Wading

To "wade" is to walk through a substance which impedes free motion or offers resistance to movement.

From Old English wadan meaning "move onward."

My top goal for 2020 centered around growing my faith through questions—not necessarily by finding direct answers, but by inviting and pondering and sitting with all the questions, and then furthering my relationship with divinity despite them. I promised myself that I would go down the rabbit holes regarding church history and doctrine and culture, and I got ready to wade through deep waters. As a girl who’s never learned to swim, this seemed a little scary (what if I lose my footing?), but I also felt an inextricable pull toward the work of building my faith in this way.

Now it’s July, and my wading in the last month has been more through the deep waters of anti-racism than those of religion. I spent a few days wondering if I was getting sidetracked, but my heart said, “Keep going,” and my gut said, “This matters,” and my brain had already intellectualized this issue since college (my lack of emotion on issues of race is problematic; now I know), so onward I plowed. The waters shifted, and I’m choosing not to fight the tide. I have a testimony that: this is an important direction for me to go.

But even as I go more in the direction I feel sent, I also feel resistance. I'm still wading, and wading implies impeded movement. The odd thing about these anti-racism waters is just...how familiar they feel. Those deep religious waters, which sometimes had me treading for a minute, gave me valuable experience. These anti-racism waters are also deep and also liable to make me tread, but now I have a little practice and a little muscle for it. When I come across a perspective or an idea that makes me flinch, I investigate why instead of looking away. When I feel resistance inside myself for what I’m discovering, I slacken my grip and try to understand the other side. And when I suddenly re-realize how badly I’m doing at all of this, I recommit because it’s worth continuing.

And *shrug* if that isn’t what I came into 2020 swinging at to begin with...

I’m not great at any of this (hello I’m prideful and angsty), but I’m growing important skills and I know it. Ultimately, I feel that all of this wading—this resistance-laden learning—takes me in the direction I care about most: toward Jesus. It’s worth the work of wading and of occasionally treading water, even as a non-swimmer, to get where I’m going. Would Jesus listen carefully to silenced voices? Would Jesus seek for the truth, even when it’s ugly? Would he do everything in his power to teach a better way? Would he stand firmly against racism? Resounding yes. And so with him I go.

I once sang a spiritual in school choir that says, “Wade in the water, children. God’s gonna trouble the water.” It references the New Testament story where Jesus heals a man at the pool of Bethesda. Troubled water sounds like bad news, but at this pool it meant miraculous healing for whomever jumped in. I see a parallel to this modern antiracism movement: God’s troubling our racist waters in such a way that we can’t miss it, and if we jump in we can experience healing. These troubled waters might look deep and scary, but I’ve been wading them for a bit now. And I gotta say: there is healing to be found in this pool. Please, dive on in! Goodness knows our country needs this healing. You need it, too.

Now real quick, go check those definitions at the top again. See the second one? The origin (in part) of the word “wade” includes moving onward. Onward in a new direction would be a great idea to start doing this July.

God’s gonna trouble the water. And that’s exactly why we should wade on through it.

POP QUIZ: 

T/F   Harriett Tubman sang this song along the Underground Railroad to teach freedom seekers how to throw off their enslavers.

Answer: False. Harriet used two songs to send signals as part of her underground work, but this wasn't one of them. Her messages were communicated by changing the tempo of the songs she sang to declare "safe" vs "not safe."

"I prayed to Got to make me strong and able to fight, and that's what I've always prayed for ever since." --Harriet Tubman