What kind of resistance?

tldr: Some narratives of resistance. And the part we don’t want to miss.

On a different note, our first Integration Circle is on Wednesday, April 30, 2:30-3:30 East. You can Sign Up Here, even if you can’t make this week’s.

The new season of Andor has launched and it is good to know that our kids (and lots of grown ups!) get to experience a story about how much sacrifice it takes to actually confront fascism. Timely.

I think it’s a great show. It’s nuanced. It explores moral ambiguities. And it makes it abundantly clear that Empire really gives no fucks. It cares nothing about individual freedom. It cares nothing about the rule of law. And it will extract and extract until there is nothing left to do but eat itself into oblivion.

We are going to come back to Andor.

But over the last number of weeks I have also been enjoying another great story about resistance. The still unfolding podcast “Divine Intervention.” This one is about true events.

It is about the Vietnam War, the Catholic Left, Hoover’s FBI and a bunch of people that I intimately know and love, right here, in the City of Boston. The phenomenally produced podcast is a real life example of what resistance felt and looked like during a time that literally reshaped our culture.

Part of what’s powerful about Divine Intervention is the role of faith in the high stakes project of peace and justice. A bunch of young people who grew up Catholic. Catholic enough that some became priests and nuns. And here they were, trying to figure out what it truly means to put your faith into action. To have to do things that go against the hierarchy and long standing norms of one of earth’s most powerful institutions.

So we have Andor, and we have Divine Intervention. And I’m going to add another layer.

Nonviolent Resistance

Andor is more on the side of armed struggle. And I always side with the resistance when it comes to the Star Wars Universe. But I don’t quite see myself in armed struggle when it comes to the real world. Even if I do see the role it can play.

Therefore when Mikayla and my good friend Maureen White held a virtual community gathering on nonviolent revolutions I knew I had to sign up and learn what it was about. They called it “We are Not Weak: Lessons on How to Stop a Dictator” and it focused on the great work of Gene Sharp. Example after example served to illustrate the remarkable power of nonviolent resistance. It was absolutely inspiring.

Nonviolent struggle demands great risk and sacrifice. But it also demands that we humanize the other. It invites both discipline and creativity. And it holds essential lessons for those who want to meet this moment. If you want to learn more about Dr. Sharp’s work, I recommend the documentary: “How to Start a Revolution.”

This theme of sacrifice isn’t just historical. It’s prescient for us. Right now.

It’s Going to Take Sacrifice

Of all people, it was President Obama (certainly not one to be called a revolutionary!) who I recently heard remind an audience that we “might” have to sacrifice something:

We got pretty comfortable and complacent. It has been easy during most of our lifetimes to say you are progressive or say you are for social justice or say you're for free speech and not have to pay a price for it. And now we're at one of those moments where it's not enough just to say you're for something. You may actually have to do something and possibly sacrifice...

And that’s what Andor, and Divine Intervention and How to Start a (Nonviolent) Revolution all have in common. They show us that resistance demands sacrifice.

The status quo is coming apart. And I am of the belief that it is not going to come back together. We are in a moment of breach. A moment of transition. It makes no sense to hold on to our comfort zone. Because the comfort zone is no longer there.

There are many kinds of comfort zones. Top among which is the basic foundation of food, shelter, jobs, physical safety and a state that will not turn its weapons against you.

Take a moment to pause for gratitude if you are among those who get to count on any of the above. Seriously. It’s good to say thank yous. Too many people are losing what you have.

Many of us still have our comforts. But there’s another, less obvious comfort zone we rarely name.

We Also Have a Metaphysical Comfort Zone.

What could I possibly mean by that?

I mean that we tend to settle into a culturally conditioned idea of what reality is. It is so foundational that we don’t question it. It is an often unconscious belief that helps us make sense of the baffling mystery of aliveness. In our culture, the prevalent metaphysical assumption is the materialist worldview. The view that:

The universe is made of things. The only thing that is real is the thing that you observe, quantify and measure. And if you have not seen it or measured it yet, you will eventually get to it.

This idea is so central to Western Culture that it is not even treated as an idea. It is treated as an unquestionable fact. It is the definition of reality. It is treated like it is always always already so. And the colonizing role of the West is to dominate the world into adopting it. The West is here to domesticate the mystery. Define. Contain. Wield and Use.

Materialism is the Metaphysical Comfort Zone of Western Culture

Which is why the Divine Intervention podcast is important. Because people were grappling with a faith that was not just a faith. It was also part of their identity and culture. It wasn’t just about going to church or not. It was about who they thought themselves to be.

They had to grapple with culture, faith, religion and how these all intersected with their material conditions.

Now let’s come back to Andor.

So, yeah, one of the ways people like to praise Andor is by saying things like:

“It’s Star Wars without the Wizards!”

And I get it!

Who thought they could make a Star Wars without Jedi at the heart of it?

There is something so inspiring about people rising and acting without lightsabers and super powers. Especially today. Especially right now. When we have to figure out how to stand against satellites, corporate hyper surveillance and the mighty force of state intimidation.

We will have to find a way.

And here is the turn I want to take.

Which is why I brought in one of the many faith based movements that shaped the Civil Rights and the Vietnam Era.

Because I know for a fact we need faith. We need traditions and ancient structures.

I actually think we need the wizards. And maybe it does not help to call them wizards.

I believe that we need magic. And maybe it does not help to call it magic either.

All respect due to the witches and the wizards, the spell makers and the conjurers, that I am honored to count among our friends and my readers.

We definitively need the Force. And I mean that just like in Star Wars.

“an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.”

— Obi-Wan Kenobi, A New Hope

As we turn toward resistance it serves us well to move beyond the comfort zone of materialism. To challenge the reductionist world view that zapped the world of enchantment. (More on this in my recent talk on the Post-Liberal World Order.)

And No! I’m not talking against science. God knows we need to hold on to our evidence based frames in all the places they are shown to work. (God help us from the Secretary of Health!)

But we must also know the limits of the so-called rational worldview. It is a worldview decimating the earth by negating its aliveness. Materialism is what allows for devastating extraction.

I want to be part of the resistance. But not the polarization.

Is there any way this could possibly make sense?

I’m really asking!

I don’t have the answer.

I know I want to be willing to sacrifice. But I hesitate to turn myself to revolutionary frameworks that are still based in a worldview that is void of faith and magic. I don’t want to exchange one materialist worldview for another. I don’t want to exchange one form of domination for another.

I want to reclaim ancestral worldviews. The wisdom and power of mythos. The role of drum, song, and ritual.

I am not saying I want to go back in time to an idealized past that never happened. I know that’s a dangerous fallacy.

But I do want to remember the path of wisdom that has survived through the ages. The ways that already got us through a myriad apocalypse.

We need the keepers of the medicine. And we need the keepers of the songs. We need the elders that still tell the ancient stories.

We need the mighty force of ritual. The way it heals us. The way it connects us. The way it moves us through this communal grief stuck in our bodies through generations.

We need the ways that help us contend with this baffling and ineffable mystery. With the tragedy of it. And the glory of it. The very awe of the sacred wonder.

We need to let go of our materialist comfort zone. The unquestioned idea that fools us into believing we can put every thing in its place. That there is a formula for every problem. That if we just follow the right set of steps then everything will be fine.

Things are not fine. It will get worse before it gets better. But we are people with ancestors. We still have forests and waters. We have deserts and we have mountains. There is spirit in these places.

We still know how to light fires. There are still stars there to guide us. We have drums. Songs. Dance, trance, divination.

It seem silly to leave so much on the table.

I love the Force. And the wizards.

I love this earth.

I love us.