Occupy Boston

Kwok Pui Lan

Brendan Curran, a senior M.Div Student at the Episcopal Divinity School (EDS), has participated in Occupy Boston since it started in late September. He is living in the tents in Dewey Square by South Station in downtown Boston, while continues to take classes and do his course assignments. Occupy Boston was inspired by Occupy Wall Street in New York.

EDS held a teach-in session on Occupy Boston on October 17, 2011, facilitated by President Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Professor Ed Rodman, two veterans of social movements. The session followed a community Eucharist in which the Rev. Mwape Chilombo, a student from Zambia, delivered a powerful sermon on the need to take a new direction. She linked Occupy Wall Street with the struggles of Zambian people against government corruption and oppression.

About seven faculty, staff, and students have visited Occupy Boston, and participated in or witnessed the various demonstrations and marches. Sarah Monroe, who is doing field education at Ecclesia Ministries, a ministry for homeless people, said that homeless people feel welcome and supported by Occupy Boston.

Susan B. Taylor brought her family to visit Occupy Boston, together with members of The Crossing, an emergent church community in Boston. Her daughter was asked to share her experience upon her return with three different classes of her school in Western Massachusetts.

Other eye-witnesses were impressed by the toleration of diverse opinions in the general assembly, the decision-making body, and the diversity of people gathered, including students, homeless people, members of the labor unions, older people, and veterans of the civil rights movement.

Brendan Curran taught the hand gestures used in the general assembly to ask a question, to vote, to make a point, and to show disagreement. He was impressed by the collective and collaborative effort against capitalism at Dewey Square. “We do not want to become a political party or to be co-opted by a political party,” he said. The movement has been described as the “the return of the silent majority” by Time magazine. “It is exciting to see it go global,” Curran said. Occupy Wall Street has inspired protests and demonstrations in many cities worldwide on October 15, 2011.

The teach-in session provided an opportunity for President Ragsdale to share her rich experiences in organizing for social change. She said changes happened in 4 steps, which are not linear:
· Personal and spiritual transformation
· Educating others
· Lobbying and providing alternative proposals
· Civil disobedience
She said individuals and institutions can be involved in the different steps of the process and at different stages.

Some of the attendees said the Occupy movement does not have clear demands and a concrete platform and it is hard to explain to others. Professor Rodman recommended two books co-authored by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire and Multitude. In Multitude, the authors have envisaged a mass democratic global movement, mobilized by the Internet and social networking, to rise up to resist Empire. The multitude is marked by diversity rather than similarities. The challenge for the multitude in this new era is “for the social multiplicity to manage to communicate and act in common while remaining internally different.”

Professor Christopher Duraisingh provided a theological perspective. He said Occupy Boston reminds the Church of its prophetic witness. Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann says prophetic witness involves the articulation of alternative consciousness to demolish and debunk dominant consciousness and providing the impetus for building a different community. Professor Duraisingh asked whether the Church has responsibilities to be involved in and support movements like Occupy Boston. Since the movement is against corporate greed, he challenged the Church to rethink its identification with corporate America.

The teach-in session was closed with Professor Rodman reminiscing about his student days in the 1960s during the height of the civil rights movement. He said Southern white students were ostracized after their classmate Jonathan Daniels was killed working for the civil rights movement in Alabama. It was the black students who reached out to them. He used this example to remind us there is going to be divided opinions on emotionally charged issues and asked us to listen to and care for each other.

*Kwok Pui Lan is William F. Cole Professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her most recent book is Hope Abundant: Third World and Indigenous Women’s Theology.

God’s Hand in Improvisation and Creativity




The Learning Walk, Community Park, Newton County, Georgia
designed by Hank Methvin and Eric Childs

 

By Hank Methvin

My artistic drive is my strongest life force. I value the consistent presence of art in my life.   Through most of my years I have understood the critical role of creative expression in my work and play. Art, drawing, and painting have always been my source of delight; my artistic creativity motivates me to embrace life’s journey.

Recognizing my Eros to be my artistic creativity is a Divine gift and provides me with an ongoing conversation with God that builds from longing and response. The visual arts offer me a spiritual language and support my bond with a universe of ideas. Art expresses my intuition and my instinct as I participate in the community of past creative work represented by generations of artists and designers. 

My connection to the world and community deepens with my study of art history, cultural traditions, and visual expression. My practice of architecture and environmental design bolster my visual vocabulary and enable me to comprehend our multidimensional world. Complex design problems demand comprehensive strategies.

In my own art and design work I recognize the challenges that interpreting our environment demands and I offer solutions for future ecological design practice; my artistic longing is nourished in ways that I could not anticipate. Art and design structure my voice and nourish my continuous prayer with God.  Producing an artistic vision demands my participation in the creative process but also calls for resources beyond my grasp. 

The artists guiding art history during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century often followed prescribed methods in the pursuit of their work. Modern design approaches were often guided by the norms and traditions shaped by new advances in technology. In contrast, postmodern design principles incorporate the dynamics of our changing world and favor creative process over the fulfillment of artistic standards.  This postmodern inclusive process replaces modern scripted practice. Improvisation is a critical tool in the pursuit of such a postmodern creative process.

As a postmodern design tool, improvisation embraces chaos in the search for order; instinctive choices complement rational procedures. Improvisational thinking explores the rich alternatives inherent in our chaotic world; new patterns and new relationships surface under the gaze of the improviser. The process of discovery is etched in the artistic product; process and new vision are fused and revealed in the improvised artifact. New ideas and traditional cultural practices collide in the hope of forming new visions and alternative perspectives. The artist participates in the fullness of history and in the breadth of possibility. 

Improvisational thinking is open-ended but the artist finds a resting point, a provisional artistic statement that motivates ongoing creative inquiry.  There is a profound dedication to the creative process; improvisation values unknowns and unknowing.  Improvisational thinking embraces the fullness of community in all its guises and the Spirit is offered room to participate in the process. 

A wide-range of contemporary artists and designers have incorporated improvisation into their creative work and process. Community participation in architectural design and urban planning is now strongly influenced by public input and improvised methodology. Public art projects are often assembled from the work of many participating parties without a fixed notion of the final outcome. 

Improvisational thinking is a creative approach that invites possibility. The source of the artistic inspiration is not predetermined. New ideas grow from the relationships and confrontations that occur during the creative process, often coming from unexpected sources.  God and the Spirit are invited to enter into the process.

Improvisation encourages us all to apply new techniques and approaches into our own work, play and devotion. In the mist of our creative journeys, the Holy Spirit can participate in the openness of our process. New turns in our work and new directions in our thinking demand full participation. We are reaching into the world of unknowns and God is always in that place, whether we are aware or just open to the fullness of creative possibility.

*Hank Methvin is an architect and environmental artist, and directs the Metropolitan Design Studio in Covington, Georgia, a program of the College of Environment and Design at the University of Georgia. Methvin is also pursuing a Master of Arts in Theological Studies at the Episcopal Divinity School, concentrating his studies on religion and ecology.

Steve Jobs, Theologian and Prophet

By Winfred Vergara

The globalized world mourns today the passing of Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple. He is considered an exceptional high tech guru, entrepreneur, inventor, innovator, visionary and probably the newest richest man in the cemetery.

Aside from being a father to at least four human beings, Jobs is also the father of iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad. While I have only iNap, iSnore and iOwe to my credits, I quite resonate with his life, particularly his disadvantaged family origin; and although he was reportedly a Zen Buddhist, I consider him my new Christian theologian and prophet. I think his one Commencement Speech to Stanford University students in 2005 must have inspired more people (thanks to his high tech, high speed inventions) than any of my 1726 miserable sermons delivered during my 33 years of priesthood.

And so at the risk of making him my idol, I share three points why his life is worthy of emulation:

1. He Learned from Adversity
Given for adoption and learning that his adopted parents were not as rich and educated as his biological mother had expected, he made the most of what he had. “At Reed College, I did not have a dorm room so I slept on the floor of friends’ rooms. I returned coke bottle for 5 cents deposits to buy food and would walk seven miles across town on Sundays to get one good meal at a Hare Krishna temple.” He would later drop out of college, to save money for a self-directed learning, including a course on calligraphy, which he would later use in his design of Macintosh computer.

2. He Considered Love as Antidote for Failure
A positive thinking pastor, Robert Schuler once said, “success is never-ending and failure is never-final.” Jobs is a prime exemplar of this philosophy. He and Wozniak started Apple on his parents’ garage in Silicon Valley which grew into a 2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. But when it was settling down, they hired a new leadership who disagreed with him and he was fired from the very company he founded. He came back later after proving himself agile in founding NeXT and Pixar, two celebrated successes. He would later say “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love...Don’t settle.”*

3. He Believed Death Has a Renewing Purpose
I share with Steve Jobs the trait of being secretive about disease, a thing that most frustrate my own family. As a child, I endured a whole night suffering from food poisoning, because I did not want to wake my mother up. Jobs’ battle with pancreatic cancer, which ultimately claimed his life at age 56, was kept secret for a long time. St. Francis of Assisi called it “Sister Death” but for Jobs, death is life’s ultimate destiny. In his monologue on death, he said, “Death is the destination we all share…it is the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”*

It would be great to share with Jobs’ audience that his philosophy of life’s journey resembles that of our forefather Abraham who did not settle in villas and palaces but lived in tents because he was looking for a city with a strong foundation, “whose builder and maker is God.” It is also comforting to share that the Christian faith offers a view that death is not the final statement for we believe that God will raise us up on the last day.

(This blog first appeared in http://travelinasian.blogspot.com/)

*These quotations are taken from Steve Jobs’ Commencement address at Stanford University, California, October 10, 2005.

**The Rev. Dr. Winfred Vergara is missioner for Asiamerica Ministry in the Episcopal Church Center based in New York City. Ordained in the Philippine Independent Church, he served as missionary priest in the Anglican Church in Singapore (1980-86) and Canon Missioner of the Diocese of El Camino Real (1990-2004). Among his books are Milkfish in Brackish Water: Filipino-American Ministry (1990); Mainstreaming Asian Americans in the Episcopal Church (2006); Catholicity and Brief History of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (2010). He can be contacted at wvergara@episcopalchurch.org.

What If My Cat Were the Blogger

By Susan Spilecki

I don’t always talk like everyone else, even though I am a writer and an English teacher. Most people expect English teachers to use correct grammar all the time, and for the most part I do. But over the last three years, I have come to see my language as a potentially powerful site of resistance in the battle against the oppression of nonhuman nature. The pen and the tongue are more powerful than the bulldozer and the smokestack.

I did not change my language on purpose, not at first. It started in December 2008, four months after I adopted my cat, Musashi. As he grew from a five-pound, six-month-old black ball of fluff with a huge plumy black tail to a ten-pound near adult, it became very clear to me that he had his own likes and dislikes, his own habits and routines—in short, his own personality.

When I watched him hunt his catnip mice with such seriousness and then jump up to the window in awe at the first snowfall, it seemed to me that he had a very clear voice. So I started a blog for him, The Musashi Guide: One Kitten’s Opinions on Life, the World, Cat Toys, and Everything. I had been a creative writer all my life, so I did not think I was doing anything more than telling stories. I certainly didn’t think that I was doing anything remotely political.

It has only since I have been a Master of Arts in Theological Studies student at Episcopal Divinity School that I have begun to realize the potential political power of engaging in creative acts. And Musashi has been one of my teachers.

It started simple enough. I would write about his favorite cat toys and movie stars, and his preferences about the different hand lotions I used. Then came Christmas. Have you ever tried to explain Jesus to a person of another species using their language?

I didn’t think so. Let me tell you, it’s not easy.

From the start, I had been using the Internet phenomenon of LOLcats and the LOLcat “language” as Musashi’s style of writing. LOLcat, from the text-speak abbreviation for Laughing Out Loud, began in 2007 with the website Icanhascheezburger.com, which allows users to put captions on funny pictures of cats. The “language” is a combination of text-speak abbreviations, typing errors, baby-talk and kindergarten misspellings. Basically the assumption is that cats, if they could write, would write at the level of a five-year-old human child.

So far, so good. What I had not anticipated was the effect of trying to write from the point of view of a person (an individual with a unique personality) of a different species. In particular, since Musashi is almost fifteen inches tall, one-fifth of my height, he is quite literally going to experience the world from a different perspective. And because he is an indoor cat, the reality of the outdoor world probably does not mean much to him (chirping, tasty-looking birds notwithstanding).

Gradually I started realizing that he would have to describe the world much differently. Humans no longer would equal people. Suddenly, there are kittee people, doggee people, birdee people, etc.

“God” would equal “Ceiling Cat,” the Internet meme of a cat looking down from a hole in the ceiling. And why would Ceiling Cat have a human son? Could any nonhuman animal, aware of the cruelty of the human practice of factory farming, accept a human Savior?

And if Ceiling Cat’s son were a cat rather than a human, what would that mean?

I am not saying that this exercise changed my fairly orthodox faith. I am merely saying that my anthropomorphic exercise in seeing the world and my faith through the eyes of a person of another species changed how I will now forever after see my world.

First, I am seeing the earth as a subject; therefore, I must always now write it as “the Earth,” a proper noun referring to a particular planet. Now I say “he or she” and “who” of nonhuman animals, because from their point of view, they are males and females and individual subjects of their own lives. Now I refer to humans as humans, not as “people,” because I have seen how the possession of a personality is not limited to our species.

Now, I no longer speak like everyone else. I do it intentionally, and I think my cat, if he could understand these concepts, would quite likely approve. After all, he’s a cat, the center of the (his) universe. Just like humans.

*Susan Spilecki is a student at Episcopal Divinity School. She teaches writing at Northeastern University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Musashi Guide can be found at http://musashiguide.blogspot.com.

Tears for Peter Gomes

By William Bronson

I cried when I heard the Rev. Peter Gomes, minister of Harvard’s Memorial Church, died last February. I am not normally emotional. I can hardly remember crying over anyone’s passing. But my tardy awareness of his leaving us, over three months late, struck me hard.

How can I explain it? I felt less embarrassed to be a human being knowing that I shared that species designation with him. I had been reading again, off and on, his Scandalous Gospel of Jesus recently, as though an angel had told me he was gone.

As I prepared an envelope and enclosed my book, How to Get to Heaven with a note about how I enjoyed his books and ministry and hoped he found my little tome pleasant, inclusive, and reasonable. I couldn’t resist a PS that said James Carroll thought it was great.

Then, looking up his address I got the news, perused the Wikipedia article summarizing his life and the brutal stroke, brain aneurism, and heart attack that took him a year before he planned to retire and a month or so before his Easter sermons.

I remember his graciousness when I met him a couple times at his Wednesday teas at his home just north of Harvard Yard, when I was at Episcopal Divinity School (EDS). I remember his wonderful sermons at Memorial Church and his wisdom when he shared the stage at Trinity Church’s remarkable 2006 conference on eschatology with Carroll, Jürgen Moltmann, and Barbara Rossing in New York.

But I remember most the wonderful, conversational way he wrote. His eloquence transferred to the written page seamlessly. It may be more accurate to say that he spoke the way he wrote. And imbedded in all he said or wrote was a deep wisdom, patience, and perspective.

And he lacked no courage. When he came out years ago it was in solidarity with embattled gay and lesbian students who were challenged on Biblical and cultural grounds through a periodical by fellow Harvard students. As a Republican American Baptist pastor who participated in both Reagan and Bush senior’s inaugurations, it came as a surprise to many that he would not only defend but identify by his own sexual orientation with the gay community.

When they invited him to speak with other administration and faculty members about the raging controversy, the organizers of the rally had no idea that they would receive not only a personal “confession” but a careful dismissal of the Biblical arguments against homosexuality. One may read of the whole episode in the chapter “The Bible and Homosexuality” in his wonderful bestselling The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Heart and Mind. This quote from those pages is worth repeating:

“I also knew that no one wanted me to be ‘religious.’ Religion, in fact, was part of the problem here and not part of the solution, or so it was thought by my secular friends. I knew all that, and yet I also knew that the only ground on which I could stand in this particular instance was religious ground, and so rather than a pious elegiac on civility, or an exercise in political outrage, I determined that I would make my best effort to represent my understanding of the Bible and the Christian faith as it applied to the heart of the present discontents. As the university’s pastor and preacher, as a Christian, and as a homosexual, I decided to reclaim by proclaiming a vision of the gospel that was inclusive rather than exclusive, and to do so as a Christian who was more than the sum of the parts of which I was made…I also wanted to win minds and hearts, or at least to awaken them, to a view of the Christian faith which in dispute valued charity and humility over mean-spiritedness and arrogance.”

It is remarkable, one might say destined or karmic, that someone with such a high view of Scripture was found in the center of this controversy in this place. What I love about Pastor Gomes speaking and writing is that he never second guesses the Bible. He takes it as he finds it and draws from it the lessons that it gives. While valuing Scripture, he is too intelligent to be drawn into the doctrinaire interpretations that have created such rancor in recent times.

As an older student (sixty-nine on graduation) at EDS, coming out of the evangelical community, having done my Masters in Theological Studies thirty years earlier at Gordon-Conwell, I had some anxiety about fitting into the community here. But when I discovered how much common ground I felt reading Gomes and Cox and others, I took courage. Listening to Bishop Steven Charleston preach and later receiving his warm endorsement of my book confirmed my decision to come here.

In solidarity with the blessed pastor Gomes, I would like to end with my very succinct plea from my very succinct book:

“On the issue of sexual orientation, I think it would be helpful if we would not be so obsessed with sexuality considered in the light of human anatomy. The psychological aspects of femininity and masculinity are far more important identities. And it is clear that everyone is a mixture of these two elements including the Godhead. How people are equipped physiologically need not always match their stronger psychological identity. Most of us would be androgynous physiologically if that were possible. We should not stand in judgment of the creation (which any biologist will tell us has huge variations in that regard), the Creator, or each other on this issue.”

We will miss him. He will be on my short list of those I would like to commune with in heaven, but I’m sure it will be a long line I will stand in.

*William Bronson, DMin ’08, was an airline pilot for many years and author of How to Get to Heaven.

Christian Explorations of Traveling

By Joerg Rieger

Travel takes many different forms. Some travel for pleasure, others for work, and many more travel in order to find work and a better life. Moreover, there are different travel movements under way in our time.

One is vagabonding, where mostly young people leave their homes to explore the world, seeking adventure and broader horizons. Another, very different travel movement is migration, where people leave their homelands for reasons of need and survival.

Pilgrimages constitute different kinds of travel movements—some tied up with deep religious quests and others indistinguishable from tourism, which constitutes one of the biggest travel movements of all times. These movements seem to have little in common at first sight. Yet as we explore different layers of travel, we will see what the various travelers can learn from each other and what even those staying at home can learn.

I wrote the book Traveling as someone who has learned a great deal on the road. Travel is woven into my life in many ways, combined with a lifelong wanderlust. I grew up in southern Germany, thousands of miles away from Dallas, Texas, where I live now. I have had the opportunity to travel to many countries, in both the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres. I also have had the opportunity to travel for very different reasons: for pleasure, for work, and out of sheer necessity.

Nevertheless, I write this book not merely as a traveler but also as a Christian theologian who is convinced that travel has significantly shaped our Judeo-Christian traditions and our varied experiences with the divine—a role that has for the most part been underappreciated.

Perhaps the most surprising insight of this book is that traveling is so deeply rooted in our traditions that many of them fail to make sense without it. Consider how much of the material of the Judeo-Christian traditions actually developed on the road. Abraham, regarded as one of the pillars of the faith, has nothing static about him. The people of Israel spent a good amount of time on the road. Their stories speak of slavery in the lands of a foreign empire called Egypt, of an exodus from Egypt, and of forty years of wandering in the wilderness. On this journey, they learned important theological lessons, which included profound challenges to outdated images of God.

In the New Testament, Jesus’ ministry takes place almost entirely on the road, as a person who has “no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). Perhaps one of the most important theological challenges that travel poses to the Christian life is summarized in the Letter to the Hebrews: “Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).

Christianity is what takes place on the road. Travel, it appears therefore, is more than a metaphor of the Christian faith. Location and constant relocation are central matters of the Christian life.

Traveling is, thus, a central topic for faith and life. Those who travel to live and who live to travel might be in a position to make important contributions in today’s world. These contributions include a habit of thinking on one’s feet, the broadening of horizons, a flexibility that is typical especially of travelers who have less control, various challenges to the status quo, and a much-needed awareness of our own limits and finitude.

Travelers who spend much time on the road experience in their very being what is at the heart of the logic of the Jewish-Christian traditions and what took philosophers thousands of years to understand: a new appreciation for small, particular experiences of life, out of which broader universal ideas grow. This appreciation is where theology and philosophy started when religion took place on the road, rather than with the big concepts and ideas proposed by the powers that be.

Finally, those who find themselves on the road without safety nets often develop special bonds and relationships. No travel ever occurs in a vacuum. Power, as well as the lack of power, plays an important role in our travels. Becoming aware of these things is part of the broadening of our horizons.

*Joerg Rieger is Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Theology at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. Among his most recent books are Globalization and Theology (Abingdon Press, 2010), No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics and the Future (Fortress Press, 2009), and Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (Fortress Press, 2007). His website is http://www.joergrieger.com.

East Meets West: Chi and the Holy Spirit

By Grace Ji-Sun Kim

What would an Asian theology of the Holy Spirit look like?

If you have ever attended a Tae-Kwon-Do, Tai-Chi or Akido class, you will recognize the word “Chi” or “Ki.” These three art forms of movement try to harness the intangible form of energy called Chi. Practicing them creates not only more energy, but greater health and life within one’s self.

Chi is part of the everyday lives of Asian people just as it is part of their everyday vernacular. People will greet one another and try to gauge each other’s Chi level or compliment each other’s good Chi. They will even express their sickness or low energy as having “low levels of Chi.” Chi is a powerful energy which brings wholeness, health, and vitality. Chi gives life and without it, there is no life.

In many ways, Chi sounds like “ruach” in the Hebrew Scriptures or “pneuma” in the New Testament. Is it possible that the western notion of the Spirit as found in Christianity is the same energy as Chi? This question leads me to explore the possibility of an Asian understanding of Chi which can nurture a stronger theological perspective on the Holy Spirit.

In an increasingly multireligious, multilingual, and multicultural world, recognizing the differences and similarities among people, cultures, and religions is essential. The religions in different parts of the world do not display many spirits; rather in them we find various names for the Spirit.

Spirit is a universal concept which can discover new methods of addressing, thinking about, and conceptualizing God. But the first step will be to reexamine Spirit-Chi. Spirit-Chi is found within everyone. It is a source of empowerment and healing for the wounded.

Still, Spirit-Chi is beyond mystery and conceptualization. It requires us to admit to the limitations of the human understanding. We will never be able fully to comprehend the Divine. But Spirit-Chi provides us with new language and tools to address the mysterious encounters with the Holy we have experienced in the past and continue to experience. Within this hybrid space, our understanding of Spirit-Chi can draw us closer to God. It helps us develop a deeper understanding of the Creator of all that is, was, or ever will be.

Spirit-Chi is also beyond culture, religion, and society, as it undergirds the ethos of people around the globe. When people recognize this, instead of being a barrier, Spirit-Chi will open doors for further dialogue, understanding, and acceptance. The more language we can use to talk about the Divine, the more we open our discourse and work toward accepting, welcoming, and embracing those who are different, subjugated, and Othered. So it is important to understand God as Spirit-Chi and thereby break down barriers that colonialism has established. This Spirit-Chi is within us, empowering us toward emancipation and liberation.

As we recognize the commonality among people, it will be easier to embrace and accept the Other. The Spirit that is in all things will help us step closer to welcoming and embracing one another. Spirit-Chi embraces life and makes it whole. So it is essential that humanity recognizes, welcomes, and affirms the Spirit in all faiths.

A compelling aspect of Spirit-Chi is the way it is emancipatory: it frees us from the bonds of evil that prevent us from celebrating life. It makes us stronger and builds bridges between us and our neighbors. Spirit-Chi is salvific within us and between us and Others. It is a Spirit that bonds and pulls humanity closer to all other living creatures. It will sustain us and keep us aware of our interconnectedness and interreliance.

In this broken postcolonial world, this means western Christianity can no longer monopolize the Spirit. God’s Spirit-Chi fills us up, makes us whole, and helps build harmony and peace. It transcends problems endemic to the postcolonial world and liberates those caught in the middle. The Spirit is free to roam and be what it will be.

My new book, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology, works toward a global and intercultural pneumatology that will encourage people to live harmoniously and peacefully with one another in a postcolonial world. The next time you are in a Tae-Kwon-Do class or watching the graceful movements of Tai-Chi, be mindful of the one Spirit, which is within us all and gives us life, fully.

*Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim is Associate Professor of Doctrinal Theology and the Director of the MATS program at Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Grace of Sophia (Pilgrim Press).