Reservoir exists to help people connect with Jesus and flourish. We think the right church can be a good part of that happening, so we enjoy being a church that can help you discover more of the love of Jesus, the gift of community, and the joy of living. But we’re also aware that there’s a lot more to a flourishing life than church and that at any given time, church isn’t for everyone.

So each month, we’re sharing a few resources we’ve been enjoying and finding contribute to a flourishing life for us. I hope you enjoy some of these resources for your own flourishing life. If you have ideas for things we should include in future lists, send them to me at steve@reservoirchurch.org with the subject “Top 5” in your message.

1. I’ve plugged this podcast before, but I am really thankful for Jared Byas and Pete Enns’ show, The Bible for Normal People. I’m sure it’s the only podcast of which I’ve listened to every single episode. That says something about me – I love the Bible and honest, insightful voices that help me think about the Bible differently. But it says something about the podcast as well. The most recent episode had a great New Testament scholar, Daniel Kirk, walking us through some great insights on the gospel of Mark. I’ve also been introduced there to womanist scholars (the reading of in this case, The Bible, through the lens of the experience of Black women), Jewish and Christian Old Testament scholars and archaeologists, and figures from popular Christian culture who have reevaluated their perspective on the Bible, or found new ways to engage with it over time. 
2. This past month, I watched two very different films that moved me and drove me to prayer. One is The Hate U Give, the adaptation of Angie Thomas’ young adult novel. It’s a movie that is about police shootings of unarmed Black men but also about love and fatherhood and racism and coming of age and much more. My teenage and preteen sons gave it rave reviews, as do I. 
3. The other film is a bit older, but it’s streaming on Amazon and elsewhere. It’s The Long Green Line, a documentary about one season in the life of one of the greatest coaches of our time, high school cross country coach Joe Newton, who passed away last year. Newton won 26 state championships over his long career, but this film isn’t just about the admittedly niche subject of high school cross country (interesting to me right now, as my daughter has been emerging as a pretty darn good cross country runner!). It’s about coming of age and about what mentoring and encouragement and inclusion look like, and how powerful it is when grownups offer these things to teens. 
4. My local library had a display this month of fiction by Native American authors. The title I checked out, and really enjoyed, was Sherman Alexie’s collection of short stories, Ten Little Indians. The nine stories all feature Native American protagonists who are, amongst other things, coming to terms with their identity. Two that particularly resonated for me were the story of a young woman wondering if every life might be epic, and the tale of a middle-aged man looking for a second act past the the death of his parents and his life’s disappointments. 
5. Speaking of identity, current events in our country, and some media, and this upcoming Christmas season all have me thinking about how we wrestle with our own identities and the stories we tell about ourselves. As we’ve continued to witness shootings of unarmed Americans, including by police, and the tear-gassing of asylum seekers at the Mexican border, many Americans have been asking if this is the kind of country we are. The simple, if somewhat cynical answer, is yes – these events have long and deep roots in our bitter history. And yet for most of us, they aren’t part of the country we want to become. Can we embrace a better identity, a new story for ourselves?

   Hidden Brain’s Shankar Vedantam recently interviewed historian Annette Gordon-Reed discussing the contradictions at the heart of Thomas Jefferson’s complex identity and place in history. Jefferson penned the famous words “All men were created equal,” which have inspired Lincoln and King and others to advance freedom and universal human rights, and yet he owned slaves, including his long-standing concubine, Sally Hemmings. It seems Jefferson understood himself to be a progressive man, but in his optimism in inevitable human progress, he backed out of his own responsibilities to see that progress through. Part of Jefferson’s identity was “progressive man”, but part was also “man who’s entitled to dominance over his lover and the workers in his household.” These complicated contradictions of idealism and belief in progress right alongside entitlement and lack of self-awareness run through the fabric of American democracy and of most of us who live in this country as well.

   Some of my favorite stories involve this theme of the power of our construction of our own identity, and the power of the stories we come to tell about ourselves.

   As Christmas comes, I find myself asking questions about identity. Are we mainly vulnerable and alone in the world or is God profoundly with us now? Are we free agents, shaping our own futures, or are members of God’s family, citizens of God’s kingdom, seeking to find the way of Jesus in our private and public lives? Does our disappointment or our hope speak louder to us?

   May Jesus shape a better and better story for you this Christmas season, my friends.

Spiritual practices can seem like a daunting addition to our busy schedules. They say it takes something like three weeks to form a habit, too, so even if you start a spiritual practice of—say—daily bible reading, or prayer walking, can you stick with it long enough to form it into a habit? Maybe some remarkable folks among us create habits out of these disciplines, but I think it’s safe to say that many of us struggle to create space for regular spiritual practices in our busy lives. And then once we have made the space, we quickly forget about them.

Spiritual practices don’t have to be interruptions to your routine. Here are just three suggestions for things you can try this week that won’t require you to find extra time or go anywhere special.

1. A Palm Prayer

The palm prayer is a simple gesture prayer that can capture the spiritual act of releasing burdens to God and receiving grace and blessing from God. One simply holds their hands out in front of them, faces their palms down for a period of time, and then faces their palms up.

You can pray with words while doing this if you like. For example, with palms facing down, I might pray, “God, I give you to you the anxiety I’m experiencing right now.” With palms facing up, I might pray something like, “God, I receive the peace of your Spirit.”

But you don’t have to use words. You might just welcome a brief moment of internal silence, and hold your hands palms down for a beat, and then turn them up for a beat. Try it. You can even hold your hands under your desk at work.

2. A Warm Cup Prayer

Use your existing routines, and turn them into brief spiritual practices. Do you enjoy a ritual hot beverage in the morning? If so, try this:

Hold your cup of coffee/tea/hot water/hot cocoa, and allow your hands to feel the warmth of the cup. Can you, for a moment, imagine this warmth to be the warmth of the Spirit of God, radiating into you through your hands? Before you sip your coffee, notice the warmth.

Raise your cup to take a sip. As you do, can you imagine that the content’s of your cup are the life-sustaining nourishment of God? As you drink, welcome the life-giving nourishment of Jesus, who compares himself to food and drink. You can say words with this prayer too, if you want. But you don’t have to. Just allow the drinking of your cup to evoke for you the act of being nourished by a warm, energizing, sustaining God.

3. A Touch Prayer

This spiritual practice requires a tiny amount of pre-planning, but is the briefest practice of the lot.

Choose a spot in your home that you pass by often. Perhaps it’s your fridge, or the area next your front door. Now choose some kind of symbol of faith you connect with God. Maybe it’s a traditional cross, or some kind of art work; maybe it’s a memento that represents a relationship you’re grateful for, or a photograph of a time you remember God’s presence. Let this symbol be of your choosing. Take your item—your faith anchor, we’ll call it—and hang it in the spot that you chose.

Try briefly and gently touching this anchor with your fingertips when you pass by it, whenever you remember it. If your anchor is next to your front door, briefly touch it as you leave each day. As with the other prayers, you can certainly pray with words as you do this. But you might also just remember whatever feeling of connection to God and other that this anchor evokes in you. Allow yourself that daily moment of feeling-memory.

There are, of course, so many spiritual practices we can add into our schedules, some more time consuming than others. But sometimes these brief moments we take to simply notice our need for God, or our connection to God, can be the richest spiritual practices of all.

Jillie Wowk-Kennedy, Reservoir Member, interviews Liza F. Carter, whose work is currently on display in the Reservoir Dome Gallery. Liza is a Massachusetts-based watercolor painter and photographer. See her art on Sundays before/during/after our Sunday services. 

It took a little bit to get this interview off the ground. Poor Liza had to call me back 3 times while I tried to figure out how to record a phone call and in the end I just gave up and stuck her on speaker while I typed. From our conversation I learned a lot of valuable lessons about Art and Stewardship and How to Conduct a Phone Interview. Thanks, Liza, for sticking it out with this internewbie!

So, what can we expect to see in the Dome?

A lot of the pieces are up on my website. What’s different is they’re printed on large canvases, 2½ to 3 feet in diameter. They’re being shown on a completely different scale, so that’s sort of fun.

I know it’s sacrilege, like picking a favorite child, but I’ll ask anyway: Do you have a favorite piece? One that you’re most proud of or was the most fun to create?

The Pussy Willow ones. “Pussy Willow 3,” that’s my current favorite.

I pull the Pussy Willows up on her website; they’re a three-part watercolor series featured right on the homepage. “Pussy Willow 3” is smaller than the other two and the background is shot through with pure cobalt blue. Its perspective is tighter than the others, inviting your eyes to linger in the crux of the willow branch.

The thing about watercolors is, you’re always dancing between being in control and completely out of control. And you have to enjoy that process or else you switch to oils or acrylics. You never know what you’re going to get until you got it. With “Pussy Willow 3” I was happy with the background and the definition of the pussy willows themselves. The way I paint tends to be realistic but not photorealistic. With paintings, I like to know what I’m looking at, but if I’m looking at a painting I’m looking at something that’s more than a realistic depiction of something.

The photos that are in the show are more fine art interpretive photographs. They’re not documentary, but they’re also not extreme angles and filters and tweaking and post processing work. It’s just like! I don’t want to be spending all my time on the computer; it doesn’t speak to me. So when I want to be creative, I do it in the watercolors.

How did you first develop your appreciation for watercolors?

Color. I do a lot of knitting and my knitting is all about blending and doing dramatic things with the way colors work together and I was walking down a hallway in the local art center in Concord and there were some watercolor paintings on the walls and they had a lot of different pigments blended up to do their own particular magic and I thought WOAH! That’s what I’ve been trying to do with knitting. The artist was offering a class at the center, so I took her class and fell in love with the process. It was the play of the color and water.

How long have you been painting?

About 10 years.

What’s a lesson watercoloring has taught you?

You’re not in control. That’s sort of the first thing. And the other is you have to play with what you get.

How did you first develop your appreciation for photography?

I think it was being able to capture the “defining moment” where in the midst of everything moving, you capture a still that encapsulates everything. It’s something that, in the age of so-much-video, doesn’t really happen. It’s much easier to capture a scene with a video because you get the whole range. You see the movement and the relationship develop, whereas if you’re capturing that in a still… that’s a very different skillset.

Back when I started, video wasn’t really a thing, so I did enjoy trying to capture something that… like with the photos featured in the show, it’s more an emotion. It’s all nature images. When exploring a subject to share, like with my Mongolia pictures, I want to use photography. I didn’t want that to go through my interpretive lens.

How long have you been shooting film?

Since high school. That was really my first major art area.

What’s a lesson photography has taught you?

The importance of staying open to capturing that definitive moment that oftentimes you have a millisecond to react because the person or the light is going to change or the animal is going to move and you have to be open with those art-aware eyes. I never do studio or street photography; nature photography requires quick reflexes.

If you could direct your viewers’ eyes to one thing, what would it be?

I think that I would say take time to actually enter the picture. I think that one of the things that happens is that people look at things very cursorily and if you take time with any piece of artwork you will see a lot more than what you initially got. Stay with the picture; try to enter it.

What is one artist tool you can’t live without?

My eyeballs.

How would you describe your process?

It all starts with a visual — something that I’m excited by — and that pretty much drives everything else. In order to stick with something long enough you have to have a heart connection to it and you have to keep touching base with that initial thing that spoke to you. It’s easy to get waylaid in the technicalities; they’re important, but they’re not the only thing. I find that with painting.

I was originally trained as a scientist and I believe in the whole right brain/left brain thing, so I need to start the day in the right side of the brain. If I started the day in textbooks or going over notes, I would have a very hard time switching gears. I have to be very conscious of how I begin.

A drawing teacher once gave me this great tip: the left side is concerned with logistics. So, if you have a time limit, the left side of your brain will be like okay, what time is it? What time is it now? What time is it now? Set an alarm, so your left brain says okay, that’s set; I can butt out for a while. When I’m in the creative place where I want to be I do everything possible to support staying in there. Because it’s very easy to pop out!

Your academic background is in environmental science. What would you say the role of an environmental scientist is in our society?

Education. I think if people truly understood the implications of the decisions being made they would make very different decisions. There are… a lot of heads in the sand. It’s not going to affect me — it’s deeply scary. Things that were predicted when I was in grad school in the 80s are all coming to pass and now they’re so much more difficult to ease up or mediate than if they had just been fixed then. Toxic chemicals in our air and water and food,…it’s really scary!

I think it’s education and trying to build connection! People are not going to protect things they don’t love. However they experience it, through going out in nature themselves or through art… Nature deficit in this country is a very real issue and out of that spins lack of concern and decisions that end up trashing it.

What is the role of an artist?

Well, I can really only answer for myself. For me, I want to help build connections between people and the environment. And in my case, that’s by presenting the beauty of it and hoping that people will be pulled into that. That goes back to “people can’t protect what they don’t love.” It’s trying to make things more visible and it’s partially why I was experimenting with this scale.

What is a rule you love to break?

Most of them. I like to see between the cracks. The Mongolia book and the book on grass fed beef is falling in between categories of things. No one knew what to do with these books! Is it a textbook? Is it a guide book, a coffee table book, a photography book? And the answer could be yes or no to any of those things and, like many things that are new, people don’t know what to do with them. It’s filling those things in between the cracks…

She trails off. Liza had spent a full year living in Mongolia, documenting the daily lives of a community of nomadic herders. She ended up with a treasure trove of startling, vibrant images — at once sprawling and intimate — and nowhere to put them. Her publisher’s inability to commit finally drove Liza to self-publish a book which has gone on to receive seven awards. She’s facing the same short-sightedness with her current project, Hamburgers Don’t Grow on Trees, a children’s book about the American meat industry.

What’s your dream project? Like, no time constraints, unlimited funds, the world is your oyster! What would you do?

Ooh, um… A continuation of the photography book I’m trying to get published now, Hamburgers Don’t Grow on Trees. And my goal with that is, to cut to the real chase, to eliminate factory farms. I personally am an omnivore, I eat meat, but I only eat meat that is ethically grown and that’s a very small percentage of the meat in the world. I mean, everyone has a rough time at the end of life, but the quality of an animal’s entire life is the important piece to think about and as big corporations have taken over from family farms, it’s gotten exponentially worse. I mean, anyone who actually witnesses it no longer participates in it; it’s that horrible. There’s a lot of information on the scary things that happen and my book is showing kids a way that honors the animal and the farmer and takes care of the environment in the process. I’m sort of in the middle of it; I’m trying to get it out into the world because publishers are scared of it. It’s taking on a big topic, particularly for kids. And you know, it’s not a typical… what I have to do is figure out an end run around the gatekeepers. So that’s sort of my challenge right now.

How do you handle that frustration?

On a day-to-day level, it’s mainly hanging out with my personal menagerie and spending time out in nature. That’s hugely important for me. And there are people who are working on all these topics… I go back and forth between being optimistic that something can happen, but then I can also go down the rabbit hole, seeing all the stupid stuff that’s happening with our current administration, and get really bummed out.

My first job was working for the NRC in New York City and Reagan had just come in and he had hired a Secretary of Interior who was totally anti-environmental. This was early days of there even being an environmental case law and this guy was trying to undermine everything and just take us back to, like, to square zero. I remember I was talking to one of the lawyers and I asked him how he felt about going back to fight over square one and he said, ‘I love to win, but what I really love is the process and I’m okay with going back and fighting more’. And I thought…I am not okay with that. I love the end result, not the fight. So that’s when I started exploring other— that’s why I’m working as an artist, trying to shift how people view things. And I think many people have experienced seeing an image— most recently that young child who was separated from her parents at the border? That picture changed things. And again, that boy washed up on the shore? That also changed things. It’s those things that keeps me going, saying yeah, art and photography can make a difference.

Is there a question I haven’t asked that you wish I did?

Ha! Uh…It’s more of a rant. When you work as an artist, you very rarely get outside validation for anything that you do. When you’re working for an organization, you have a title, a bonus, you get raises and reviews, things you can look to as landmarks that you’re improving and that is not the life of the artist. It has to be much more internally satisfying. And it is! And it still can be sometimes challenging.

By now Liza has begun a two-week safari in Africa, radio-collaring giraffes and doubtlessly marinating in the thrill of walking the dirt of a different continent. Then she’ll make a quick pit stop in Geneva, where her daughter is finishing up a Masters degree. Liza also has a son, a dog, a parrot, eight chickens, and four rescue kittens. Her son is a musician. His band, Windborne, has recently taken off after one of their videos went viral (look up “Song of the Lower Classes at Trump Tower” on YouTube). Now, thanks to the internet, they work as full-time traveling musicians.

I’m using my art as a kind of activism, my son is doing the same thing through singing, and my daughter is getting a Masters in human rights law, so we’re all activists in certain ways.

 

by Lydia Shiu

Reservoir exists to help people connect with Jesus and flourish. We’re aware that there’s a lot more to a flourishing life than church and that at any given time, church isn’t for everyone.

Here’s my list of things outside of church that are helping me flourish this month… I hope you find something helpful!

1. I get distracted easily. Attempting to grasp at holy moments like prayer can be helped by things that anchor me. Pray As You Go is a prayer app that’s helped me do that. Even though it seems counterintuitive to grab my phone for creating sacred space, well, it’s what I have in my hand already and it actually takes me in. It’s a guided audio with music, Scripture, and reflection. It begins with music from diverse backgrounds of Christian traditions to set the tone. Then, reading of Scripture by a soothing British accented voice usually. It prompts for some questions for reflection and reads the text again. It’s paced well with silences, music, readings, and commentary. I love that it centers on a Bible text, a kind of Lectio Divina practice. I close my eyes and listen. It invites me in and I appreciate being simply guided. It’s easy and I can do it anywhere. Good prayer apps are hard to find, and I think this is one of my favorites.
   
2. Another great app for reading devotionals, rather than an audio prayer, is Our Bible App. It was created by a group of people who wanted to offer something different than what the large popular Christian media companies have. It’s inclusive, celebrates diversity, promotes decolonizing faith by highlighting the voices of LGBT, women, and people of color. It’s a platform for a diversity of devotionals that meet the needs of more inclusive views of theology and spirituality. They have a variety of series of topics you can choose from. One I recently enjoyed is a series called, We Belong: A Devotional Series For Those In the Borderlands, “a tool for liberation and healing for People of Color and Indigenous persons in the Church”. It spoke particularly to me in my sense of otherness and experiences of being marginalized — validating and encouraging me with Scripture and prayer. It’s a really unique voice in the devotionals world that’s much needed now.

3. Speaking of LGBT, women, and people of color. Here’s my book recommendation. Written by a Chinese-American journalist, Deborah Jian Lee, Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women, and Queer Christians Are Reclaiming Evangelicalism is a well organized overview of some of the histories behind American evangelicalism and where it is now. I found it not only encouraging to see new facets of Christianity in America, but it helped me understand how we ended up with some of the unique strands of American Christianity we’ve come to know today. And that it hasn’t always been that way. I think understanding our faith, church, and theology has much to do with the historical and social context we’re in. This book helped me see that a bit more clearly. And to see that new voices are rising to shape Christianity in a whole new way. I am encouraged to see Holy Spirit at work in fresh ways through people who love Jesus and are leading the church in a new generation. Lee also has a lovely podcast called, Kaleidoscope. It’s worth a listen.

4. A podcast I’d like to especially recommend is The Allender Center Podcast. Dr. Dan Allender is the brilliant Christian counselor that has pioneered some of the best work in healing from sexual abuse and trauma. With #metoo and the bombardment of a newly awakened realization about sexuality in our generation and culture, I think this is one of the best resources that I can recommend for everything from masculinity, loneliness, shame, hope, to spiritual abuse. Allender has written really important books like, The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse, if you’re in need of deeper work. But the podcast is more approachable (without needing to call your therapist!) with a variety of topics that are wise, authentic, and life giving. I believe he’s a truly a needed voice, especially in the church world that often lacks resources about sexuality.

5. Lastly, not specific to Christian tradition but just good stuff! Music opens me up. One of my go to places for music is Youtube NPR Music. To discover new music, I especially enjoy the Tiny Desk Concerts. They’re short live concerts that are intimate and fresh. It makes me feel like I’m right there, without going out to a venue or paying a ticket price! Because it’s a small room, the sound is usually so raw, like unplugged style. And the genre is quite diverse and I get exposed to types of music I would never find on my own. New music refreshes and excites me. It’s a way I get out of my own comfort zone and experience something totally different. Tiny Desk Concerts is a great portal to a new world, in a tiny bite size way.

I hope you enjoy some of these resources for your own flourishing life. If you have ideas for things we should include in future lists, send them to Steve at steve@reservoirchurch.org with the subject “Top 5” in your message.

by Laurie Bittmann 

The intersection of faith and disability is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.  I was born with a condition called Spina Bifida. This is a birth defect that occurs during fetal development, shortly after conception where the spinal cord does not form correctly. The impact of Spina Bifida varies from person to person, and ranges from almost no symptoms in the mildest of cases, to profound disability in the most severe form. I fall in the middle of this range. Some of the common symptoms that people with Spina Bifida face may include numbness and weakness, paralysis, challenges with toileting, kidney damage, skin breakdown, and orthopedic problems.  It is a lifelong condition with no cure, though there are treatments for many of the symptoms that lead to an increase in quality and quantity of life.

Most of the time, Spina Bifida is diagnosed before birth or shortly thereafter.  I was misdiagnosed for years, despite the fact that I had overt signs of this condition that were apparent from birth. At first, my body was able to compensate, but by the time I was 9 years old, the damage became increasingly evident. My legs started to become paralyzed. I could no longer run, walk, play, or even write with ease. My parents did not rest until they found a doctor who believed them in their concerns and a diagnosis was made. Shortly thereafter, I was scheduled for surgery.

Though I came to faith later in life, I can look back and see that God was speaking to me in terms of my diagnosis. Before I went into the hospital, my teacher had me tell my class about my upcoming surgery. One of my classmates asked me how long I was going to be in the hospital for, and how long I would be out of school. Unbeknownst to me, my doctors and parents were not expecting that I would return to school that year. However, “something” spoke to me, and I informed my class that I would be in the hospital for 2 weeks and home for an additional 2 weeks before returning to school. I could practically see my teacher thinking, “This kid has no idea what she is in for.” But lo and behold, I spent two weeks in the hospital and two weeks recovering at home before rejoining my class and finishing out the school year. To this day, I truly believe that it was God speaking to me in those moments, and that He was telling me that I was going to be okay.

One might think that being misdiagnosed for 9 years would lead to feelings of anger or regret. In some ways, yes, this might be justifiable. But instead I see God’s protection over me. Had I been diagnosed at birth, I likely would have had surgery shortly thereafter. Maybe that surgery would have prevented further deterioration of my condition – or perhaps, surgery could have led to severe nerve damage and complete paralysis. During the 9 years between my birth and diagnosis, medical technology advanced quite a bit. As a result, I was the first patient at the hospital where my surgery was performed to use a new technology that measured nerve impulses during surgery. On more than one occasion, the alarms sounded to alert my surgeon that he was dangerously close to causing permanent damage and he was able to back off, therefore preserving nerve function.

Living with a permanent disability has also shaped my view of healing.  The Bible is full of examples of Jesus healing the sick, the lame, the blind, and we are called to pray for one another in faith. But I ask you, what does it mean to be healed? Over the years, I have had many well intentioned people pray for my physical healing.  Yet, I still have Spina Bifida and I still have to deal daily with the negative effects of this condition. For years, I struggled with the fact that God had not healed my physical symptoms, and this took a toll on my faith. Was I not praying hard enough or long enough?  Was I doing it wrong? Over time, I have learned that healing is so much more than just a release from physical symptoms. Yes, sometimes healing does happen in the physical form (which is awesome and amazing when it does happen), but that is not the only way in which healing can occur. Healing can be richer, deeper, and more encompassing, than just the physical.

For me, healing is not a cure, but instead, it takes the form of being okay in my own body and knowing that despite the challenges that I face, I live a full and meaning filled life. For me, healing is being in connection with God, and being able to go to him not only on the harder days, but also in my celebrations of life. Living with Spina Bifida has given me passion, empathy, and drive in life to work in the medical field, with others who have disabilities or serious medical conditions. For me, healing is recognizing that life is a gift, and it is my intention to use the life that God has blessed me with to the best of my ability. “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalms 73:26)

A college professor once asked me, “Laurie, if you could go back and choose to be born without Spina Bifida, would you do it?” I didn’t even have to think about it. “No.” She seemed surprised by my answer and asked me to explain. For all of the challenges that arise from living with a permanent disability, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Living with Spina Bifida has shaped the way in which I view the world and allows me to see God’s beauty, in all of His creation – even if it not as one envisions it would be.

Laurie Bittmann is a member of the Reservoir community. She’ll join Steve Watson for part of his sermon on 10/21 to talk more about her thoughts on faith and disability. 

by Helen Lee

SPOILER ALERT: some spoilers from the film A Star is Born may follow. So if you were hoping to see it, wait to read this until later! 

A new re-make of an old-ish story, Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born tells the story of human fragility: of our fragile hearts, our fragile egos, and our fragile bodies. And importantly, it tells a story of the redeeming power of a loving gaze, and the crushing danger of gazes that lack love.

Saving Gaze

Ally is a talented singer who has resigned herself and her talents to singing in a drag club, where she’s beloved, and the only female they’d ever let sing there. She’s given up on “making it” anywhere else as a singer before starting, after internalizing the message that she is not the whole package. Thus far in her life, she’s been told enough times that she’s ugly that she believes it.

Ally even utilizes the make up techniques of drag queens to make herself performance ready. The artistry of drag makeup notwithstanding, these techniques are designed to create the illusion of a radically different appearance (as opposed to an augmented or touched up appearance). We learn early in the movie that in order for Ally to be presentable on a stage, she can’t appear to have the eyebrows, hair, or nose she was born with — or so she believes.

But in Jackson Maine, Ally is confronted with a sudden and loving gaze that startles her. He weeps when he watches her sing. When he visits her in her dressing room afterward, he is starstruck — even though everyone else in the room is starstruck by him, the famous singer.

With wonder and curiosity, but without judgment or revulsion, he watches her remove her false eyebrows, interested in the purpose they serve, and hungry to see what’s underneath. When she emerges looking like her true self, his gaze doesn’t change. He sees her in disguise and out, and delights in what he sees regardless.

 

It is Jackson’s loving gaze that draws Ally out onto the stage for an impromptu performance of a song she’s only created a rough draft of. And once on the stage, it’s Jackson’s gaze that seems to give her the permission she needs to share the voice that she’s been hiding for so long because she’s been told her body is not worth looking at. In beholding her as worthy, beautiful, important, Jackson begins to undo the damage of years of body diminishing messages. As a result, Ally flourishes.

A Death Giving Stare

Tragically and in stark contrast, Jackson seems to have the opposite trajectory of Ally. Plagued with unprocessed grief over the loss of both his parents as a preteen, Jackson has self-medicated for years with pills and alcohol. The introduction of Ally into his life prompts little attempts to get sober, but Jackson’s untreated mental illness is profound. His diminishment of his own body through abuse of drugs and alcohol has been enabled by his brother, everyone close to him, and his entire audience.

Jackson bears in his own body the lie from the world that he does not deserve to flourish in mind or spirit. Never resting, Jackson is accustomed to passing out more than falling asleep, after giving himself to the hungry eyes of everyone who feels entitled to his person. The loving gaze of Ally is a light in his dark, but she cannot single-handedly save him. In fact, the system of enabling around Jackson is so robust, that although Ally knows he needs help, she probably never appreciates how deep his need is until it is too late.

Jackson’s rock bottom comes as the kind of public humiliation none of us can imagine enduring. I had to watch this scene with my hands over my face, peeking through the cracks of my fingers. As Ally accepts the Grammy Award for best new artist, a drunk Jackson joins her on stage in front of the massive Grammy audience in addition to the millions of people watching on TV. He steals her moment, rambling incoherently, and then loses control of his bladder, wetting himself on the stage and collapsing. He goes to rehab soon after this.

Jackson’s return from rehab is loaded with hope. He’s clean and sober. He’s eager to get home. He loves his wife. He loves his dog. But in rehab, Jackson has been protected from the unforgiving stares of the world, and, sober, Jackson is still profoundly grieved and mentally ill. In rehab, Jackson has the support of group therapy and rest to hold him in his  now unhidden depression; out of rehab, he faces the same unfiltered and unforgiving, entitled gaze of the world.

One stare in particular seems to confirm Jackson’s crushing sense of worthlessness, and it comes from Ally’s agent, Rez. Rez takes advantage of a rare moment alone with Jackson to tell him that in spite of his work in rehab, in spite of his love for his wife, he will always be a black mark on her career. He will always be an embarrassment to her. The world will always see the humiliated man from the Grammy Awards when he stands next to her. In Jackson’s last moments with Ally he learns that she has decided to cancel her tour. Taking this as confirmation that he is, as Rez says, an insurmountable burden to his wife, Jackson resigns himself then and there to end his bodily life.

Jackson’s brother Bobby asserts later that his brother’s suicide is entirely his own fault. Perhaps it’s true that Jackson died at his hand alone, but can we expect a person to survive in a world that glares at him and calls him worthless? We are so fragile, after all.

You are not the sum of some series of unfortunate events, whether they were seen by only a few, or by the entire world. You are not an embarrassment or a black mark. You are precious and beloved. Your mind and spirit are worthy of flourishing; your body deserves care and is beautiful to behold. You are worthy.

One of the areas of consensus between most faith traditions and science is that all of us are made out of dust. We know the names of all that dust now. You and I are both a heaping pile of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, with a few handfuls of nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorous, and trace amounts of other elements. We now have a general sense of where all that dust came from as well – from our food and before that our mama’s food and a long time before that from dying stars. But the basic insight has remained the same. Like our pets and predators and pens and paper, we are all made out of dust.

In the Jewish scriptures, adopted by both Muslims and Christians, this insight sometimes takes a tragic note. In the human origin stories, our dustiness is associated with our tiring labor for survival. We are told that in this hard life, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)

In the bleak existential poetry of Ecclesiastes, the poet also notes our earthy mortality in despair. “For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.” (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20)

I feel this. I really do. Two nights ago I had a dream that someone I love died in a tragic accident. The next day I heard the news that a friend and colleague’s sister was terminally ill. Her kids are still in single digits. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust – it’s terrifyingly true.

As a pastor, I’ve said those words at too many funerals. I’ve looked out over coffins at grieving families and friends, trying to offer words of meaning and hope. I’ve poured ashes back into the earth and into the sea. I’ve sat with the ill and the dying – reading, whispering, singing to them in their rooms while the hospice worker or spouse takes a break; praying over their vulnerable bodies in their hospital beds. To be a member of the clergy of any faith is to be intimate with the dead and the dying.

All this has made it abundantly clear to me that as exalted and powerful and extraordinary as our species is, we are also very much of the earth. Out of the dust we are, and to dust we will return. That’s sobering. Yet it’s nothing like all bad news. For me, to know deep in my bones that we’re all of the dusty earth has been a profound source of help as well.

My own dusty mortality has been critical in my self-acceptance and – somewhat more slowly perhaps – in my acceptance of others. While the scriptures speak of our mortality in terms of tragedy, they also do so in terms of compassion. From the Bible’s songbook, we read:

 As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
  For he knows how we were made;
    he remembers that we are dust.

– Psalm 103-11-14

Unlike ourselves, the God of the Universe is relaxed about our weakness, and understanding of our flaws, because God knows we are dust.

A friend of mine sent me an article on obesity today, particularly the great shaming that those of us who are overweight so constantly endure – from our culture, from ourselves, and even from our physicians. One of the takeaways was to wonder what it would be like for our sanity and health if we just were to accept that we each have to do the best with the body that we have. To be kinder to ourselves, and to experience greater kindness and acceptance from others, would have a greater impact on our health and well-being than any well-meaning advice or criticism.

When I am most disappointed in myself or someone else, this has become my new mantra. We are only dust. When I remember this, I am reliably nudged toward acceptance and compassion, and better things happen next.  

Secondly, the remembrance of our common origins and destiny in the ground has given me a greater sense of connection, both to other living things and to the earth. As much as spirituality and religion has always tried to help us come to grips with our mortality, it has also been concerned with our interest in figuring out our place in this world.

We face something of an epidemic of loneliness and alienation in our age. I know I personally both experience and fear loneliness even more than death. And yet to know that my neighbor and cashier and sons are all dust, that the public figures I most adore and those I most resent all share my same material origins and destiny, is to remind me that we are all connected. When I’m nervous or unmoored, I can literally touch the ground and know that no matter where I am, I am at home.

Finally, knowing we all are dust has sometimes given me profound hope. In my work with the dead and dying, I have seen suffering and frailty and despair. But as much as I have seen these things, I have seen the miraculous and ethereal dignity and beauty of the human spirit. I have heard stories of unexpected amends made as people face death. I have listened to the bone-deep faith and assurance of the dying that this is not the end of them. I have seen transcendent peace on the faces of the suffering and emaciated. We sing a song in my church now and then where we say to our Maker, “You make beautiful things out of dust. You make beautiful things out of us.”

The dust from which we’re made has coalesced into bodies that somehow find room for beauty, aspiration, hope, joy, and love, often even in the bleakest times and places. As we hear in Jurassic Park: Life finds a way.

From dust we come, to dust we will return. But what dust we are now. And as to what we are becoming – who’s to say it won’t be even more stunning?

 

Steve Watson

Reservoir exists to help people connect with Jesus and flourish. We think the right church can be a good part of that happening, so we enjoy being a church that can help you discover more of the love of Jesus, the gift of community, and the joy of living. But we’re also aware that there’s a lot more to a flourishing life than church and that at any given time, church isn’t for everyone.

So each month, we’re sharing a few resources we’ve been enjoying and finding contribute to a flourishing life for us. This month’s top 5 is from me, but in the future, I hope to feature contributions from others in our community as well.

1. Getting outside in New England

   It’s Fall now, and that’s my favorite season, partly because Greater Boston and New England really shine this time of year. If you haven’t yet, you need to get outside and enjoy it. Three really great spots for Saturday walks among the changing foliage, all just a bike or MBTA ride away, are the Arnold Arboretum, the Middlesex Fells Reservation and the Blue Hills Reservation.  Run on the trails, take a walk, hike a bit – you’ll be so glad you did. If you have access to a car, and want to get outside the city, there are hundreds of amazing places to go. Personally, I recommend a half day on an apple farm (Russell Orchards and Brooksby Farm are my childhood picking grounds) or a day’s hike in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The closest spot along Rt. 93, the Franconia Notch area, is just stunning. More and more research suggests you’ll be less anxious, more grounded, and happier if you get outside in natural environments. What are you waiting for?

2. Rising Strong as a Spiritual Practice – Brenee Brown

   Late this summer, while driving about with our two teenage and one preteen child, my wife started playing a sociologist’s lectures for the family. A surefire way to put everyone to sleep or start a rebellion, you’d think, but no, they were gripping for everyone. This sociologist is the very famous Brenee Brown, and the lectures were from her work Rising Strong as a Spiritual Practice. This material, in any form, is just stunningly good and is helping save my life right now. I’ll give at least one talk this fall that’s rooted in some material that landed really well for me. There are loads of great stories and ideas around belonging, resilience, forgiveness and more of the elements and experiences of being a whole-hearted person. You can buy the audio, listen to it for free like we did on the hoopla app, or check out the book the material started in.

3. Geoffrey Owens and the dignity of work

   An interesting story I followed in the news this month had to do with the former Cosby Show actor Geoffrey Owens, his part-time job at a Trader Joe’s, and a public dust up on what does and doesn’t constitute meaningful work. People assumed that his entry level employment meant he had wasted his money or was a vocational failure. I love the way the story turned to validate Owens and all forms of honest, decent work. In his Good Morning America interview, Owens said, “People are rethinking what it means to work, the honor of the working person, and the dignity of work.” Perhaps you have or have had a job that seemed beneath you. Perhaps your pay or job status has frustrated or humiliated you. Or perhaps you’ve looked down on someone else’s work or career accomplishments. All this has been true for me at some point. To me, this story is a great reminder that job status and pay do not measure meaning and that there is value in all kinds of work and contributions to our greater flourishing.

4. Bob Marley throwback

   Speaking of how we measure flourishing, wealth, and meaning, this very old and short clip of an interview with Bob Marley has been stirring me as well. Just after Marley has become an international sensation, an Australian television interviewer asks him whether or not his music has made him rich. In seconds, Marley manages to confuse the interviewer, upend the meaning of the word “rich”, and start a whole new conversation on meaning and life. Rich in life forever – ask yourself what will give you that today, and see where that trail takes you.

    

5. “My Rapist Apologized” and similar stories

   In my first draft of this blog, #5 was one of my favorite novels I read this summer. That can wait, though. This week, as the Brett Kavanaugh hearings have brought teenage sexual assault into the news, I’ve been moved by two different stories of sexual assault that included some measure of apology or amends. The Atlantic published Deborah Copaken’s essay “My Rapist Apologized,” and The New York Times podcast covered a related story from Caitlin Flanagan. Both pieces explore the impact of implicit or explicit sorrow, regret, and apology for the survivor of sexual assault. Don’t get me wrong; neither woman says an apology makes everything right, not at all. But for people interested in a faith that centers the teaching and practice of amends, confession, forgiveness, repentance, and the like, both women’s voices stir powerfully. Feel free to skip these if you’re overdone or over-triggered by this topic in our year of #metoo, but I wanted to pass these on.

I hope you enjoy some of these resources for your own flourishing life. If you have ideas for things we should include in future lists, send them to me at steve@reservoirchurch.org with the subject “Top 5” in your message.

Ivy Anthony

Recently we asked our congregation, “what is one of your deepest fears?”  The response was varied, as one might guess – however, there were a cluster of answers that centered around the theme of loneliness; “I’m fearful of being alone”, “I’m afraid of dying alone”, “I’m afraid I’ll never find someone who I truly connect with”.

It seems that much of these fears are a reflection of our ever-growing disconnected society. And not only is “I’m afraid of being alone” an answer that comes from an unknown point in our future; it’s also a sentiment that 1 in 4 Americans feel now**.  A quarter of Americans say that they have no one to talk to, including their family, about their troubles or triumphs.

For me this data is heart-stopping and is fodder for even more central questions to how we live in this world. Where are we? Where are people finding connection? A sense of belonging? How is it that we find meaning, and flourish in this day and age?

These questions are at the heart of Angie Thurston and Casper ter Kuile’s work in their study, How We Gather, which takes a long look at what is happening among millennials, 1 in 3 whom answer “none of the above” when asked to name their religious identity. In fact with nearly 3,500 Christian churches closing* across the country each year we know this is a conversation happening far beyond church walls – one that permeates the human soul regardless of religious affiliation. And yet flourishing is often highly attributed to a sense of deep meaning, purpose and connection – so how is it that we pursue flourishing amidst such widespread disconnection in our world?

We are made for connection, and it seems our souls and bodies suffer without it.  Kuile points out that loneliness is a greater cause of death than obesity. And yet, millennials are seeking and creating new ways of finding meaning and purpose where they haven’t been able to find it. Thurston and Kuile’s study reflects the rise of unexpected, spiritual communities that fall outside of the realm of religion. Our hunger for connection, it seems, is a driving force for new creations: Fitness communities like Cross-Fit, Soul-cycle and yoga for instance are hugely popular.  And while it would appear that people only go to these space for help in shaping their bodies – Thurston and Kuile’s study shows that many people end up staying for this sense of flourishing, found through a deep sense of community. This connection helps shape not only their bodies, but who they are and how they show up in the world as well.***

The Birthplace of Flourishing

A few weeks ago I was watering at our local school gardens. I was feeling mostly annoyed that I had to carve space for this in my busy day.  But out of the corner of my eye I spotted an older woman, likely in her 70s, coming toward me. In great human-fashion I tried to not make eye contact, hoping that she was angling for someone else.  Quickly though it was apparent that she was trying to get my attention; “Can you help me? Excuse me! Can you help me, please?”

I turned and saw that she was carrying a large piece of a lawnmower in her hands.  She explained that she had been trying to get the grass collection bag over the handles, for quite some time but was unsuccessful on her own.  We wrestled for the next few minutes to get the piece connected and in that short, divine window I gained a more expansive view of what flourishing can be.   I learned about her life, her grown kids, how her hands use to be so much stronger, how she mows her lawn every week, how she loves watching kids walk by her house to school, how the guy on the phone from the hardware store advised her to “turn the lawnmower bag inside out to correctly put it on”.

If flourishing at its core is about belonging and becoming, then my hope is that the intersectionality of where I encounter God and where I encounter people is the birthplace of flourishing.  We are yearning and eager to be seen and known and included.  And we are quick to sniff out spaces that offer falsities or too much baggage to sift through. Perhaps this is why gyms and dinner tables and meet-up spots are more palatable than churches these days. There’s no pretense, no history — only the possibility of connection through ordinary life that feels accessible.

About mid-way through my assembly of this lawnmower with this 70-year old woman, I noticed that we were putting the grass bag on completely wrong (despite the hardware store dude’s advice on the phone).  But I didn’t want to stop the process and correct it. I wanted to follow this error all the way through, until we both realized it together and had to re-calibrate and start the process all over again together.   I wanted more time to laugh at us struggling to make sense of the plastic snaps, and more time to hear the grunts and groans as we tugged and pulled, and more time to watch our hands together – strong and weak, old and young(ish) – create something together, even though in the end it was completely nonfunctional. I realized in that moment on the sidewalk, lawnmower in hand, that I had found a living, breathing sanctuary in the form of another human being, and I wanted to stay in that sacred space.

It seems as though flourishing is less a linear process to a triumphant goal of air squats or kettlebell raises, and more a discover: found in our sweaty, mistake ridden, messy, sometimes inside-out kind of lives. Flourishing erupts in our hearts as we run to each other and say, “excuse me, can you help me?”

Paidrag O’ Tuama is an Irish poet and theologian who leads the Corrymeela community of Northern Ireland — a place that has offered refuge and healing since the country’s violent division. O’Tuama says that “belonging creates and undoes us both”.  This lawnmower woman undid me.  In that shared moment, I felt joy, I felt strength, I felt connectedness, I felt time sharpen and slow, allowing me to notice elements that I never would have otherwise. And I felt sparks of flourishing in side of my soul that ignited a sense of depth and new creation exactly where I stood.

Take, Bless, Break, Give and Repeat.

I’m sure that Jesus is cheering all the cross-fitters and soul-cyclers in this world on with vigor.  But I also think he’s cheering on all the rest of us, who might not have the $34 per class, or the flexibility of time, or the bodies that can enter such activity to flourish exactly where we are at — where we live, where we work, where we play, where we water gardens — by embracing a posture of connectedness with all those around us.

He invites and reminds us to do this, through these 5 ways of checking ourselves against loneliness, isolation and divisiveness and upholding flourishing in our lives:

These elements of the meal that Jesus shared with his closest friends on the eve of his death remind us that to flourish is a fully portable experience.  They are an invitation to recognize that we are all part of one another, a part of this life that is meant to be shared, eaten, spoke and lived. Indeed: to flourish is to fully live.

1. 1. Take: take in the opportunities around you to connect with others, even if these moments seem somehow less meaningful, mundane or ordinary.(To Try: Look up and make eye contact when you are out and about.  Invite someone over for dinner that you never have. Or check out The People’s Supper for ways to join a table that you didn’t set!)

       

   2. Bless:  Give thanks for all that you have.  This appreciation extended to God, connects all things as fully divine and fully human. 
   3. Break:  Break rhythm, be willing to be disrupted.  These moments of surrender, in our lives makes space for flourishing to set up and spread in our beings. 
   4. Give: We are given by God to our spaces that we inhabit – to this life  – to one another. And so may we keep giving of ourselves to one another – for the continuing  process and creation of connection. 
   5. Repeat: Do this again and again.  Keep seeking each other to create and set new patterns. But repeat this with as much forward motion as you can, together with an expectation of creative production which pushes you ahead and produces as it repeats.

Do all this not only in remembrance of a living God who cheers on your flourishing; do this also with the belief that today, wherever you stand, you are ready to be turned inside-out as you share this messy life with the ones near you. You are ready to find God in the living, breathing sanctuary of another. This might just be the ticket to satiating our hunger for one another.

* Shawna Anderson, Jessica Hamar Martinez, Catherine Hoegeman, Gary Adler and Mark Chaves, “Dearly Departed: How Often Do Congregations Close?”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2008, 47:321-328. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, including non-denominational Christian churches like Trinity Grace Church in New York City and Soul City Church in Chicago and hipster-friendly Soho Synagogue in lower Manhattan, which are growing among Millennials.

* Shawna Anderson, Jessica Hamar Martinez, Catherine Hoegeman, Gary Adler and Mark Chaves, Dearly Departed: How Often Do Congregations Close?, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2008, 47:321-328. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, including non-denominational Christian churches like Trinity Grace Church in New York City and Soul City Church in Chicago and hipster-friendly Soho Synagogue in lower Manhattan, which are growing among Millennials.

**The Loneliness of American Society

***“CrossFit is my church” – VOX

Helen Lee

A Disgust Compass?

Several years ago, an article published on the Gospel Coalition went viral. It submitted that a reaction of disgust to someone like me is a “moral” response. The article was written by Thabite Anyabwile and was called The Importance of Your Gag Reflex When Discussing Homosexuality and “Gay Marriage”. Anyabwile’s thesis was this: In discussing the morality of homosexuality, Christians should “return the discussion to sexual behavior in all its yuckiest gag-inducing truth” because “‘gay’ and ‘homosexual’ are polite terms for an ugly practice.”

When I read this article five years ago, my first response was actually gratitude. I saw it as a really honest articulation of a feeling I think a lot of people probably have, but conceal. But it also awakened in me a new form of discernment, and since then, I have not stopped weighing my feelings of disgust whenever they might come up.

Disgust Dehumanization

This new discernment — one that is suspect of disgust in all forms — was elicited by a smart comment on that article mentioning something called negativity dominance and its connection with dehumanization. Negativity dominance is the tendency for evaluations of combinations of negative and positive things to skew negative, even when that doesn’t make sense. That’s a hard-to-read definition. In other words, it’s the opposite of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” It’s: the whole is worse than the sum of its parts. It’s when a fly lands in your yogurt, and even after you remove the fly, you can’t stomach eating the rest of the yogurt.

Reactions of disgust towards parts of a person almost always lead to the dehumanization of that whole person. Disgust precludes respect, eliminates dignity, diminishes humanity. Choosing to lean in to a reaction of disgust towards part of a person will diminish your entire evaluation of that whole person. Like the fly tainted yogurt, the whole person is contaminated.

Disgust is part and parcel with dehumanization. Think of the disgust woven into racism, for example. The dehumanization of Black Americans has been tightly associated with disgust: fear of contamination, whether at the water fountain, the lunch counter, or in a potential romantic relationship. Or think of the moral judgment fat people experience, and the disgust woven into fatphobia: unchecked disgust is at the root of judgments that fat people are lazy, uneducated, or immoral.

Disgust and Embodiment

We’ve been considering embodiment lately on our blog and in our sermons, thinking about what a holistic approach to faith and living might look like: one that cares for the mind, spirit, and body. In particular, we’ve tried to hit on a main idea: we are one thing. We are not souls with bodies, or bodies with souls, or just bodies, or just souls — we are body and soul. And all of that is created and loved by God.

All of that is lovable.

All of that is beautiful.

All of that is good.

When we look at other people and we experience disgust when we see their body, or when we think about what they do with their body, we’re experiencing a knee-jerk dehumanization of that whole person, because they are one thing. Left unchecked, that disgust says that person is not lovable by God, is not beautiful, is not good. I say “left unchecked” because we are all products of our socialization — we all have baggage that might result in snap judgments, or knee-jerk disgust. But we also have grace to discern. All of us can answer our base instincts and take a beat to intentionally think:

Look at that child of God.

Look how beautiful that creation is.

Look how loved by God she is.

We have long been caught in a trap of disembodied faith — divorcing matter from spirit, and elevating spirit over matter, heavens over earth. When we’re reminded of the earthliness of a person or thing, we instinctively separate that person or thing from the love of God. Richard Beck talks about this disembodied “divinity ethic” in his book, Unclean:

Rituals of holiness and purification allow humans to approach the sacred… In short, the divinity ethic allows humans to approach the divine (allowing movement upward) while also protecting human dignity, the sacredness of the human person, and humane society (preventing movement downward). If we see a human person naked or urinating in public we are disgusted; the quarantine between the human and the bestial has been violated. And we see in our reaction the associations between disgust, social convention, dignity, and the sacred.

When we have a disgust reaction to a human being, we’re seeing that person as moving away from the divine. We’re seeing them as more animalistic. Typically our disgust reaction is closely associated with social convention. Our disgust is not some divine revelation of an intrinsic truth, but a trained loyalty to particular social conventions. A person’s disgust at pickled herring is no more a reliable moral compass than a person’s disgust at a Black person drinking from a White water fountain.

Check Your Disgust Before You Wreck Yourself

Being the object of disgust has opened my eyes to its pervasiveness. I notice it more when it pops up in my own heart. I’m starting to think it may be the very opposite of a clear word from God. Instinctive disgust (or dehumanizing) of another person reminds me of how much work I have to do. I have to be cautious about trusting my own instinctive moral judgments. When I forget the dignity of another person — body and soul — I am missing the mark. Examine disgust, whenever it pops up — its aim is dehumanization. No one is disgusting.

What God has made clean, you must not call profane
Acts 10:15