By Tommy Airey

“The idea of sumud has become a multifaceted cultural concept among Palestinians: it means steadfastness, a derivative of “arranging” or “saving up”, even “adorning”. It implies composure braided with rootedness, a posture that might bend but will not break.” – Hala Alyan

This week, on the anniversary of the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I watched my spouse get arrested. Lindsay joined dozens of other members of Christians for a Free Palestine publicly calling out the role of the American government and American churches in supporting the apartheid state of Israel’s decades-long occupation and blockade of Gaza, now spiraling into a genocide. After a short worship service of confession, communion and commission under a Magnolia tree a stone’s throw from the Capitol in DC, these parents, professors, engineers, social workers, retired seniors, seminary students and ordained ministers bee-lined for the cafeteria in the basement of the US Senate building. They planned to get “lunch” together.

The cafeteria was crowded and noisy. The Jesus people were ready to turn over tables. But they walked in casually, blended right in, played cool, waiting for their cue. Then, a few of the faithful started singing.

Palestine will be free.
Palestine will be free
We will not avert our eyes.
Palestine will be free.

Over and over again. They rose from their seats and walked to the front of the line and locked arms behind banners that read Send Food Not Bombs and Christians for a Free Palestine and Woe to you who Slay the Hungry and Break Bread not Bodies. They stood in front of the cashiers to block customers from paying. They locked arms, connecting the dots and telling the truth together with loud, coordinated chants. It was more than a symbolic action. If American leaders won’t let Gaza eat, then they don’t deserve to eat lunch. A minor inconvenience compared to forced starvation.

***

In that moment, I was reminded of something I once heard from Lindsay, who not only has a criminal record, but is also a licensed marriage and family therapist. These two credentials are connected. The year after Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd, she told me that whenever we repress or guard or just go along to get along with something that is counterfeit, then the counterfeit will inevitably come out sideways. If we stay silent in the face of injustice, exploitation and oppression built on disinformation, myths and lies, then it will do something serious to the deepest parts of who we are. Because the soul is a web that connects everyone to everything else.

If we uncritically engage with our culture and don’t ruffle any feathers and walk on eggshells to avoid offending anyone and just go about doing everything we are supposed to be doing, the counterfeit will come out sideways in destructive behaviors that are controlling, manipulative, cynical and anxious, in addiction, depression, exhaustion, despair, narcissism, obsessions, being oblivious to other people’s suffering, socially clueless, shame-spiraling, frenzied, irritated, resentful, and/or completely incapable of being intimate with others. Our deep pain, suffering and harmful coping strategies come from many different sources. Cooperating with the counterfeit is a huge one that most people overlook altogether.

In our world today, it is difficult to find something (anything!) more counterfeit than what the state of Israel is doing to the people of Gaza and the West Bank, with the overwhelming support of the US government, and American churches. Tens of thousands have been murdered or injured. Hundreds of thousands are being starved. Millions have been displaced as entire neighborhoods are destroyed. The occupation, apartheid and genocide are built on an Israeli propaganda machine that US politicians and corporate media outlets have perpetuated. Most conservative pastors preach unconditional and uncritical support of Israel by (mis)interpreting biblical texts through the lens of “the end times” and the second coming of Jesus. Most liberal pastors preach about God’s heart breaking for both sides – or just stay silent.

What I’ve learned from Lindsay is that going public for Palestine is not just a political stance. It is a deeply spiritual practice. If we actively or unconsciously cooperate with Zionist social norms that are widely accepted in white America, we are aiding and abetting mass destruction in Gaza and the West Bank. We are also aiding and abetting a mess of dysfunction inside ourselves. The whole point of spiritual practices like meditation, prayer, bible study, therapy and 12-step meetings is to get free. We do not do this hard work so that we can more effectively fit in and serve a supremacist society. We do it so we can cultivate the sumud, the soul strength, the moral courage to publicly dissent and actively disrupt counterfeit stories like Zionism, whiteness, settler-colonialism, capitalism and Christian supremacy. We do it so that we can be free to participate in Something Else.

***

A group of us who agreed to join the action without risking arrest gathered on the other side of the cashiers. We aimed our phone cameras and chanted with those putting their bodies between congressional staffers and their meals. The Capitol police came in quick and hot. While the Christians were getting arrested for their militant nonviolent direct action, the rest of us got pushed out of the cafeteria into the hallway.

The police told us that we did not have the right to speak. So we started singing.

Children are starving in Gaza.
Children are starving in Gaza.
Children are starving in Gaza.
Children are starving in Gaza.

The police told us that we did not have the right to sing. So we started Psalming.

Seek peace and pursue it.
Seek peace and pursue it.
Seek peace and pursue it.
Seek peace and pursue it.

The police told us that we must exit the building immediately. So we started walking down the hallway singing and flashing peace signs. But we did not exit the building. We walked all the way around the building through the basement hallway. It was like we were moving together through the intestines of the belly of the beast. A couple of Palestinian-American women in hijabs and keffiyehs yelled at the cops. Because they were arresting the wrong people. I did not know their names. But the presence and the posture of these women – in these halls haunted by Islamophobia – did something to my soul. They were fearless in the face of a bogus moral authority brandishing badges and guns, paid to protect and police empire’s supremacy stories. These women summoned Something Else.

It was the final day of Ramadan and Muslim women were playing the role of the prophet Jonah seven hours into their fast. They dissented and disrupted with a bold brand of sumud that, over the past six months, I’d seen on the streets and at city council meetings in Detroit, Dearborn, Hamtramck, Farmington Hills, Pasadena, Long Beach. L.A. and Irvine, CA. I’d heard it in the voices of Bisan, Noura Erakat, Rashida Tlaib and many others. They embodied a spiritual secret, carried forward in every generation by a courageous-and-crucified minority report. Jesus of Nazareth said that if you gain this world, you will lose your soul. Fannie Lou Hamer said that until everyone is free, no one is free. Lindsay said that if we cooperate with what is counterfeit, then the counterfeit will come out sideways. All this comes up out of the same deep well of wisdom and love that I call Something Else.

I absolutely do not believe that everyone needs to go out and get arrested. All we have to do is get clear about what is counterfeit and go public with the Palestinian diaspora in the daily adventure of disrupting it. In this dynamic process, we will most likely lose social respectability and financial security. This can be scary for those of us who actually have these to lose. However, when we flip this counterfeit coin and live for the other side, we will gain so much! Like a clear head, a soft heart, an uninhibited spirit and new friends and comrades who are also committed to creatively constructing a world that works for everyone. These are the things worth hanging a whole life on.

+ If you are interested in dissenting and disrupting with Christians for a Free Palestine, sign up here. The adventure is just getting started.

Tommy Airey is a post-Evangelical pastor and the author of Descending Like a Dove: Adventures in Decolonizing Evangelical Christianity (2018). He lives in Detroit, Michigan with criminal-therapist spouse Lindsay. Tommy is currently working on his second book Something Else: Another Way to be a White Christian. He consistently posts shorter pieces to his blog Easy Yolk.