Dancing Instead Of Fighting

One of my mentors in my work as a counselor and therapist was the late Michael White. He was truly an amazing therapist and was the co-developer of a therapeutic approach called “narrative therapy” that I have engaged pretty extensively for a few decades now.

Michael was particularly interested in the language that people used and the stories that they would tell about their lives. He noticed that many people in the west used military metaphors when describing their relationship to the problems that they faced . A lot of people talked about “fighting their problems” or somehow being in direct conflict with them. He was concerned that western cultures had been so steeped in a war mentality that it was hard for us to even think outside of that box.

And while Michael would never try to talk someone out of their preferred way of engaging problems, he would also raise questions as to what difference it might make to shift our metaphors with respect to problems.

So he might ask people, “What might it mean to dance with your problem instead? Or maybe you could clown around with them?” He’d ask people, “What if you resigned from your service of the problem or repossessed your life from it?” Or maybe he’d ask, “What if you dissented from its demands or undermined it somehow?”

Jesus was also very wary of militarism and culture of war, and this is reflected in the gospel passage today from Mark 5. I would highly recommend reading more about Ched Myers’ analysis of what is commonly referred to as the passage of the “Gerasene Demoniac,” but the synopsis is that Jesus encounters a man possessed by a demon called “Legion” (a Roman military term). This man who is possessed by a military spirit has been living apart from his community and has been engaging in self-injurious behavior (naming the impacts of militarism). Ultimately Jesus casts the demon into a herd of pigs (an unclean animal according to Jewish custom) that runs off a cliff and drowns in water (not unlike Pharaoh’s army in the Exodus).

Just pause for a moment and think about how fighting or military metaphors may figure into your everyday thinking. (And for full transparency, my father worked full-time for his entire professional career in the National Guard. I grew up “playing” on jeeps and tanks at the armory in Manchester, NH, and thus was very steeped in military culture, military thinking and military metaphors!)

I raise this topic because in the circles I move in there is much talk and action these days about “fighting” our current administration as it rolls out an agenda that seems antithetical to our gospel values. And while I do not doubt for one minute that we need to offer forms of resistance to this agenda, I also wonder what it might mean to keep broadening our metaphors and the ways that we envision resistance.

I also wonder what it would mean if we did that at a personal level as well with the challenges we face.

I will not soon forget the witness of my sister-in-law, Tiffany, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer years ago. She decided that she did not wish to “fight” cancer but instead wanted to “dance” her way through it. And dance she did! She posted a series of videos of her dancing through her cancer journey and she became known locally as “the cancer dancer.” Mind you, she would never tell another person living with cancer that they should not “fight” their cancer. She just chose a metaphor and approach that made sense for her.

So going back to Michael White…

What if we decided to not dance with the current administration related to its policies?

What if we clowned around a bit with this administration’s policies and utilized tactics that people like activist Srda Popovic used to topple other authoritarian regimes? (I would highly recommend exploring the work of Popovic related to creative, nonviolent resistance)

What if we resigned from service to this administration’s demands and repossessed our personal and collective lives from it?

What if we dissented from and undermined its directives whenever we had the chance?

What might these actions look like – personally and collectively?

The first reading today from Hebrews 11 has a line in it that I think I might make my mantra for the next few weeks. It says, “God has forseen something better for us.” 

Given my reading of the gospel tradition, what is happening now in Washington, DC, is not, ultimately, good for us as a collective. It does not get us closer to God’s kin-dom here on earth. God HAS forseen something better for us, and this is not the path to get there. Thus, in the gospel tradition, we’re called to develop an alternative and provide resistance to the “powers and principalities” that might get in the way of God’s kin-dom.

As Richard Rohr and so many other great spiritual teachers have reminded us, however, we must be careful that we do not become the hate we are trying to oppose. Which is why thinking about our metaphors (especially the ones related to militarism) and tactics is important reflective work.

Being more conscious of our own mindset, metaphors and the words we use to describe our resistance to any injustice we encounter might just help us to actually develop an alternative that is not just reactionary but transformative.