Let the Fires of Your Justice Burn
"A new world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
- Arundhati Roy
That quotation has served as the signature on my personal email account for almost a decade now. I think about it every so often, but particularly during the season of Advent. The way that it speaks to a future hope, a light in the darkness, has always appealed to me.
However, this is the first year that I really thought about the fact that I first discovered this quote in isolation: that I not only had never read it in context, but I didn't even know what that context was.
So I looked into it.
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” - Arundhati Roy, War Talk
I couldn't believe I have never read the full passage before. (And you better believe War Talk made it onto my reading list.) I love the last two sentences so much, but on their own, they can be used to justify a kind of complacency. If a new world is already on her way, then why bother working toward justice? It'll get here anyway.
The larger context reveals this as nonsense. Justice doesn't just happen, it needs to be striven for. Put in other terms, the kingdom of God may be at hand, but we still need to see it and work for it.
The full passage also increases the tie to Advent for me, because it reminds me of the Magnificat.
Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception*. Not being Roman Catholic, I don't really know much about the theology behind this doctrine**, but all too often, we Protestants use our discomfort with and confusion about Mary as an excuse to just avoid talking about her altogether, or even to denigrate her.
Regardless of where you are on Mary, I think it's clear that Luke's Gospel presents her as a prophet. There's the call and the attempt to deflect (i.e. "How can this be?"), though she accepts the call much more readily than say, Jeremiah does. Then her song to her cousin Elizabeth is as Old-Testament-prophetic as you can get. Despite our tendency to treat "prophecy" as a synonym for "prognostication," the Biblical prophecies usually take the form of warnings and promises. Warnings to change for those who are unjust and uncaring, and promises of new life and wholeness for those who are exploited and oppressed by this world.
Mary's song contains both warnings and promises. Not only that, but she does not speak of these things as a future reality. She says they have, in some sense, already happened or begun to happen: "He has shown strength with his arm;/he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts./He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,/and lifted up the lowly;/he has filled the hungry with good things,/and sent the rich away empty" (Luke 1:51-3; NRSV).
Or, if you like, "a new world is not only possible, she is on her way." But it is not merely a passive waiting that is asked of us. Mary rejoices not only that she sees the world that is coming, but also that she has been called to be a part of it. "He has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant./Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;/for the Mighty One has done great things for me,/and holy is his name" (Luke 1:48-9; NRSV).
As the liturgy I grew up with annually reminds me, "Advent means 'coming'." It is a time to be quiet, to try to silence the noise of empire and commercialism, to listen for the breathing of the world that is coming. It is also a time to be reminded, as we wait for the light in the darkness, that we have the opportunity and the responsibility to protect that light and that sound. To work for justice, healing, and wholeness.
What we are listening for in that sound of breath is, in the words of one of my favorite hymns based on the Magnificat***:
"This saving word that our forbears heard is the promise that holds us bound, 'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God, who is turning the world around."
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*Unrelated, but still important, it is also my mother's birthday. Hi, Mom! Happy Birthday!
**Though, to make things simpler, I do want to clear up one common misconception (ha!), so we're all on the same page. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not the same thing as the doctrine of Jesus' Virgin Birth. The Immaculate Conception is the idea that Mary herself was born without the taint of Original Sin.
***"The Canticle of the Turning" aka "My Soul Cries Out With A Joyful Shout," with words by Rory Cooney. The title of this post also comes from that song.
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By the way, if you're interested in more explorations of Mary's song and what it means for Advent, I found this post by Rachel Held Evans and this one by Ryan Kuja helpful and interesting as I wrote this post.