I Heard Mother Groaning
Dr. Chris Townley has been a trusted friend, accomplice, colleague, and pastor for almost two decades, faithfully engaging in the good and challenging work of justice and community building. He is a gifted writer and in 2024 completed his dissertation, A Trinitarian Vision for Shared Leadership: Embracing Hospitality as a Transformative Pathway, which will soon be published as a book! We are honored to count him among our dearest friends and to have him serve on our Board of Advisors for BLK South. Learn More
One time I lived in the urban core of Phoenix and I heard the helicopters with megaphones and spotlights telling someone to stop or they’d shoot. One time, in the alley by our home, the dumpster was painted with the words, “FUCK ICE” and I could hear the canister shaking with fear and rage. One time, in front of my home, someone launched a rock onto the windshield of my neighbor’s car and I heard the crash. One time I had to identify the man who did it while riding in the back of a police car.
The conundrum of that life is present in the conundrum of this life. The other morning, on the acreage of my northern New Mexico home, I crawled on the ground and placed my ear in the dirt. The week had been hard, strained. I knew I was going to write about what I’m hearing but what I hear in the boonies hums with a different cadence than my life in the city. Again, I’m still learning to hear. And yet, the groaning continues.
Mother groaned.
She groaned out a chorus and the mourning song was a morning song where the Townsend’s Solitaire peeped like the squeaky axle of my Ford F-250 that used to be a Forest Service truck which seemed to mean all the forest was squeaking in agony around me as the piñons told me, with my ear near their roots, we can make it without water because we were created to survive.
And I thought to myself, I am not like the piñon. I am weak and afraid and tired. I am thirsty. The piñon is like my friends who stalk the streets of my former city with their IDs and DACA cards stashed in their belt. The piñon is like my friends who traverse the countryside to make a home in the South and reclaim its sacredness even as the funds dwindle and the political season steals away food and healthcare and education from those they love.
With my ear in the dirt I hear Jesus. But Jesus is not talking, or even writing. He is drawing. The only record of Jesus making something with his hands is when he drew a picture in the dirt. I’m guessing it was more creative than we can fathom, pulsing with life and parable. Jesus was more than a carpenter.
What could Jesus have been drawing in the dirt?
In this story about Jesus doing art, some chumps are armed with rocks and they stood before Jesus as he attended to a woman who did not have rights. Can you imagine what Jesus would draw today? Can you imagine Jesus drawing for all those who are losing or have lost their rights?
And this is what I’m hearing…with my ear in the dirt. I’m hearing Jesus draw and he’s telling all the chumps to lay down their stones and bullets and pensions and non-taxed tips and excessive pride and addiction to power so that those who have been misaligned and targeted and oppressed and bludgeoned might be free.
I heard all this with my ear in the dirt. I could have heard it in the city and I could have heard it in the boonies. As long as I have ears to hear. You should try it. With your ear in the dirt. In the city or the boonies or the suburbs. And then you should listen. Listen with ears to hear.
And then act.
Reflection Questions:
What do you hear when you “put your ear in the dirt”—in your own context, your own neighborhood, your own life—and what might that listening be asking of you?
Where do you sense the Divine drawing in the dirt today, and what stones, powers, or assumptions might you be invited to lay down so others can live more freely?
R E C O M M E N D E D R E A D I N G
