for made-up reasons in my head.

I am learning to examine the stories I am telling myself and check their accuracy against observable reality.

I am learning to seek and embrace a sense of conscious choicefulness.

I’ve found that when I’m willing to look, I find that I do have choice.

My ideal option may not be on the table, and I may be disappointed about that. I may even feel angry or bitter.

In that case, I can choose to hold onto the bitterness and anger, maybe even giving myself a headache or a queasy stomach about it.

OR

I can choose to feel the grief and disappointment underneath the anger, and try to find another way to begin to meet the unmet need. If the anger and bitterness come back, I can tend to them again, and when I’m ready, move back to creative thinking. Or if I’m stuck in the well of emotions, I can ask a trusted person to help me sort through them and climb out of the well. And so on.

In every moment I have power and I have choice.

I can give them up or I can practice using them.

I am choosing to practice.

We Who Believe in Freedom...

I delivered most of the following words to my beloved church community yesterday. I have added a few other thoughts that I didn’t speak yesterday because of time constraints.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 5, 2020)

Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until It comes.”

– “Ella’s Song”, by Bernice Johnson Reagon, originally sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock

I have sung these words many times. As much as I love the song, recently I have had a niggling discomfort with this refrain. Yes, if we believe in freedom, we must work toward collective liberation. None of us are free until all of us are free. I believe the movement toward collective liberation is long work, longer than any of our lives. For that very reason, I believe that sometimes we have to rest. I believe that sometimes the work toward collective liberation actually is to rest.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus invites those “who labor and find life burdensome” to “[t]ake my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me... You will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The second reading tells us that we are called to live by the Spirit.

How do we live by the Spirit during global upheaval? How do we translate Jesus’ message to these times?

It feels safe to say all of us have been affected by events of the last several months. Some have experienced some slowing down, new spaciousness in their days. Others have experienced a speeding up, crowded days and crowded space, bearing the months-long weight of 24/7 parenting, full-time jobs, plus the new job of school teacher, all under one roof. Or taking care of COVID patients, or responding to mental health needs- anxiety, loneliness, grief- in a country and world that’s been turned upside down. Lost joys, lost jobs, lost loves. We know these realities. In one form or another, we are all living them.

In the midst of the pandemic, George Floyd was murdered by police, knee on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. And we learned about Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and remember so many others before them and learn new names of people who’ve been killed afterwards. Eyes that had not previously seen the disease of systemic racism are being opened. In response, people in all 50 states and across the globe, in big cities and small rural communities, have taken to the streets, willing to risk COVID-19 to affirm that Black lives matter. Then there are those at higher risk or caring for high-risk folks who are staying home, apologizing for not being on the streets and discerning how to respond in other ways.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest.

Take my yoke upon your shoulders, you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 

The culture we live in doesn’t value rest. Our culture values production, workaholism, working until we’re sick- physically, emotionally, spiritually- even working some of us, historically our Black and Brown siblings, to death. If we want collective liberation, the means are as important as the ends. We must build new systems even as we live in old ones crashing down around us. If we want to live in a world where people are valued simply because they are, then we need to free ourselves from the idea that people, including ourselves, are, first and foremost, what we do.

A few years ago I spent about a week at the Dakota Access Pipeline protest site of Standing Rock in North Dakota. By the time I got there, it was bitter-cold winter, there weren’t protests going on. Within minutes of arriving, I found work in a community kitchen, taking the place of someone who was leaving. A few nights into my stay, I was in a cozy tea yurt with a group of people and someone asked the group, “Why are you here?” My immediate answer: I am here to tell people to rest. The answer surprised me, but I knew it was true. I had encountered many dedicated folks who’d been at the camp for weeks to months- they were worn out, sick, edgy because of all they had experienced. From my place in the kitchen I found myself encouraging people to rest- to take more time sitting and eating by the fire, to get more sleep, to take a day or two away in a hotel where they could shower, take off a few layers of clothing, sleep in a bed. Some heeded the advice; others didn’t.

When I came home from Standing Rock, I went right back to work. Even though I’d only been gone for a week, I ended up with both the flu and a bad sinus infection.

I am only beginning to follow my own advice. My experience at and after Standing Rock is not the only times I have’t allowed myself to rest. I have too often gone from intense experience to intense experience without time to recover. It has too often resulted in physical illness. So I continue to try to integrate the lesson.

Slowly I am learning to practice it better. The very first card I made for my Cards for Remembering reads “I am allowed to rest.” During these weeks of protest, I’ve been aware of my capacity; I’ve stepped back more than I might have in the past or found ways to contribute that have been less taxing while I recover. I have accepted help when people have offered. As a result, when I do show up, I am doing so from a place of greater grounding and readiness.

adrienne maree brown cites Toni Cade Bambara when she says that “we must make just and liberated futures irresistible. We are all the protagonists of what might be called the great turning, the change, the new economy, the new world.” What a time to be alive!

To create a new world, we must not only do the serious and hard work of dismantling systems of oppression, but also cultivate joy, pleasure, and rest. We must interrupt the messages that say that resting is for the weak. We must take note of the weight we carry and consider whether it is ours to take on more or to allow others to take some of our load. This is not a once-and-for-all decision; it changes according to context. Knowing what is ours to carry comes from listening deeply to the Spirit that lives in us- individually and collectively. If you are weary, you are allowed to rest. If you’ve had time to rest and are ready to take on more weight, there are ways to do so, even from the safety of your home. A few days ago, community member Anice Chenault wrote this description of movements. It feels both specific to now and timeless. I wonder if you find yourself in this description or can imagine a place for yourself that’s not mentioned. 

Here’s how movements work. Dreamers and visionaries imagine up powerful actions, rooted in culture and the present moment. Actions are placed in the context of larger strategy and mission. Many actions, many different ways. We learn from our movement elders and listen to the leadership of the youth. We unlearn the white-washed lies we’ve been told. OGs train new folks in Direct Action tactics - most importantly, how to stay grounded and embodied and de-escalate ourselves and others. Folks show up to the front lines. Grandparents keep the kids when the risks are too high. Moms organize supply collections and deliveries. Businesses offer their physical locations as collection points. Our geeky friends provide tech support. Folks offer their presence - for hours, days or weeks. Street Medics work in shifts 24/7. Stay-at-home folks staff social media. Volunteers get folks to the polls on Election Day. Thousands of people join phone banks to raise awareness and funds. Night owls stay 12-hour shifts to make sure that loved ones are apprised of the status of folks in jail and are there at 4am when they are released to cheer, offer water and pizza and cigarettes and a ride home. We build locally and nationally and internationally. Sometimes, one partner handles a full-time job, a quote on a new water heater, getting the lawn mowed, and registering the kid for summer camp so another can be about movement work full-time. Single parents move mountains and show up with babies in slings and set about the work. People give money to keep it going. Mental Health folks and healers show up because there is TRAUMA in this work and it is imperative that we heal. We check in on each other. We build community and trust over time. Pot-lucks are strategic movement-building tools. We risk the conversations to break white silence. We believe people of color and women and trans folk and anyone who is telling us about their own oppression. We call each other in when we make mistakes. We learn to apologize to each other. We try again. Moms organize family-friendly actions so we can start to train the next generation. It takes us all.

When we each take a part, the work becomes a little lighter and a little more sustainable, particularly for those who have historically shouldered the most weight. And so I wonder, what is yours to do right now? Is your work to offer or to receive relief? Could both be true at once? Trust that both are beautiful acts. We who believe in freedom must sometimes rest.

The above video was recorded in Louisville, KY on July 4, 2020 at Jefferson Square Park, which many people now refer to as Injustice Square or Breonna Taylor Park. Located between the City Hall, Louisville Metro Police Headquarters, Metro Corrections, and the courts, it is the center of ongoing protests seeking justice for Breonna Taylor and the larger call to racial justice. Singing this song not quite perfectly, at this place, with street sounds and whoever chose to be around us, on Independence Day felt like a way to honor a fuller meaning of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”