That’s right.  Yes, I spend much of my day looking through what an academic theologian might call my subversiveness hermeneutic.  That word hermeneutic is just, as my mother would have said, a $10 word for perspective or viewpoint.  To me, however, there is a difference — the idea of hermeneutic (which comes from a Greek word meaning to translate or interpret) carries with it a level of intentionality that the idea of perspective or viewpoint does not.

Now that we have that sorted out, I’m really writing because I have a question that I have been asking myself lately, one that just will not be silent.  And that question is: what if you didn’t just look for subversive ideas, but you decided to live subversively?  No, I am not talking about what the mainstream press might define as subversive.  I am talking about living subversively on a personal level in relationship to what the world around us defines as most important, like success or things or…well, you can make your own list.   What if I found a path to really live according to my subversive ideology instead of just talking about it.  What would that look like?  What would it take?  What would I need to change?

Big question, isn’t it?  I think it is a question that it may take a lifetime to answer.  So, over these next months, I’m keeping a list…a list of the most subversive acts that a person of faith (any faith, really) can embrace to make a change — a change in their own life and hopefully, by that small transformation, a change in the narrative of our current culture.  And I am talking about do-able things…this list is not going to be one of extremes.  I don’t know about you, but change doesn’t happen for me like that.  I need something that I can understand, that I can repeat, and that I can keep repeating until I need to change it again.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall, the old musical joke asks.  Why, my friend, by practice, practice, practice.  And that is true of any change that we seek to make.

Personally, I get a little overwhelmed whenever anybody starts talking to me about spiritual practice (or any kind of practice, for that matter) — my eyes glaze over and I feel myself rebelling against what I see as the rigidity of it all.  I’m more a spontaneous practice kind of person — I work better if I have a collection from which I can draw on any given day, in any given situation.

It was these words from author Barbara Brown Taylor that helped me come to peace with the idea of practice.  She defines it as “…a certain exercise in being human that requires a body as well as a soul.(Kindle Edition, LOC 94).”  Well, that leaves us a lot of room , doesn’t it?  Your path and mine will certainly not look exactly the same.  I certainly realize, in that definition, that I cannot find just the right book and follow steps 1-6 to get to the goal of inner peace and a just and loving world. And best of all — it makes room for failure and the worst of our humanity, as well as the best of it.

Practice, by this definition,  is simply any path that we follow to help us become more fully human, which at its essence means become more like the image of God in which we are created.  To practice, we simply must live.  As Taylor puts it:

My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world. (Kindle Edition, LOC 100).

To me, there is no act more subversive than embracing a life of faith.  But in this time in which we find ourselves, to actually live that life daily, to embrace the wholeness of body, mind, and spirit on equal terms — that my friends, requires a lot of work and a whole new, well, hermeneutic, with all the intentionality we can muster.

Subversive acts to go along with subversive thinking.  Indeed; what an idea. As the West African proverb says, pray AND move your feet.  Maybe just a few baby steps first…

Look for more reflection on the idea of subversive acts over these months ahead…and for today, Namaste, my friends.  Namaste.