Days of Fire: Fire of Spirit By Karen Georgia A. Thompson
playing with fire
(A poem written in response to White supremacy on display in Charlottesville, VA on August 11, 2017, and to a history some choose to forget.)
fire of terror
fire by night
hatred on sticks
O, say can you see?
burning out your plight
burning down our homes
hooded masks you proudly wear
waving fear to control
fire on crosses
fire by night
casting shadows on oak leaves
witnessing temples swinging
by the dawns early light
from these ancient trees
bringing torture and death
to what you tried to own
fire in your hand
flame missing from your soul
Black lives can not be bought or sold
fire of spirit
fire by night
ours is no forgotten dream
fire in our hearts
fire in our bellies
lift every voice and sing
at the twilight’s last gleaming
fire on lawns
fire by night
the neighborhood watch rides again
afraid of unarmed men and women
showing disregard for breathing children
good for your cotton fields
good for cleaning your floors
chasing lives on your terror rides
throwing cocktails at innocent doors
bombs bursting in air
the flag still flies
fire on streets
fire by night
bringing fresh terror to churches and Black lives
misplaced blame
still the source of your pain
wearing polo shirts and designer ties
whiteness the only hood you now wear
bringing your granddaddies’ fire games
attempting evictions by fire and terror
tiki torches burning citronella
fire of spirit
fire by night
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave
fire in our hearts
fire in our bellies
marching and kneeling
at the twilight’s last gleaming
KGAT
2:56
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
10 October 2017
On August 11, 2017, the world watched as white nationalists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, VA. Mere months after the inauguration of the new President of the United States, this group of mostly white men gathered in protest at the site of the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. They were protesting the city’s plan to remove the statue from the grounds of the University of Virginia. The statue, yet another vestige of the Civil War and a reminder of the history of racism in the US, became a symbol for white nationalism on display as these tiki torch carrying protesters marched their fire through the streets of Charlottesville. This is Trump’s America. (https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/us/charlottesville-lee-monument-spencer-protests-trnd/index.html)
The torch carrying, firelit protest was readily and aptly connected with the night rides of terror of the Ku Klux Klan, whose history of terrorism in the South is well documented. Like the KKK before them, these fire carriers were not afraid to display their bigotry, to claim white supremacy as the order of the day, and to name their Christianity and love for Jesus as a source for their nationalistic bent, their hatred and their violence.
My poem “playing with fire” was a response to the violence in Charlottesville and to a brand of Christianity on parade that is inconsistent with my Christianity, even as it is congruous with the ideals of Trump’s America. There was the juxtaposition of protests of white nationalism and protests of racism by NFL players who were taken to task by the media as they knelt during the national anthem. The lack of response by the White House to events in Charlottesville was deafening, the silence a sign of fires of hatred burning across the US. What does this unholy twinning of white nationalism — past and present — mean for people of faith in these days? For me, these are days of fire!
In the midst of these days, I wonder what it means to be Christian — to be a follower of Jesus who spoke a message of peace and spent his days overturning and protesting Empire. I wonder what it means to be Christian in these days when being Christian is clearly associated with hatred, fear and xenophobia publicly displayed. Yet I believe there is role and work for the church to bring a message of peace, to speak peace in the midst of discord and to bring voice to the inclusive love of Jesus.
I find myself thinking of tiki torches making their way en masse down the streets of Charlottesville — and the voices of angry white people laying claims to Jesus and land, neither of which they own. I also find myself thinking of these unholy fires and wondering what it means for Christians to claim the fire of the Spirit and the fire of God who shows up in the flames of burning bushes.
I thought of the story of Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3. In that context God was revealed to Moses with a specific request on behalf of God’s people who were oppressed. As I see fire atop those culturally-appropriated tiki torches, I am reminded that God still calls men and women for the purpose of releasing the oppressed. My faith is renewed in the hope that there are those who are able to respond to the voice of God calling from the holiness of the burning bush which was not consumed by the fire it held. These are days of fire, days for people of God to find their voices and make their way to speaking truth into the injustices caused by white supremacy, white privilege and white nationalism. God has seen, God has heard and God is sending you! These are days of fire.
The work of the Spirit sits at the heart of people of faith. In the Spirit we understand God at work in the world as Great Mystery. I am reminded of the birth of the early church in Acts 2, a moment marked with tongues of fire descending to represent the presence of the Divine and a holy moment. These are days when many wonder: where is the church? Where is the voice of the church — the mainline church — the progressive church — the church standing on behalf of communities relegated to the margins by fear and hatred? Where is the church in refuting the hate-filled Jesus claiming rhetoric that is emboldened by the desire to “make America great again” – a layered, loaded phrase that hearkens back to a more racist, more segregated and more exclusive United States? Where is the church born of fire in these days of fire?
Faith in these days must be a faith that can support the resistance and provide the resilience needed, calling for change, demanding change from our institutions and from the government. Faith on display must be willing to risk in order to live the love of neighbor and self that Jesus proclaimed. Faith in these days must be willing to dismantle the structures that oppress and the legislation that seeks to bind. Faith in these days must be rooted in a call for justice and a belief that the fire of the Spirit is present in the church. Faith in these days must extinguish the fires of tiki torches, the fires of burning crosses and the fires that lick as hatred consuming the lives of men, women and children in the US and globally. This is faith on display in Trump’s America.
Ours is the call to be present in the presence of the Holy, a fire that burns but does not consume. Our is the call in these days of unholy fire to find our way to seeing the burning bushes, the signs around us that God is at work. Ours is the call to live and breathe the fire of the Holy Spirit knowing that the miracles of yesterday are present for us in these days of fire.
The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson serves as the Minister for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations in the Office of the General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ. She is an inspiring preacher, teacher, poet, and published author sharing her skills and gifts in a variety of settings nationally and internationally. As the Ecumenical Officer for the UCC she is responsible for nurturing and coordinating the ecumenical work of the UCC through involvement in the UCC’s relationships, partnerships, councils of churches, theological dialogues and ecumenical initiatives. She represents the UCC in all ecumenical settings and advises the General Minister and President as well as other UCC leadership on ecumenical policy. She represents the UCC at domestic and global ecumenical bodies such as the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches and the World Communion of Reformed Churches and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the National Council of Churches as Secretary and the Steering Committee for Churches Uniting in Christ, and serves in other leadership capacities within the ecumenical community.
Prior to accepting the call as Minister for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, Rev. Thompson was the Minister for Racial Justice for the UCC. She continues to carry a passion for racial justice and racial equity globally along with related intersectionalities, a passion which informs her ministry. Before joining the national staff, she served in the Florida Conference UCC as a Pastor and on the conference staff, and in the New York Conference on the pastoral staff at the Church in The Gardens in Forest Hills. She earned a BA from Brooklyn College in New York, a Masters in Public Administration from North Carolina Central University in Durham NC, an M Div from Union in New York and a D. Min. from Seattle University, as well as studying Public Policy at Duke University. She is a published writer and poet who engages issues of injustice through her write. Hers is poetry of resistance.