So, what is hope is protest?

You might be wondering, what’s this new social media and website thing Joel is into?  What is all this hoping and protesting about?

Not long after the beginning of the pandemic, I decided it was time to start a blog.  I named it “Hope Is Protest” - a phrase that has rattled around in my mind and soul for some time.  It’s a story for another time, but my exposure to some young activists in a low-income neighborhood caused me to begin to think about hope as protest.  Especially today, we tend to think of protest as outrage or anger but not as embodied hoping.  In these young leaders, I saw them just getting to work together from their church as friends against impossible odds for the sake of their own neighborhood.  When I left, I wasn’t sure I had ever seen a more virulent example of protest-the-empire hope, and it had manifested in the tangibility of their feet, hands, organizing, and creating.

My relationship with posting things online is troubled to say the least.  Sometimes, I really enjoy it.  Other times, I hate it.  Probably like the rest of us.  At times, I really believe in its power to create positive change - but only when I’m not trying to convince people to totally abstain so we can preserve the last vestiges of decency in society. The internal back and forth never seems to end.

Maybe it’s just getting older, but I feel over time I’ve become comfortable posting in an on-again off-again cadence.  I like social media, so long as I don’t have to feel beholden by it.  That’s the sweet spot for me. But finding that sweet spot has also let me discover some creative outlets that feel good - like, really good.

I can be a persuasive leader.  When I was in college, I read Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman for the first time. (Really?! How had it taken me that long to read it?)  It made me very pensive, and that’s probably for another post.  But it caused me to think a lot about how I wanted - and didn’t want - to use persuasion in leadership.  Especially in religious work.  Especially in community work.  It’s a complicated topic I’m certain I still haven’t got sorted out.

But here’s what I do know - when I become too calculated about recruiting people and creating projects and organizing things and trying to leading movements and make a difference - when I become too concerned that things happen my way - counterintuitively one of the best things I can do is just put more of myself out there.  Sometimes we critically think of the internet - particularly social media - as a place where we hide - as the place we conceal our true selves in favor of a curated version.  I’d agree.  But sometimes it can actually be the place we put ourselves out there - vulnerable to opinions and critique. It can be the place where we come out of hiding. My soul needs that sometimes. 

So here it goes.  It’s healthy for me to write - to be disciplined about thoughts and ideas and storytelling.  I talk too much and write too little. I think I need more of this kind of discipline in my life, so I’ll post on my blog here from time to time.  I’ve been taking more pictures and writing more poems, so you’ll see those as well.  And I love telling people about things I enjoy, so be looking for more of that kind of thing too.  

My guess is you’ll see some disorganized writing, some pictures I think are cool but might just be pretentious amateur fare, and some things I like that you can’t stand.  That’s ok.  That’s the part that’s actually good for me.  Like it or don’t, disagree with it or not, critique it, ignore it, or just don’t give a crap.  However it is you respond to what I put here, hopefully it will help remind me that I - and even the things I post - aren’t so important.  So thank you, no matter how you interact with my content.  

But maybe along the way your joy and mine will intersect as well.  Maybe we’ll discover we like the same book or can resonate with a similar part of our journey.  I’d love it if that happened too.