§

01.  Introduction

The sound of cloth ripping moved through the air. Not one cloth, but dozens. The sounds were staggered as people reflected on their griefs, lifted their cloth, paused, and tore. The threads were rent from one another, and the sound of their separation mirrored a communal mourning taking place. A sick father, a suffering friend, a racist comment or microaggression—the pain was remembered, grieved, and released through the energy required to tear the cloth.

It was early 2024 and our Westmont in San Francisco spring cohort of students had just arrived in the city. We dove into a conference hosted by The Center for Faith and Justice. In this opening session, our students were not listening to a lecture on lament, they were participating in it. They were getting a foretaste of the visceral nature faith often takes in the city, as their lament was not only in their minds, not only in their hearts, but in their fingertips.

The lament lived in the tactile nature of the cloth threads separating. Just as our students and the larger group mourned their own separation—from physical health, a relationship they wished were different, from their wholeness in whatever forms they felt separated from it. That separation pulsed in our fingertips and then moved through the room in a way we could watch and hear, as person after person tore their cloth into long thin strips. In being materialized, we realized together and beyond doubt that we were not alone in our lament. As the tearing of our cloths were mirrored and echoed back by the tearing of cloths across the room, we knew that the pain that is inevitable through our aliveness in a deeply imperfect world, this pain was not ours alone. Not ours alone to carry, not ours alone to feel, not ours alone at all.

We then tied the shredded strips of cloth to one another. We tied our laments so that we could feel and so that we could see, my pain—my pain is not separate from yours. And your pain—your pain will always be mine, if my eyes are open and if I am willing to not look away from the truth of our interconnectedness. We do not bear the same costs in this process, we do not bear the transgressions of other people or our world in the same way. But while our griefs don’t look the same, we can choose to rebalance some of the power if we double knot our wounds together.

§

02.  City Sense(s)

I love San Francisco for many reasons, among them that the vast spectrum of life experiences is nearly unavoidable (or at the very least, not so distant). In San Francisco, a sensory experience of life is also intimately proximate. You do not just “walk down the street.” Put in headphones if you will, but you will still be subject to the sirens of the passing firetrucks, the car honking at a passerby, and the clanging of a dumpster bin closing shut behind the restaurant. The smell of pizza, papusas, and dim sum perform a simultaneous olfactory seduction.

What does this city, often disregarded as home to a growing movement of heathens, have to do with faith? What can such a city, or any city, show us about God? Well, it might depend on how open our mind is, our heart is, and our senses are.

Our God took on flesh. What comes along with flesh? Taste, touch, smell, delight. What else? Pain, hunger, thirst, suffering. Does our faith walk in these same sensory pathways? Which ones are we open to and which ones do we cut off?

If we follow Jesus into faith and prayer and spiritual disciplines, how do we follow Jesus into an engagement of our material contexts in a way that doesn’t relegate them as “other” than our faith experiences, but intimately and inextricably connected to them? How can we know God more through the richness as well as discomforts found amongst vastly diverse humans in a densely populated space? What does it mean to be together well? How does Jesus show us?In myriad ways he shows us, from the tenderness of his gaze to the willingness to stop for unexpected encounters and needs. He shows us through his deep presence with those in pain, as well as at meals shared with a mosaic of company—some of whose presence we’d quickly assume and many whose presence we’d be prone to double-take. In the city, there is little that you double-take. A seventy-year old woman with purple hair? Of course. A man in leopard tights? Yep. A dog in a rainbow tuxedo? Hallelujah.

The proclivity to be surprised is a holy thing. Things so often aren’t how they seem, or how we see them. This can feel unsettling, or threatening. What if it were neither, or didn’t have to be? What if it were a source of discovery? What if it were delight? What if God were ready to delight us everyday, and what if that requires us first being in our bodies to the same extent some of us have become accustomed to the territory of our own and one another’s minds.

§

03.  An Invitation

Our understanding of God is deeply malnourished without the understandings forged through connection across difference. So, in our vastly diverse bodies and experiences, I invite you to tear cloth. I invite you to drink slowly and in good company, to pause when held close by someone you love. Because love, this God who is love, moves in the fullness of our humanity and meets us within all that our humanness entails. If we are going to offer as much of the fullness of God as we can to one another, then we have to first be fully present in our own contexts of materiality. We start first with the senses and physicality of our own bodies, and then extend outwards to engage with our contexts and the realities of other people. With humility and curiosity, we discover more of their experiences of space, place, and self.

Imago Dei should not turn us to gaze self-contently in the mirror, but rather compel us to seek out the array of imago dei that is walking, speaking, sensing, and spirit-pulsing through our world.

Whether you start with grief or with delight, with tearing cloth or with holy laughter, there is room for it all. From up in San Francisco and on behalf of Westmont students living in the city, we’ll meet you there.

§

04.  3 Spiritual Practices

• Try adding a new sensory element to your rhythm of prayer: try speaking aloud even if you are alone–how does the exercise of voice change the experience? Light a candle and imagine your prayers rising with the fragrance, the openness of your heart being an aroma good and whole before God.
• Organize a meal to share with people who may not typically be at the same table. How can those who may be accustomed to the social periphery be centered within the gathering?
• Is there a cause that you care about? Are people showing up to speak, to march, to witness one another? Show up in the space–to communicate with your voice, the movement of body, or your very presence, that your faith does not only whisper private supplication, but breathes in public spaces and public causes as well.