Today is the Day of the Dead: All Souls Day. My husband Guari and I have lit a candle for our son John and other family members, friends and all those souls who have influenced us and have gone before us into death. For us, they are still “presente.”
All Souls Day is part of the “Triduum of the Dead” or “Allhallowtide,” a three-day observance in the Christian year that includes All Hallows Eve (Halloween), All Saints Day, and All Souls Day, Day of the Dead. From pre-Christian times, there is a tradition that this is a time of a “thinning of the veil” between those of us who are living and those of us who have died, allowing us to touch in to the mysteries beyond this life.
It feels significant that tomorrow is Election Day in the United States. The overall outcome seems momentous, for some even a matter of life or death. There are choices on the ballot related to the existential challenges we face as US Americans and as human beings and members of the community of life. We must be braced for whatever happens. But regardless of the outcome of the election, there will be much more for us to do, because what is at stake for our country, humanity, the earth, and our shared future is far greater than the Trump Administration.
I could write much more about this, but I’m not going to do that today. Today I want to share with you a pre-election article called “Midterm Motivator” from the ever-insightful Naomi Klein, a Canadian, who has created “A brand new short video to help power our US friends through the final push—and thoughts on what it will take to beat back end times fascism for good.” Naomi Klein, along with Astra Taylor wrote the recently-released book, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World. Here is the 10-minute trailer for the book.
This is where my work is taking me right now. As you may know, my work has recently focused on climate change and my revised book, Love in a Time of Climate Change: Honoring Creation, Establishing Justice. But my first book, Shaking the Gates of Hell: Faith-Led Resistance to Corporate Globalization was an overview of the global economy from a theological perspective that included climate change and other existential threats, as well as directions for moving toward a livable world. It was revised in 2020, at the end of the first Trump Administration. The Cross in the Midst of Creation: Following Jesus, Engaging the Powers, Transforming the World, published in 2022, critiques sadistic sacrificial theology behind Christian Nationalism and demonstrates other ways to understand “the way of the cross” as the inclusive, compassionate, justice-seeking message and example of Jesus, and the life-giving power of the Spirit that brings about both inner and outer transformation. All of my books describe and challenge the “domination system” and the institutional powers and principalities that dominate our world.
Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor have combined all these challenges in a way that makes so much sense. Here is the blurb from the front cover, which describes the content well:
As the planet burns and shared reality melts, a new iteration of the far right is on the march: religious fundamentalists, Silicon Valley technologists, and ethno-nationalists have formed an unlikely alliance that is upending our world….They are united by their belief that some kind of cleansing cataclysm is coming, whether via the manifestation of messianic prophecy, the ravages of a resource and job-consuming artificial intelligence, or the purported existential threat of immigration and cultural replacement, convinced that they will be among the saved who make it to the other side…
They go on to show “The far right’s growing internal conflicts and contradictions that lead the open to defeat,” fand describe successful movements that are showing people “the basis for a new politics rooted in this world, not another—in a regard for our shared existence and for the Earth that we inhabit and must defend.”
I encourage you to read the article, watch the videos, and read the book. To effectively resist the powers that dominate the world, we must understand them, and this book helps immensely.
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