A big part of my final semester at seminary was spent at Black Lives Matter protests.

At the height I remember standing arm in arm with religious professionals trying to be a buffer between the police line and the student line.

There were Franciscan and Dominican monks in brown robes, Jesuit sisters in crisp habits, Catholic priests and novitiates with black buttons neck to toe, and all of us Protestant folks in our clergy collars.

I thought we were quite a sight. “Surely, this will give the police pause.” Ha ha. After 45 minutes of the obligatory order-to-disperse broadcast from the loud speaker of a tank (a tank?!) belonging to the Oakland PD (really, why does Oakland PD have a tank?) the police attacked.

We turned and ran from the tear gas, combat shields, and steel toed boots coming our way.

I was hit in the head, saw stars, and tripped over someone who had fallen behind me. I think someone picked us both up and - god bless those Berkeley punks - people started throwing tear gas canisters back at the police as we ran away from the chaos. I bled everywhere and ended up getting 10+ stitches in the back of my very expensive head.

Other people were shot with rubber bullets - one person’s knee cap shattered - gassed, and left badly hurt from the police agression. A few years later, the Berkeley PD paid out almost $200K to folks injured that night, me being one of them. (All the money went to the Radical Monarchs; heck yeah lil revolutionaries!)

A VERY SERIOUS baby minister, me in 2015 on my way to a protest

Looking back, I admire my righteous idealism and bow humbly before my naivete.

But a clergy collar and big ideas about Christ mean not much to proto-fascist police departments “just following orders.”

In 2020, I was swept up in more BLM protests in Denver. I remember standing on the capitol lawn milling about a peaceful protest scene when a stream of hundreds of combat cops literally ran out of the capitol doors and formed ranks. Same boots, same shields and, coming around the corner, same damn tanks.

I freaked out and had to leave, or at least go 5 blocks south and figure out what I was actually called to do here. That day, even with my superwoman clergy collar, the best I could do was stand on the corner of 10th and Broadway and pray. And here we are again; #iceout #minneapolis

In the 11 years since those tanks in Berkeley I’ve seen first hand just how delicate human bodies are.

My path through ministry has taken me into hospices, hospitals, the rooms of addiction recovery, and then just the good old fashioned School of Life. Bodies don’t always make it in one piece, or at all.

My faith itself is about the incredible tenderness of God incarnate as a human baby, the most tender of all. Not to mention the brutality of God executed by the people he came to save (no I’m not talking about blaming the Hebrews, I’m talking about the Roman oppressors and religious corrupt of all faiths).

The call to protest is above all a call to put your physical body at risk in order to defend other physical bodies. Even the peaceful protests, as we’ve seen, are a very real risk. But people everywhere are answering this call.

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Here’s one truth: I’m scared to death of the growing violence against protestors and how we all might be forced to participate anyway.

Here’s the other truth: the “we” with which I identify myself above is a specific group of people not often in direct contact with violence; my fellow privileged white folks 👋🏻. Brown, black, immigrant, and indigenous folks are forced to endure this kind of violence all the time.

And here’s the deepest truth: this birth of mine is no accident. The teachings of karma, Buddhism, and Sanātana Dharma tell me I chose this life on purpose. Let’s pause here for Queen Esther.

The Hebrew Book of Esther is unique in one aspect; it’s the only book of the Bible where God doesn’t show.

In Esther, God doesn’t act, speak, command, or light anything on fire let alone a bush or pillar of smoke. Esther - the unlikely Jewish Queen of the Persian empire - is on her own. She uncovers a genocidal plot to kill all the Hebrews and one of her people, Mordecai, begs her to act from her position of privilege.

She’s very scared and basically says she can’t because to approach the king (yah, her own husband) without an invitation means certain death. She’s in a bad spot.

But then Mordecai says this powerful thing to her. He tells her that if you’re silent right now, the Jews will still be saved, just by someone else. And what’s more, her silence will seal her fate; she’ll die.

He also suggests, however, that perhaps she has come to her exact position in life for such a time as this. So she risks everything and speaks up. The Hebrews are saved.

Bhaisajyaguru, The Medicine Buddha

I can’t help but feel like God is conspicuosly absent from the Book of America 2026, that we’re on our own.

Yet the scriptures tell us that perhaps we were born for such a time as this. You may one day find me putting my body in front of a tank, but there’s a lot of steps between here and there.

As my shamanic teachers say, use your medicine. So right now here’s the medicine I can give knowing the road ahead is long:

Regular donations to the folks who have been doing this work for a loooooong time - the Immigrant Freedom Fund and the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition
Getting training in emergency medical care so I can be at the back of the protests helping and healing folks who are injured (plus, like, anyone else who may be injured anywhere)
Volunteering with Colorado Rapid Response Network as a Spanish speaking volunteer recording ICE encounters
Praying and singing my ass off everywhere I go cuz that shit works

Maybe you’re an able bodied protestor, or living with disability but can call the shit out of your senators. Maybe you’re raising the next generation and it’s everything you can do to be a healthy nervous system and put food on the table so those kids grow up knowing peace and compassion.

Maybe you’ve been volunteering for years. Maybe you pray every morning for those who would perceive you as an enemy that you may one day be friends.

Whatever your medicine, use it now. You were born for such a time as this.

In Spirit,

Cindy

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You Were Born for Such a Time as This