Back in the day when I used to do this kind of thing, I spent a series of evenings drinking beer and eating pizza on the patio of a bar in Berkeley with a group of women who were getting PhDs in Divinity (this is a little known square on the Lesbian Bingo Card — it’s ok if you weren’t aware). They were very smart women, studying at the Graduate Theological Union. It’s a hard school to get into. I’m pretty sure. Because several of them also went to Harvard*. That’s a hard school, right? Right?

Anyway. We were hours into a multi-evening conversation where I’d been asking them a lot of questions about their ethics track. I was asking them what they studied, and what it had to do with people’s lives. It was late, and I’m not sure I was fully paying attention because I nearly jumped out of my chair when one woman slapped the table, looked at me and said, “You know what? You’re right. It isn’t actually ethical to be in this PhD program and not become a parish leader — to not support a community”.

Now to be clear, I am agnostic, and I wasn’t trying to get this woman to do or think anything in particular. I’m not invested in what particular people do with their degrees. I’d just been asking a lot of questions about what it actually meant to get a Phd in Ethics at a Divinity School. I didn’t understand … you get the degree, and then what? I had questions, and those questions led her to, well, some clarity. I guess?

I honestly didn’t mean to cause this woman a philosophical crisis. At that point in my life I didn’t know anyone who thought — and that’s it. You think, you become an expert in ethics, and then you do what?

Later I would think of her when I was in a class with a woman who was studying existentialism. In a paper on her studies that I was required to peer review she wrote about being asked at a party about what one does with existentialism and she said, “one thinks”.

She wished she hadn’t left it there. The next morning she had a whole series of ideas about how studying existentialism clarifies the things that have meaning.

Right now, if I had prayers, it would be that our country clarifies the things that have meaning.

I was listening to an interview with Senator Raphael Warnock on Pod Save America today, and he talked a little bit about the Christians of Germany who aided Hitler by deeming Christianity non-political. Tricky. I come from the personal is political tradition, so I can hardly wrap my mind around this idea. What do you do with your faith if it’s completely non-political? I guess you think.

Or you try not to.

Thinking has its challenges. If you think too much, you might just wonder what people’s motives are. You might start to notice things in the world that need your attention. You might also get really depressed about what people are willing to do to each other. If you don’t think, you can detach.

I have been thinking a lot about liberation theology, the idea that faith should involve good works. That the faithful should help other people be free.

And because there is order in the universe — sometimes — today’s episode of The Daily was about younger people returning to faith. Their religion reporter made the argument that for the left and the right, more people were seeking communities who share their values. It gives me some comfort to know that there are other people out there who are waking up, looking around and asking what the hell is happening. It’s a sign of the pendulum swinging in the other direction.

So that got me thinking about non-religious community spaces that share my values, and I came up with this list:

1. The library

   The ones where you can talk to someone. Where a librarian is well read. Where you can sit for hours and read, but you might also listen to a talk someone is giving on their book. The ones where kids are delighted.

2. Community centers

   The ones where there are classes that range from hula dancing to Chilean pottery to non-fiction writing to baking your own macaroons. The ones where folks in the senior center might sing you happy birthday, or there is a pick up basketball game, or there’s a meeting about how to better organize politically.

3. Book clubs, silent reading clubs, writing groups

   The ones where people read the books, where they have things to say, where they bake things to align with the book’s theme. The ones where writers are excited to read their work, where people have feedback to share, where the characters in your stories get the respect they deserve.

4. Giving circles

   The ones that build community. The ones that support critical activities. The ones where women are there for each other.

5. Community kitchens

   We’re cooking together — it doesn’t matter for whom.

6. Public parks

   Some people are playing soccer, some people are playing chess. Dogs are running off-leash and the bathrooms are clean. There’s a food truck nearby.

7. Coffee shops

   The ones where the baristas know your name. Where discussion groups meet. Where people work, read, and consider life quietly in the corner. Where the owner lives in the neighborhood.

8. Independent bookstores

   I made a deal with one of my local bookstore’s staff that we’d both read Adult Braces by Lindy West, and share what we thought.

What else?

A good community organizer will go to all of these places to talk about the problems we can solve. It’s a liberation theology of its own. If you see one of those “non-political” Christians, look for an opportunity to challenge their assumptions. Keep an eye out.

xoxo

The Daily's episode on the increase in young people returning to faith.

Here is Stephen Colbert in conversation with the closest the Jesuits have to a celebrity.

Apparently, Millenial Feminism is dead?

*I felt weird about putting too many jokes in one paragraph — I’m not Lindy West, I can’t pull that off. But this brings me to one of my favorite jokes with my friend and former staff member who got a graduate degree from Harvard. When he was working for me I asked him if I could say that he should surely knew the answer to whatever question we were working on because he went to Harvard, and he said, “only if whatever I say after that is legally binding”.