3.The Ministry of Small Things, A Methodology

There are several interconnecting staging areas of concern where polarization can take root, ranging from personal, to interpersonal, to sociopolitical/communal, to global. These areas can be reconciled with each other via adrienne marie brown’s conceptualization of the fractal nature of existence[1] as described in her book Emergent Strategy.

In this way, pastoral agents can prophetically access the system of polarization at any entry point to facilitate change through hospitable invitation. If we consider the idea that polarization and inhospitableness are essentially “wicked”[2] problems, it follows that a unilateral response across all staging areas or cultural locations does not exist. Hogue’s idea of micro-rebellions can be helpful here, in that a multiplicity of styles and types of invitation can be enacted with an ethos like the “random acts of kindness” movement popularized years ago.

To address inhospitableness systemically, however, the acts of kindness (or invitation) need to be persistent rather than randomized, as well as mindfully and intentionally directed toward fostering good will and building trust within relational contexts beset by inhospitableness, such as within religious and political contexts. Consistent demonstrations of behavior over time are needed to secure trust, especially in environments where distrust is strongly rooted. It also requires a certain proficiency in multicultural awareness and a commitment to the larger aim of the theology. The importance of these skills cannot be overstated when tackling a wicked problem.

Building trust in environments that are hostile to it will not only take time and effort, however. It will also require trauma-informed spiritual resilience. It can be accomplished by those with the willingness to believe in the best in us even as they engage in environments where the best is not readily available, and where the worst in us may be regularly demonstrated. This itself is an act of faith and service -- that we not only can but that we must reclaim our connections to each other across both breadth and space (of cultures, classes, abilities, genders, theologies, etc) and lineage and time (historically, with our own ancestors but also in our roles as imminent ancestors). This is part of what distinguishes this constructive theology from a secular or purely humanist praxis: holding the ineffability of spiritual wholeness as a guide.

While I am not an authority on the variety of traditions that made up the melting pot of influences within my spiritually feral upbringing, in cautious overview, I recognize the following as relevant to this theological praxis: Hinduism (in the three-fold partnership of creation, maintenance, and destruction) and in the concept of circular time; Alignment with postfeminist/ecofeminist thought by theologians like Ivone Gebara, who named the body as cosmology, and Sharon Welch, who articulated important methods of relationship and risk; Inspiration from speculative fiction writers like Octavia Butler, John Varley, N.K. emison, Frank Herbert and so many others who made it easy to envision complex universes; The creative tension between stability and novelty from Whiteheadian process theology; and an essential pragmatism of Right Action rooted in the Buddhist Eightfold Path.

I will use elements of these traditions to define a constructive theology that may be useful for PUUNK that I refer to as a “Ministry of Small Things.” This ministry seeks to address the problem of polarization via a telos of hospitality, and is founded on the notion that change is incremental and iterative, and that each of us is capable of small acts within the scope of our lives that, cumulatively, effect potentially massive shifts in the ways we are able to relate to and be with each other. It seeks to build a resilient container for difference that converts polarization to complementarity.

The Ministry of Small Things is the way we construct, moment by moment through micro-revolutionary acts of kindness and invitation, the mitigating container for systemic polarization. Next, we'll talk about some of the ways this telos can be applied across multiple, fractally-interconnected contexts, starting with the most localized: The relationship with self.

This is the fourth installment in a multi-part series on the constructive theology behind a "Ministry of Small Things." Read Part 2, or go to Part 4 in the series, "Fractal One: Hospitality Within"

[1] adrienne marie brown in Emergent Strateigy, page 35.

[2] Michael Hogue in American Immanence, page 65. A wicked problem is essentially one that resists simple or unilateral technical solutions because the problem does not affect everyone to the same degree or in the same way, and is often connected to issues of complexity that may in fact resist solution.