The God Who Is Always Current

Rachel Gilmore

Reflections from Boston and Howard Thurman

We began our trip to Boston with a question posed by Simone Weil:

What has your attention? Where is it pointed? And toward whom?

It was more than an opening reflection—it became a through-line in our attempts to engage the theme of Technologies of Liberation. Attention, after all, is one of our most precious resources. In our time together, we were privileged to turn our collective attention to the life and work of Howard Thurman, a figure often labeled a mystic. But as we learned, that designation is far more nuanced than it sounds.

Too often, mystics are imagined as those who turn inward and away—away from the world, away from struggle, away from systems. They are cloistered, prayerful, serene. But if that’s the definition, then Howard Thurman has been misdiagnosed.

Thurman’s mysticism was not retreat. It was deep attentiveness—inward yes, but only so he could return outward with prophetic clarity and courage. His was a mysticism that paid attention to the inner life as a foundation for public witness.

He tinkered. He experimented. He was no stranger to the technologies of his day. Thurman recorded lectures. He hosted a radio show in the 1940s. He gave form to spiritual insight in the very mediums people were already tuned in to.

In many ways, this is the space where Phygital work now finds itself—a space of experimentation, of translation, of meeting people in the channels where they already are. We are drawn to digital platforms to be attentive to where people already are.

I’m going to be honest, it’s much easier to pay attention and see a liberative God at work when I’m at a retreat that invites me to see the world through a different lens and to look up to see where God is moving. The context changes when I get back to the day to day rhythms of life.

Now that I’m home, away from the rich learning and glimpses of liberation in Boston, I’m mindful of something that Dr. Filipe Maia shared on our first night as we discussed Simone Weil. He shared his experience as a first generation immigrant and his connection to Martin Luther’s view of communion as God’s con-descending, coming down to dwell with us. Dr. Maia remarked that Martin Luther was an immigrant so he knew the importance of gathering for a taste of home. Communion is a way to taste the home-cooking of the kin-dom. Communion is a way to be aware of the presence of a God on the move.

This week I broke bread in my home with Flor and Luis, a couple who started a church in Phoenix this past year. They have used technology like podcasts and social media to share God’s liberative voice and presence with their congregation. They are also using technology to reach people with a new ministry offered to and through their church called “Sacred Stories” where congregations can welcome some of their members and hear stories about the plight of families seeking a better life.

Last week I broke bread with Rev. Lindsay Joyce, a pastor in Chicago who uses technology to create networks of belonging and community organizing to fight for justice for those being victimized and brutalized because of the color of their skin. Entire churches and communities are wearing whistles around their neck to use at a moment’s notice to warn others or draw attention to danger or oppression flooding the streets.

What if we stopped using technology as a way to distract ourselves from what’s really going on? What if we used technology as a tool to connect with the ways God is moving us towards gospel liberation?

It’s easy in this day and age to hide away from the realities of the suffering of society and the taste of home so many are longing for and focus on our own needs and desires. God is calling us to be acutely aware of where God is moving and who God is calling us to be in this day and age. So break bread with others, wear a whistle, use technology as a tool to look up to where God is moving and keep up with the holy and hard work of liberation.

One of our final Thurman scholars offered this piercing reminder of Thurman’s posture. Just when you think you’ve learned something about God—and especially once you’ve put that belief down on paper—you must look up. Because God has moved.

Thurman contended that God is always current. We are the ones lagging behind.

If our technology is merely a tool to help us catch up to the God who is already present, already at work, already reaching—then our task is again listen, to notice, to align.

Attention, again, becomes the doorway.

And perhaps—just perhaps—our use of technology isn’t about dragging God into these spaces.

It’s about recognizing that God is already there.

If.

We.

Are paying attention. Because where God is, there is liberation. God is in the business of technologies of liberation.