For the Hour of Despair

Para a hora do desespero

confession of

“I believe in a Soft God.

I believe in a Soft God who cries and mourns with us for all the ways our bodies have been violated and shattered and murdered and broken and unloved and erased.

I believe in Jesus, Soft God incarnate, who holds our breaths and breathes animus and love back into our lungs and arteries when we no longer have the strength for the pulse of life.

I believe in the Soft Spirit who—out of the depths—tenderly swings by… to devolve us the sounds of our own voices, of our sorrows, of our cries (and the Earth’s), of our strengths.

I believe in a church that listens to the susurrus of the Earth, that feels the pain circulate its body, that is not indifferent to violence, that believes in the cries of those who report violence at the expense of their livelihood, as well as those who are not able to.

I believe in (artistic-embodied) communities beyond the walls of the churches and faiths and religions that have organized resistance for millennia. I believe these communities have and will continue to move forward in response-ability and solidarity and God-given softness to undo the violent configurations of power, patriarchy, racism (the environmental kind as well), classicism, ableism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, pain, abandonment, indifference, and hate.

I believe in the communion of ancestors and saints and sinners and creation, living and non-living, who have thoughts that feel and feelings that think*—that will not allow hate and intolerance to win, but who will come to the table hand-in-hand,** shoulder to shoulder to move Softly forward, in radical joy and acceptance and hope and earthly convivencia.”