Epsom Salts and Spaghetti

I can’t stop thinking about two very different kinds of violence. No one can avoid the war in Ukraine; it’s constantly on the news, on my feeds, on our minds. Is this Hitler invading Czechoslovakia, the first shot in a multi-year world war three? Is this going to end with massive nuclear slaughter? You don’t have to ask such big questions to feel upset about what seems like a groundless invasion of a free, independent country by an aggressive behemoth of a neighbor. David and Goliath, only Goliath has 40 miles of tanks, and it just seems so pointless and unfair.

Listening to my morning podcast, I’m also reminded that it’s the 10 year anniversary of the killing of Trayvon Martin. Ten years! The list of names we say has grown exponentially since then, but for many, especially for people who do not live the reality of this kind of violence, Trayvon was the first: first awakening to systemic racial injustice, first racial justice protests. Trayvon Martin was a teenager walking home from buying snacks when a neighborhood watch captain deemed him a threat and shot him. No provocation, just the assumption that a young Black man in a hoodie is dangerous. In the ten years since, police killings have not abated – approximately 1000 a year, with black people three times more likely to be killed. Lord, have mercy. What may be changing is our willingness to tolerate it. We are starting to see convictions–granted, only in the most egregious cases–but even those were not expected ten years ago. Trayvon Martin’s murder was egregious; his killer went free. 

Whatever change Trayvon Martin’s death has sparked, and Lord willing, continues to, it’s not by accident. On the podcast, It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders, the host interviewed a woman who was propelled into policing activism through the incident. She tells the story of how she and a handful of others–perhaps 40 people in total–marched for three days to the town where Trayvon Martin was killed, to demand the arrest of the man responsible. In the midst of a dramatic story, Sam asks a seemingly mundane question: “How does a march like that work, I mean, what are the logistics?” I find her answer surprisingly profound:

Black churches. 

Black church buildings were safe havens for marchers to sleep. Black churchgoers provided spaghetti dinners for hungry bellies and bowls of water with Epson salt for tired feet. Ten years later, this woman who had marched for three days to seek the arrest of a murderer remembers the comfort of being fed.

I often wonder about the value of my own attempts to love and serve. I especially question the value of my writing; who needs stories about cake and flowers when the world is on fire? I long for justice to roll like a river, as the prophet says. For much of my life I have denied myself permission to seriously pursue something that feels fundamentally selfish, compelled to direct my primary energy into trying to “be the change” in a more obvious way. Though the desire is (mostly) pure, its manifestation can become a joyless duty, a narrow vision of what seeking justice looks like, a misguided attempt to carry more than is mine to hold. Stepping beyond the power of the sense of obligation and finding the freedom to write without knowing how it does anyone any good, to explore desires welling up in me that don’t have obvious connections to world peace, has been an important step, but also fraught. The pure part of my desire for justice wonders if there is still a way for me to contribute, while my baser instinct worry people won’t realize I still care.

But I can cook a bowl of spaghetti for someone who is hungry. 

I can offer a bed for someone who needs rest. 

I can set a welcoming table for someone carrying a burden. 

Did the churchgoers showing up with food fixate on being a pivotal part of a turning point in America’s racial justice movement? Or were they simply responding to the ordinary hunger of that day’s guests? There is no shortage of ordinary acts of love I can offer in exactly the life I’m living. The only catch is I might never get to know whether or how it matters. 

My spiritual director offers me the image of a tapestry: from the back a million tiny knots, and you can’t know as each one is put in place, or even when looking at the finished product from this side, how any little thread fits into a literal bigger picture. But just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean there isn’t a glorious picture created out of the individual pieces, each in place where it is supposed to be. 

This pushes all kinds of buttons for me: my desires for recognition, for control, for having an impact and knowing the outcome and the answers. I can’t help thinking, I could live with being a tiny thread in a glorious whole–if I could just see the picture and know for certain it was true. But that knowledge isn’t promised, and focusing on the great glorious unknown often comes at the expense of actual faithfulness in what is. 

For this Lenten season, the fast my heart needs is letting go of these desires. Not because the underlying desire is wrong, but because I’m so prone to seek superficial satisfaction, fixating on the wrong side of the tapestry. 

Letting go of these desires requires a deep trust in the one weaving the tapestry. I am trying  to cultivate this trust through a discipline of listening to God’s invitations to what faithfulness looks like, right here, right now. One invitation for me in this season is to practice paying attention to the glimmers of beauty and wonder unfolding in the ordinary, to notice God’s hand at work in the mundane, to praise the mutilated world. Sometimes the invitation is to share bread with a neighbor, or set an extra seat at our chaotic table. Sometimes it is creating a space where another can sit still with me, and listen to what God’s invitations for each of us might be.

And this is why, in the midst of violence that is out of my control, abroad and at home, I am putting out my own little bowl of Epsom salts in the form of micro-retreats on Fridays in March, starting tomorrow. The world is burning, come and be still. It feels like a radical and rebellious act, it feels like a crazy thing to give attention to. It is just what I need. Maybe it is just what you need too.