Creative Team Building and Leadership Resources - In our Elements

Nascent Movements

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Fellow Passengers: This week’s Pastoral Passage* (1 Peter 1:17-25) transports me to the Nevada desert, November 1985, when Kim and I participated in the Nevada Desert Experience peacemaking protest of underground nuclear bomb testing. The Franciscans who organized the movement gave us training on how to engage in the protest, which was to begin with some meditation time in the desert before the actual protest. Kim had to do more protesting there in the desert among the rocks and sand and Joshua trees than she bargained for, as I thought the meditation time was a perfect opportunity to make a move and ignite a romance. Kim took her peacemaking seriously, though; she gave me a quick, stern brush off and sent me off sulking, but it wasn’t a permanent rejection. By nightfall we had our first kiss. It didn’t take me long to fall head over heels in love; she was a month or so behind in reciprocating the feeling, but eventually came around and eight months after the desert protest we were headed off on our honeymoon. The Italian sociologist Francesco Alberoni calls the process of falling in love a nascent state, a state of pure creative energy, a process of intense re-orientation in which the individual loses his or her previous identity, becoming highly fluid and capable of merging with another person to create a new “us.”  He goes on to say that the nascent state transforms the whole world. Yep, I know what professor Alberoni is saying. I think I’d pass his course. I’ve experienced the nascent state.

I thought about this phrase when reading today’s Passage in my Spanish Bible. When Peter encourages the people of faith to love one another deeply, from the heart, for you have been born again, this last phrase, born again, is translated in Spanish as nacido de nuevo. The word nacido, Spanish for born, has the same root as our English word nascent. Being born again equals being in the nascent state. It is a process of intense re-orientation in which we lose our previous identities. Peter tells his readers that they are to live out the rest of their lives as foreigners, as aliens, as immigrants. The old allegiances are no longer binding. The old ambitions of material gain no longer matter. The old markers of identity are no longer relevant. The people of faith can hardly sing to their loves, I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places, because the old places are no longer familiar. Everything is new, transformed by the new world view.

Francesco Alberoni didn’t stake his claim to fame just from writing about what it feels like to fall in love, to be in a nascent state. His work is lauded because he connects the nascent state of two lovers to a similar process that occurs in the development of social movements. The same restructuring and reorientation, coupled with the same kind of intense energy and merging of identities and destinies happens when collective movements emerge. Alberoni says that falling in love is the same process as a religious or political conversion, and happens when people are ready for change, or to start a new life. Falling in love is simply the most basic form of a collective movement, as the new couple develops a shared life project and common view of the world. It is the same process, though, as larger movements, and helps understand the mystery of how nascent movements grew into phenomena like the French Revolution, or the abolition and civil rights movements, or the Great Awakening, or the Tea Party, or growth of radical Islam, or the Occupy movement. People experience the nascent state, being nacido de nuevo, born again, in all sorts of ways. For followers of Jesus, the nascent state is always available to those who are ready for change, tired of the familiar ambition and materialism and hatred and violence and judgment the world offers, and are open to a radical reorientation toward a life of contentment, sharing, love, peacemaking, and grace. Given how much these new values contradict the old, Peter is right in saying that followers of Jesus will have to live out their lives as foreigners, as immigrants. I’m just grateful to have a fellow foreigner at my side for the journey, as this faith movement has been a shared life project for me and Kim ever since our nascent state started back in the Nevada desert.

How about you? Where does this Pastoral Passage take you on your journey of faith? Feel free to comment.

Comments

  • February 23, 2012 at 8:11 am

    Beautiful love story. Where does it take me? I do not know. All I know is I’m in love with working for peace. That is why I’m working hard on the concert for the Baptist Peacemakers of RI to send one or two people to Peace Camp. There have been some bumps along the way, but hopefully by April 29th all will be well.

    Comment by Janet Davies

  • February 25, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    Thanks Janet – I love the idea of being in love with working for peace¡ Blessings on your continued work on the April concert.

    Comment by Stan Dotson


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  • I Peter 1: 17-25

    Daily Passages

    This Week's Theme:
    "New Life"

    This week's Daily Passages blog theme takes its cue from the Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus about being born again.

    Monday's Primary Passage–
    John 3:1-15
    Tuesday's Promise Passage–
    Numbers 21:1-9
    Wednesday's Poetry Passage–
    Psalm 104:24-30
    Thursday's Prophetic Passage–
    Isaiah 32:9-20
    Friday's Pastoral Passage–
    I Peter 1:17-25

    “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again. . ."
    –I Peter 1:17-23a

    *I love how we call snippets of scripture “passages,” and I love imagining these words as actual passageways that transport us to all sorts of places in our journeys of faith. Daily Passages is a weekday trek through scripture, connecting the ancient sacred words with everyday human words from personal history and culture: music, art, film, politics, literature, religion.

    As a part of In Our Elements, the blog most closely associates with the element of Fire. Think about how the Bible speaks of God’s word as a fire, and how it also describes the human tongue as a fire, for good and ill. These fiery passages connecting the sacred text with human experience remind me of the “floo network” in the Harry Potter series. This means of transportation in J.K. Rowling's wizarding world uses the fireplace and some “floo powder” to quickly get folks from one place to another. Unlike the Harry Potter floo network, though, the destination of Daily Passages is not known until we take the plunge into the fire.

    My hope in this blog is that a daily adventure through scripture and experience will provide a different starting point for our everyday conversations. What would happen if we took our cues for what we talk about each day from a passage of sacred text, instead of the set agendas we carry around with us each day? What if our talking points came from a story of Jesus, or a Psalm, instead of the talking heads on radio or reality tv? I’m not sure where that kind of shift would take us as a culture, but I’m betting that it would head us in a better direction than our present course. So join me in the fire, join me in the floo network of faith. Join me in the Daily Passage to God knows where. And if you find these passages useful or meaningful, please pass them on and share them with your networks of family and friends.