[Poem]: For a New Blossom

 

 

While waiting for a new blossom,

Let you not forget watering the roots,

Droplets will dance with your feet!

 

While intonating a new voice,

Let you not skip the hush between the breaths,

Silence explodes, exactly there!

 

While longing for a new hope,

Let you not bypass those dreamless folks,

A land unspools their ash-ed wishes!

 

While working for a new world,

Let you not be dismayed by the untruths,

Each step is an arrival!

 

While inhabiting this transit time,

Let you not miss “now” little fragile moments,

Be the sanctuary that you seek!

 

While getting ready for another journey,

Let you not leave behind the resurrection-seeds,

The future is already here!

 

---

 

A Child’s Laughter!

 

 

A child’s laughter

Can disrupt—

Every. single. rationale

You’ve enshrined!

Like ancient pottery

In those tiny hands!

 

You will be shocked

When your laptop,

Baptized in spilled juice,

Facing total de(con)struction—

A digital apocalypse!

 

You will be surprised

By crayon masterpieces

Blooming on white robes,

An excellent geometry,

In pure expressionist joy!

 

You will be amazed

By the alchemy of making

Origami birds from your

Old sermon notes, half-eaten,

Yet soaring into new epiphanies!

 

Finally,

You will be struck

By the radical newness

In her laughter over your

unreasonable imperialities,

On a Christmas Day!

 

---

ADVENT & THEOLOGY OF SAND

 

 

 

Advent calls us to the adventure of waiting! I think waiting has two essential dimensions: hanging on and longing for. We hang on to the reality right at hand and long for a new reality that is underway. Between these two, we unfold as better human beings and better disciples. Waiting is a descipling endeavor, and it is adventurous.

Donny Hathaway's poetical words:

         "Hang on to the world as it spins around.

Just don't let the spin get you down.
Things are moving fast.
Hold on tight, and you will last.
Take it from me: someday, we'll all be free!

 

Hathaway's voice was prophetic and challenging as an African American songwriter and singer in Chicago during the 60s and 70s. Every prophetic voice has an element of advent in it: hanging on and longing for. In the Prophetic tradition within the Bible, both in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, we see the elements of adventurous advent in many ways. Walter Brueggemaan talks about two aspects of the prophetic imagination in the Bible: i) embracing, and ii) imagining anew.

Right in this prophetic lineage, the Evangelist Luke places “John the Baptist” at the very outset of the narrative in Luke, chapter 3:1-6. Many commentators consider this small episode of the larger pericope as the proper beginning of the gospel. With its clear historical references, Chapter 3 invites us to the concrete historical world of the first century Palestine.  The rhythm of the narrative ( call, commissioning, and content of the prophecy) resembles the usual "prophetic call narratives" in the hebrew Bible. We can sense three pivotal movements within the literary text in connection to the Theology of the Advent while looking through the lens of empire criticism.

 

“Sand” as Strategic Spacing

 

The first two verses of Chapter Three make explicit historical and geopolitical references in the first century Common Era:"In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert." These verses refer to the imperial and religious confluence of the Pax Romana. The fifteenth-year reference mimics imperial calendrical calculation, placing the emperor at the center. The latter half of the passage decenters it. The top-down, over-arching imperial system starts from Caesar down through Pilate, Herod, Philip, and Lysanias. On top of that, there is a clear reference to the religious leaders as well, Annas and Caiaphas. This invisible social contract between the imperial system and religious leadership of the time made the social reality unhinged. However, the small appendix to verse 2 makes a subversive turn: "The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the Desert (wilderness)." This makes a U-turn. We can find subtle but profound spatial politics here.The strategic spacing of the desert or wilderness becomes the locus of a new public theology of John the Baptist. The Greek word (ἐρήμῳ) (erēmō), used here for desert, has multiple meanings. It can be a desert, uninhabited wilderness, or wild grassland. But the point is that it is a bereft place, a marginal space.

For an imaginative exercise : consider that you are stepping into a desert on your own. You are touching the sand and feeling it. You try to hold it, but it overflows out of your palms; when you try to move, you may lose your balance and miss your step because it is loose ground. Tiny grains of sand may irritate between your toes, and the grains may cause pain inside your nails; when the wind blows, you will be bathed in sand, you will be wrapped with a sand blanket. You become totally consumed by the sand. It is a totally unsettling experience! It may unsettle ( symbolically)your preconceived notions, set patterns, disciplinary practices, and many other things.

 

Evangelist Luke strategically places the desert over the imperial palaces and temples of the time. The desert invites you to another way of being in the world! I prefer to call this Sand Theology. If you notice, Jesus follows John the Baptist, starting his public ministry in the wilderness, countering the temptations of the empire. If we go further, we see evangelist Luke uses a unique phrase in Acts 7:38 (church in the desert - ekklesia en te eremo). It's part of Stephen's profound speech before his martyrdom. A church that is always in exodus. A church that embodies the message of advent. A church in the desert would be a church that is always on the move, always listening to the spirit of re-forming and reshaping, and re-imagining.

I often wonder why we don’t keep a box of sand beside the baptismal font to remind us that we are a speck of dust and part of a church in the desert. The theology of Advent and the Theology of Sand (desert/wilderness) go hand in hand. After all, during the advent, we wait for  God, who incarnated in the human body. The human body is another form of sand and soil, a part of the earth. Sometimes, we need a baptism in the sand to learn the art of unsettling the empires within us.

 

 “Grace-d Economics”

 

In verse 3, we see the content of John the Baptist's prophetical message: "repentance and forgiveness of sins." According to Dominic Crossan, John the Baptist was one of the leaders of the Baptism movement in the first century and probably emerged from the Essenes and apocalyptic movement. He preached advent, the immanence of God. Repentance (metanoia) and "forgiveness (aphesin) of sins" is all about our dependency on the Grace of God. The content of the message of John the Baptist, is the “Grace side economics” over against the “Greed side economics of the empire.” In the greed side economy of the Roman empire, it was almost impossible to talk about “grace or forgiveness.” Forgiveness has a clear economic reference. The Roman Criminal Justice system had no room for repentance and forgiveness.  Therefore, it was impossible to speak about grace. What will it look like in a graceless world? Can we laugh enough in a graceless world? Can we love enough in a graceless world? Can we talk about freedom in a graceless world? ….

Advent is all about hanging on and longing for and unfolding in between in a graceless world. Let us take the courage to talk about the Graced economics over the greedy economics.

 

Poetic “Re-Story-ation”

 

The second half of the passage, verses 4, 5, and 6, is a huge shift in the literary structure; Luke takes Hebrew poetry from Isaiah 40:3-5, and beautifully improvises it. We see a shift here from prose to poetry. Poetics is always about new possibilities in language. Exploring new possibilities of the language in a time of Pax Romana. It is, of course, not the lingua franca of the empire but a lingua franca of restoration. Restoration is always a kind of “re-story-ation.” “Re-story-ation” through micro histories and subversive poetics, against the mega stories of the empire.

 

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
    make his paths straight.
⁵ Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
    and the rough ways made smooth,
⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

 

This is totally a new eschatological imagination. Luke improvises the Isaiahanic text and connects it to the story of Jesus, pointing towards the lordship of Jesus Christ, replacing the Lorship of the empire.  It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring  and proposing futures alternative to the single one the empire wants to urge as the only thinkable one. Indeed poetic imagination is the last way left in which to challenge and conflict the dominant reality. The dominant reality is necessarily in prose, but everybody's responsibility is to create poetical imaginations about other ways of being. Such an activity would say that the apathy does not fully consume us. It requires that we have not  yet finally given up on the promise spoken over us by God who is free enough to keep promises. This is the heart of the Advent.

 

Waiting involves a certain level of uncertainty. Robin Kimmerer in her beautifully written book “Braiding Sweetgrass,” says; “What does it take to abandon what does not work and take the risks of uncertainty? We'll need courage, we'll need each other's hands to hold and faith in the geese to catch us. It would help to sing. The landing might not be soft, but land holds many medicines. Propelled by love, ready to work, we can jump toward the world we want to co-create, with pocket full of seeds. And rhizomes!”

 

Advent EXtro:

 

In advent we wait for God, and at the same time, we realize God is waiting for us and counting on us. A Czechoslovakian proverb says, “They are waiting at God's windows.” That means there is a meeting point where our waiting for God and God’s waiting for us converge together. At that converging point, Advent becomes meaningful. We are the Advent people and the Christmas people at the same time. Let the adventures of Advent keep us challenged!

 

References

Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 40th Anniversary Edition(  Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018).

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. First edition, (Minneapolis: Milkweed, 2013)

 

 

THE INTERSECTIONAL DALITITY

 

[Note:  The pictures are from the Dalit History Month  Celebrations and Panel Discussion on Endurance, Solidarity and Liberation, conducted by the Pero Center for Intersectionality Studies at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.]

Let me begin with a piece of poetry:

 

What is silence?

 

What is Silence?

It’s when my soul yearns

to forge a fresh lexicon for

no given words befitting.

 

What is silence?

It’s the theft of self,

where shame weaves its web of untouchability.

 

What is Silence?

It’s the gasp of the speechless, 

Stripped of their voice

 

What is silence?

It is the womb from which 

One’s loudest convictions explode!

 

I wrote this piece of poetry five years back, recollecting my childhood experience of systemic casteism. During my childhood, I felt an unreasonable, frightful silence deep down within me, and I could not figure out what it was! If I put it more accurately, it was a kind of “unspeakability”! Insufficiency of the given language. A kind of bereft of language; “a linguistic debt.” Later, I realized that it emerged out of my particular social location as a Dalit Christian in the northern part of Kerala, one of the southern states of India. It primarily arose from the “shame” of being a Dalit Christian. If I put it in the language of Sonya Renee Taylor, the author of the beautiful book “My Body Is Not an Apology,” it was a kind of “META SHAME!” ( an intergenerational shame). In a culture of shame and honor, the shame of being a Dalit Christian weighed on me heavily, and it was like inhabiting in a stolen body! That kind of frightening, deep silence has engrossed me, producing many bodily effects of withdrawal, hiding, and canceling my own lived experiences of marginality. Later, I found that this deep silence out of the meta shame apparently manifested on the faces of my parents, and I am sure it was inscribed on the bodies of my ancestors. Caste/ race is primarily a bodily experience and a body arrangement.

 

Despite the radical love and exuberant joy that we shared in our family, there was a deep silence, like a subterranean roaring ocean. The Christian tradition we belong to has seldom provided the vocabulary to problematize the issue of “unspeakability” or that frightening silence. However, I was introduced to liberation theology through the Student Christian Movement, and later, my official theological studies in the seminary gave me a few vocabulary. The emergence of Dalit Theology as a contextual expression of Liberation Theology tremendously helped me to theorize the deep pathos and suffering. But somehow, I felt that Dalit theologians were primarily engaged in romanticizing the pathos and suffering of Dalit existence, rather than searching for the tools of undoing it. However, the contemporary Dalit theological imagination has shifted its focus significantly to the embodiment paradigm.

 

                          [Panel Discussion on Endurance, Solidarity and Liberation conducted by the Pero Center at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago on April 29th,2024 . The Revds.Drs. Evangeline Anderson Rajkumar, Chrisida Nithyakalyani Anandan, Vinod Wesley & Baiju Markose]

 

Almost a decade ago, when I was introduced to Womanist Theology and the idea of intersectionality, it was an epiphanic moment for me. I acknowledge the labor of Prof. Dr. Linda Thomas, my advisor and mentor, who radically shared her uncanny womanist wisdom in mothering and mentoring people like me at the Lutheran School of Theology, encouraging us to re-visit our roots and make radical connections. It was like an unapologetic exhuming process of reinventing our own identities. In that apocalyptic process of uncovering the entanglements of identities, the idea of intersectionality was tremendously helpful as a critical social theory and praxis. Kimberlé Crenshaw defines intersectionality; as “a lens through which we can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. “Within the matrix of oppression, multiple marginalized identities have a compounding effect on the level of oppression and marginalization. For those who are in the privileged social position already, the matrix of oppression adds compounded benefits and makes them hyperprivileged.

 

Through the lens of intersectionality, when I look back to my childhood experience of deep, frightening silence, invisibility, the debt of language, and above all, the bodily affects and emotionalities of meta-shame, I fathom the depth of that “unspeakability,” as a compounded effect of the complex matrix of oppression, where the systems of power like caste, gender, spatial positioning, marginal social location, religious beliefs, bodily distancing, intergenerational cumulative trauma, and many other countless microaggressions intersected and interlocked to exacerbate the pain. And I tried to decolonize and undo that specific casteist imprint on me using intersectionality as a tool, primarily by naming, confronting, and disentangling it. It was radical act of courage to find new ways of resistance. Here, I want to make an important point: “Our bodies are political. Undoing the caste imprints in our bodies is the most crucial political activism that we need to do.” Often we misunderstand political activism only can be expressed as exteriorities like public demonstrations and resistance. Indeed, it is essential. However, there is a crucial interior work waiting for us! The question here is whether or not we will use our bodies to uphold systems of oppression or defy them? This work of unraveling and undoing caste imprints is the most important political work that we should do as we talk about endurance, solidarity, and liberation. This is a collective work and an everyday act. Even the work of excavating tiny artifacts of the caste regime lives in us is truly liberating. I consider the most critical work yet to be done by the Dalits/Christians lies at the intersections of body, identity, and social justice. 

 

Fortunately, we have different theoretic resources like intersectionality, epigenetics, race and caste critical comparative studies, fugitivity studies, etc., which expand the horizon of our understanding and open up new avenues of deep solidarity between marginalized communities all over the globe. Along with political engagement, academic activism is also crucial. Gopal Guru, one of the important Dalit Social Scientists of our time says; “Doing theory is a Dalit social necessity in order to become the subject of their own thinking rather than becoming the object of somebody else’s thinking. “Therefore, this is inseparably a two-way process of theory and praxis, and it is a liberatory way of reflective action, followed by critical reflection, again reflective action completing that loop endlessly. In fact, it is a collective global enterprise. 

 

Where do we go from here? 

 

Inspired by the theme; “Endurance, Solidarity, and Liberation,” I propose three critical intersecting movements to go forward, 

 

                    1) Vertical Downward Movement: Going deeper and uncovering the unique and particular  lived experiences of Dalitity and undoing the caste hegemonic imprints. It is the work of interiority and endurance.

                    2) Horizontal Movement: Building planetary connections between                                                   marginalized communities, fostering deep solidarity, which also means                                          deeper solidarity with the more than human ecosystems en-wrapping us. 

                    3) Enspiral Movement: Never-ending, self-reflective, spiral (counter to the                                      hegemonic circularity), and integrating movements that bring healing and                                   liberation. 

 

Once again, I invite your attention back to my poem. I encourage you to read the poetical piece, through the lens of silence as linguistic debt, and juxtapose it with the experience of deep silent cry of the children in Gaza and elsewhere today, who are relegated to the position of “nobodies in nowhere,” being the primary victims of the war and genocide. I wonder how deep, frightening, will be that dreamless frightening silence and the gasp of “unspeakability” residued inside them? With an interlocutory sense, I  re-signify the Dalit experience of systemic casteism as a portal through which a new vista of deep listening and solidarity opens, where the communities carrying the heavy weight of shame and exclusion can come together and do the work of reimagining together. Let me conclude with the hope-filled words of Palestinian Theologian Mitri Raheb: “Hope is not only an act of speaking about the future, but it is a fundamental counter practice of the present.” 

Pārppu: Embracing the Fugitive Wisdom (Dalitity, Fugitivity & Agential Realism)

 

           

                                               

 

( image courtesy alamy.com)

Above all, do not forget.

Commit everything - each blade of grass,

teary-eyed child, and unmarked grave  to memory.

Then, tell your story. Tell it on your bruised knees.

 

                                                                  - Andrew Lam, Perfume Dreams

 

 

The memory of my maternal grandma, now fading like the gentle twilight, resurfaces with the brilliance of her distinctive words. Amidst the contours of our family vacations, my siblings and I found ourselves immersed in the enchanting days spent at her side, traversing the captivating pilgrimage to her abode. The journey, adorned with the richness of fresh red soil, enveloped by the comforting presence of coconut trees, punctuated by quaint crossroads, and graced by the iconic hanging wooden bridge over the river, unfurled a vivid canvas of communion with nature. Each step etched a sacred ritual, and the nights spent on a humble mat beneath the vast night sky carved a redemptive sanctuary within my soul – a solace during moments of loneliness.

 

Amid the kaleidoscope of Malayalam colloquial expressions generously shared by my grandmother, one term stood out with unparalleled significance – "Pārppu." Inflected with colloquial intonations and subaltern nuances, its importance transcended the confines of mere language. As a Dalit Christian woman navigating the intricate tapestry of Christian spirituality in early 20th-century Malabar, North Kerala, my grandma embodied an uncommon fusion of Eastern Christian Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and the radical wisdom of subaltern Christian becoming.

 

                                             

 

Delving into the essence of "Pārppu" in my grandmother's distinctive vernacular, I discern a profound connection to Dalitity – a term encapsulating the marginalized existence and resistance of Dalit communities. She used to insist us to stay (Pārppu) with her one more day, and one more day ( many more) and she used this particular word Pārppu to refer that experience of with-nessing together. I assume, the term, pulsates with a call for "staying" in authenticity, urging a radical dwelling unbound by fixity. It invites us to trust in the agential capacity of intra-actions between humans and more-than-human beings, instilling a complete faith in the agential realism that encapsulates the fugitivity of a subaltern woman – a transformative force that is both therapeutic and revolutionary.

 

Embedded within the framework of new materialist theory, particularly articulated by Karen Barad, "Pārppu" seamlessly aligns itself with the concept of agential realism. Barad's insistence on distributive agency, necessitating grappling with the intricacies of existence without seeking simplistic resolutions, finds resonance in the very essence of "Pārppu." It calls us to confront the uncertainties of life with resilience and fortitude. Donna Haraway's concept of staying with the trouble further illuminates the profound significance of "Pārppu" in our contemporary context, demanding a steadfast commitment to addressing the challenges of our times without succumbing to despondency or indifference.

 

In the current ecological tipping point, the imperative of staying with the trouble, avoiding fixed categorizations, becomes paramount, echoing Barad's perspective. This harmoniously aligns with the tenets of "Pārppu," a kind of tentacular thinking, encouraging us to embrace the complexities and uncertainties of existence with an open heart and an engaged mind. In this sense, Pārppu, is an invitation to navigate the intricacies of life without succumbing to the allure of simplistic resolutions.

 

                                   

                                           (Movie Harriet cover image)

 

"Pārppu" emerges not only as a call for staying with the trouble but as a manifesto for embodied resistance – a bold invitation to authentically inhabit the flux of existence, placing trust in the agential capacities of more than human entities. It encapsulates the fugitive wisdom of Dalit spirituality, serving as itinerant hope and resilience in a world marked by war and violence. The cinematic portrayal of Harriet Tubman in the movie "Harriet" vividly captures her unique contemplative practice of "Pārppu," a radical act of communion with the more -than-human ecosystem for an itinerant/subversive discernment, showcasing its cross-cultural resonance as a subaltern ecological wisdom. This attests that another world is not merely on its way; it already exists among the people at the fringes, weaving its threads through diverse cultures and practices, beckoning us to embrace its transformative potential.

Theopoetic Christ: Ornitheological Entanglements

 

 

Crushed in your memories,

bruised in your agonies,

I wonder how you transcend

melancholy into melodies!

In the eerie nights of solitude,

dazed in the fury wind,

drenched in the misty rain,

you might have dreamt of a winged life!

One day, you will trust your wings,

stand on your ground,

and burst out in your spirit,

to reach the limits of the sky,

and to chat with the stars.

Thank you for being with,

and teaching us;

We journey each other home,

as we are the intertwined interbeings!

Yes, for sure,

the woodpecker is a bio-mystical relationship

between the wood and its wounds! [1]

-Wood-Pecker

 

To start in the middle means to be entangled in dialogue with pluriform hermeneutic possibilities, destabilizing any forms of totalitarian interpretations. Perhaps it is a spiritual/ethical practice of “always beginning in the middle,”[2] as Deleuze puts it. This new categorical imperative of eco-ethics is letting our loves be like the wasp and orchid, without beginning and end, as continually in the middle, between things, interbeing, and intermezzo! Roland Faber explicates what it means to begin in the middle.

 

To begin in the middle always means to follow multiplicities in their deconstructive complexity within and without, to unsettle the boundaries and clear borders of forced identities, which are always imposed measures of the One with its power-installed abstractions of unification and division. To begin in the middle is an ethical category that activates us from the middle of the happening of multiplicities and asks us to always submerge into their middle and many folds of connectivity within and beyond, which always form under the skin of powers of unification and division and only come to life within, across and beyond the boundaries of power.[3]

 

To embody the liminal, we must transcend the elevated realms of unity and actively engage with the intricate dynamics within and between various elements. We must acknowledge the moments of connection between different entities and the artificial barriers that isolate them. Embracing the concept of being "in-between" requires us to adopt an intermezzo mindset, contrasting the rigid abstractions that perpetuate a sense of dominance over nature, culture, and ourselves. This mindset encourages us to embrace a more humble and nuanced perspective. To embody the liminal is to challenge the notion of fixed identity and instead embrace a multidimensional existence akin to a river's flowing nature or the rhizome's interconnectedness.

 

Nesting Theopoetic Imagination

This  note begins with theopoetic attention to a recently composed poem displayed at the outset of this article. The poem, penned two years ago, recounts the poignant tale of two "wood-pecker" birds who tragically lost their nest during a tumultuous night of merciless storms and relentless rain. My loving wife, children, and I endeavored to offer solace and sustenance to these vulnerable young woodpecker fledglings, only to witness their untimely demise a few days later. This heartrending event served as a profound catalyst, igniting a theological contemplation on the fleeting existence of woodpeckers, symbolic of Christ's ultimate sacrifice on the cross, unifying the concepts of wounds and wood. The haunting verses of the poem compelled me to reevaluate the woodpecker as a hermeneutical key enabling a deeper exploration of the divine "wood-pecker" existence embodied in Jesus Christ, who hung on a tree (Acts 5:20), suspended between the realms of heaven and earth. Thus, it unveils the divine intercarnational relationship with the entirety of the world (John 3:16). It is worth noting that the historical fact of Jesus, as a skilled carpenter working with wood, further inspired me to establish this extraordinary connection between Jesus and the woodpecker, unveiling a profound and intricate bond.

A genuine neighborliness with the more-than-human materiality will ignite in us the realization that we are inter beings, not independent beings.[4] This leads us back to nature itself. We need to find ourselves in a continuum with nature. Anyway, that sad little incident of the death of two woodpecker nestlings and the agony that brought us made me to realize that there are deep ontological roots of sharing in our very existence, which we deliberately forget in the fake hustle and bustle of life's struggle. I tried to trace an ornitheological connection between the wood, wood-pecker, wound, Christ, marginality, and liminality in the light of this event. 

 

Wood-pecker & Subalternity 

The woodpecker's existence between heaven and earth exemplifies the "liminal" life. When we translate the symbol of the "wood-pecker" as an embodiment of liminal life and interpretive device,  it is better to use the hyphen in between "wood-pecker." The hyphen in the middle is a careful record of the life of critical liminality. The experiences of in-between / betwixt problematize simultaneously the social condition of being inside and outside. Such stumbling experiences mark the lives of the marginalized. The subaltern lived experiences of  Dalit people in India punctuate a unique liminal location of “victim-insider (Dasyus ) and untouchable-outsider(Asprsyas )” and “visibility (prathyaksha ) and invisibility( aprathyaksha ). This existential dilemma of the “inbetweenness” of the subaltern, which I name as the “critical liminalities” referring to both avowal and disavowal of Dalit body in a caste stigmatized sociality. Along with the Critical liminalities, there is an array of under-explored and unattended Dalit subjective experiences like body-bereft ( body as debt, not as credit experience, a kind of epidermalization linguistic debt ( d[y]s-ability to engage effectively in the political negotiations), and other contextual ambiguities arising out of local social contracts. The experience of subaltern critical liminality conjures up a new mode of knowing, being, and acting in the world. This new approach is essential for addressing subaltern histories marked by disruption, displacement, and irrecoverable loss.

 

Ornitheological Entanglements

An  ornitheological quest[5] for connecting  Jesus Christ and the woodpecker inspired me to consider the ecotheopoetic method as a suitable assemblage paradigm, which combines eco-consciousness, poetics, and theology, traversing the disciplinary borders intentionally.This assemblage thinking that interconnects the metaphors woodpecker, Christ, wood, and wounds, inspired by ornitheology, helps us to re-theorize the state of exception of the people at the margin. Therefore, theopoetic Christ is reimagined here as an active interlocutor between the subalternity, and ecosensibility of the people at  the fringes. In this radical imagination, critical liminality is construed as the new centrality, which calls us for a new planetary ethics. It is a subversively paradoxical planetary wisdom, marked by its rhizomatic nature, already practiced by many indigenous communities. 

( An ungroomed excerpt from my recent article for the upcoming Earth Volume)

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[1]  Baiju Markose, The Cross and The Peacock, (Delhi: ISPCK, 2021), 20.

[2] Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. (London: Bloomsbury Revelations, 2013),17.

[3] Roland Faber and Jeremy Fackenthal, Theopoetic Folds: Philosophizing Multifariousness ( New York: Fordham University Press, 2013),232.

[4] Thich Nath Hanh, Call Me by My True Names ( Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1999)154.

[5] Ornitheology is a term coined by the great theologian and birder John Stott in his book The Birds, Our Teachers. Ornitheological field of research centers around the idea that the birds have something to say about truth, beauty, and a crazy-creative God. https://www.ornitheology.com/post/ornitheology_explained

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