Reflecting When the World is on Fire

Rev. Breanna Illéné, Director of Ecumenical Innovation and Justice Initiatives

“The times are urgent; slow down.” I have chanted this Yoruba saying I heard from psychotherapist, author and soul activist Frances Weller over and over recently. Our office has been in the middle of supporting neighbors amid several crises across our state over the past few weeks - police and state violence, natural disasters, collapse of systems of care, right-wing groups organizing, and so much more. I jokingly said to several people (because sometimes some dark humor is needed in times of stress), “Congratulations, you earned your chaplains to the apocalypse badge this week.” 

I am someone prone to action. If I see a problem, I want to fix it. Some of my favorite stories of Jesus are of him doing things - healing people, multiplying fish and loaves, asking hard questions, and clearing out the temple. And while Christians are called to follow Jesus in these actions by loving our neighbors and caring for them, I also have been holding onto something deeper that I believe our faith calls us to. What does it mean to show up in these spaces rooted in Christ’s love? How am I, a person of faith, a pastor, different from a nonprofit worker? What does it mean to hold presence and create space for grief, joy, anger, fear, connection, and all the emotions that we feel as humans, recognizing that God holds these too?

I sat down this week to work on this article. We had planned to release it a few weeks ago but plans were disrupted as we responded to the needs in front of us. When I opened my Google doc where I had drafted a few sentences already, I was struck by the first line I had written; “Why do we need to theologically reflect when the world is on fire?” 

I was brought back to some conversation we had in our office over the past few days. We had been deep in the work of coordinating and responding and I literally said the line above as we were feeling overwhelmed. “The times are urgent, we need to slow down.” We took a breath. We started talking. We asked questions like: What’s the bigger story? Where is God in this? What does our faith say about this? There were plenty of action items to do, but we also realized that it was important to slow down and ask where God was present in what we were doing. 

This is a common practice for us. We are often deep in the work that happens when crises hit our state. Our days, messy and complicated. Filled with phone calls, emails, text messages, and many, many decisions. And I have found when we can slow down to ask why we are doing the work and ask deeper faith questions, we are more rooted in our responses. We are able to connect to the stories of Jesus and our faith that remind us we aren’t the first people to face crises. We are able to reach into bigger stories that remind us every person reflects the imago dei and that we are humans caught in messy and broken systems. We are able to better see where God is moving in our communities.

One of the things we’ve been working on as a staff is asking: how do we bring these theological conversations forward more regularly? How do we invite others into the conversation? How do we do the public theology that is a unique gift the Church has to offer our world?

We have been developing a series called “Juicy Questions” where we sit with colleagues across the state for some of these deeper theological discussions. In our interview with Megan Westra, Wisconsin-based founder of HeyMsTheologyTeacher, she said, “I tell my students all the time …'I don't wanna answer your questions. I want to teach you to ask better ones.’ ….. And if we believe in a God who is big and expansive and infinite and generative and creative and all of these different things…it's very audacious to assume that we would be able to answer all the questions [ourselves].”

The WCC staff invites you to join us in asking the juicy questions about where God is showing up in our communities, and how we understand the work we are doing as the Church. We will be sharing long-form interviews on YouTube and short clips on social media. Use your social media to ask some questions or reach out to us to set up a conversation. 

But most of all, we invite you to take a pause in your work from time to time. Say a prayer, reflect on where God is moving, and follow in the footsteps of Jesus.