Pivot Pilgrimage Two: back to Europe

I’m about take a trip I’ve been wanting to make for as long as I remember. My earliest memories are of living multi-generationally in the Polonia District (East Side) of Buffalo. I have Polish names — family last names as well as nicknames. I’ve come to the part of my vocational pivot for the second pilgrimage (17 days), exploring some European places and roots. My first pilgrimage led me 15,000 miles across North America, the third is with mentors on the west coast, the final is wilderness time. Top image is a tree’s roots in Krakow, photo by @TomaszBorysiuk. 

Playing decolonization can be fun. I enjoy dismantling and challenging whiteness, whether it’s identity and narrative in a personal sense or contributing to the analysis, pedagogy, or praxis to the movement of de-centering whiteness while rooting out white supremacy.

An actor with all the Winged Hussar swag, Poland’s legendary calvary.

What does it mean to be Polish? Existentially, I’ve always been Polish. I’ve heard every Polish joke (in the US, people make jokes about how stupid Poles are). Well, I’m also a cis white male American, 100 years in the US has offered many privileges with it. I don’t speak much Polish at all, can only cook basic holiday food, and have lived a mile from the Polish neighborhood of Philadelphia since 1999. But am I a real Polish person? I know about Polish Americans in the US, but not much about back in Polska. I’m learning now about the history and especially last 100 years since my ancestors came over. That’s only from my dad’s lineage as my mom was adopted from Irish/Scottish/English people. Most of my Polish relatives are back 9in Western New York. I want to explore our narrative and stories. I want to touch the land, hear the language, eat the food, and enjoy exploring my family history. Did Poles really attack WWI tanks with swords on horseback? Is that why we are stupid if they did? If you’re white, what stereotypes are there about your peoples? Ever try to find out where they came from and why it helps whiteness to continue them or not? 

I’ll be in Poland for a week. Krakow will be my base, with a lovely Polish/American family. I’ll get to see where Smok Wawelski (Wawel dragon) lived, and maybe find out whether it was Krakus that smote him. I’ll spend two days in Szczecin (maybe where my paternal great grandfather was from), where I’ll do some travel blogging for my Polish friends. I’ll also get to take a bus to the village Mielec, where my maternal great grandmother was from.

I’ll get to visit the countryside of England for a few nights, and will enjoy intergenerational fish n chips. I’ll also get to hang with friends in London for a few nights. Flying from Philly, London is by far the cheapest place to get to and from Europe, utilizing multiple airports. Look kids — Big Ben, Parliament.

My friend in Copenhagen first invited me to visit close to 20 years ago. I look forward to seeing this place and people that has formed some of my closest friends and music dudes. I also have the opportunity to facilitate some conversations with some cool Danes about white supremacy, Trump, and Indigenous/Settler relations.

My Mexican and Spanish artistic collaborators who I recently visited in Mexico will be in Bilbao, Spain. I’m fascinated by Basque Country, and can’t wait to roll with such creative people in a beautiful place for a few nights.

These sleeping monarchs are in Mexico. I missed seeing them there, and couldn’t find any overwintering near Big Sur, CA when I was there recently.

I’ve been contemplating the monarch butterflies and their four-generation annual migration over the past few years. Their east coast North American migration takes three generations to fly south, eating their milkweed, laying eggs, and dying. Their larvae turn into caterpillars who enjoy chrysalis, eat some milkweed and fly south. That happens again until the third generation overwinters in Mexico. When the fourth generation emerges, they make the flight North over only a few weeks back to Canada. They repeat this every year, although our wetlands are in danger of disastrously disrupting these important pollinators. Please allow more milkweed to grow, East Coast! 

It’s been three generations since my Polish ancestors came East. I’m completing one monarch butterfly cycle, in a way. Hopefully my actual Polish babies benefit from it. I have dreamt about wading out into the Baltic Sea on a cold, gray day. There I reach my open hands towards the heavens. And then see what happens.

If you want to join me more closely on this journey, please consider making a donation towards the cost. While it’s way cheaper than I originally schemed (with the whole family), airfare and food will be around $2,000. 

Salience from my North American pilgrimage

I’ll be reflecting my recent journey for a long time — it was epic! It was pilgrimage one of four on this vocational pivot I’m undertaking. Here are five bubbles that keep rising during my reflective sessions. I hope they help good things emerge on your journeys.

I have been asked about liminality a lot by my friends, because frankly they are wondering what I’m gonna do vocationally after this transition. I’m truly grateful to have this set aside time right now that is special time. I’ve most often experienced liminal space in ceremony — like a sweat lodge, baptism, personal retreats, etc. You know when you’re going to enter, and about when you will leave liminal time. You release to the Great Mystery what happens in the space and how you experience the time. Around the coming of Spring (March this year) Martha and I will make some big decisions around my work situation. Until then, I’m embracing the present moment and doing a deep dive towards the past. I shot the triptych above in a forbidden tunnel out west. This spiritual journey is like a tunnel but more like the birth canal, the journey itself is an active participant.

Berthoud Pass, Colorado

While gawking at the Rockies near Denver as well as the Sierra Madres near Querétaro, I gleaned some gifts from my photographer friends. Your eye is the best camera you will ever use. I probably knew that intuitively, as I technology often doesn’t actually enhance. Your eye can hold at least seven times as many focal lengths as the best cameras in the world — with a amazingly wide vignette focus to boot. My selfies with mountains are one focal length, and scarcely brushed up against the magnificence of the landscape.

 

A whole heap of us have been socialized and educated, the colonization of our minds, to think that when relating to creation, we are the ordained masters. We think the earth is for us, rather than we belong to the earth. Practicing new ways of relating can open up learning new ways of knowing. When hanging our with a mustang out in Navajo country, I learned some good foundational lessons for husbandry; the horse is bigger, stronger, and smarter than you. If she wants to impose her will on you, she will. You don’t need stern cruelty to control the horse, you befriend one another. Some humility helps. Fear, not so much. Knowing a place and the life therein can happen in various ways, but when we submit to creation as our teacher and even mother, we can discover learning in ways that heal, reconnect, and open our imaginations.

Being back at home has been very restorative for me. I’m very rooted in family. Making the time and effort to connect yields blessing manifold. The holidays were full of good

Lily was almost named Applejack Amazing Grace. Some days she wishes we would have.

times together. I cherished my one-on-one time with Martha, Helena, and Lily as well as my three brothers and our blessed mother. My in-laws live 20 minutes away in South Jersey and I got to see 12 of my 16 nieces and nephews and their cool parents. I feel surrounded by blessing, grateful for such a web of relatedness that believes in each other with love. A dozen or so friends have even donated money to this crowd funded vocational pivot. Staying by the gifts of friends truly fills my heart. My most impressive quality most certainly is my social networks.

My family shares hospitality as a value. We know its transforming power, and have the honor to play host to our rather impressive network of friends. We have learned so much and been blessed by the gifts of our guests many times over for any effort or cost it took. Being a good guest takes practicing humility, honor, and respect. It’s also way cheaper and more fun.

As I make final preparations for pilgrimage two: back to my Polish roots, I look back on

This is Priscilla, the Yreka dragon in California. Soon I will visit the lair of the Wawel dragon in Krakow!

the past few months with awe and gratitude. If you will be in Poland during January, hit me up so we can hang! If you have Polish quests or want to nerd out about Szczesniak/Pacynnski family trees or if you are down with Krakow, Mielec, or Szczecin…holla at your boy.

 

 

Good Tidings from ten days out

Thanks to all those who have been reaching out with encouragement and offers for me to visit. The first 10 days have been super fun. I’m humbled by the generosity of friends who have given hospitality, prayers, and even financial support. 

Carnivalistas building into the #OccupyICE encampment at Phila City Hall during our residency in 2018

So far I’ve stayed in four towns all with folks I jammed with during past Carnival de Resistance residencies. That’s a quick jaunt through Harrisonburg, VA before crashing in Charlottesville, Lexington, KY, Atlanta, GA and now Little Rock, AK. Their energy and creativity continue to abound and inspire!

My longest drive was about eight hours, although most have been under six. Tomorrow I head to visit West Philly Baseball legend Matt Mack in Shreveport, LA! I’m trying to keep my travel dates page up to date in case you’re riding along. I’m at about 10% of my total miles at this point.

So far I’ve gotten into pickup soccer games, played music with Claire Hitchins, got to know a pair of trans women from Latin America seeking sanctuary here under circumstances that continue to undermine their humanity, recorded some interviews, enjoyed a friend-curated variety hour featuring a bouquet of disciplines, helped arrange flowers for a wedding, hung out at feminist book store with my favorite justice doula Micky, started some new spiritual friendships, and sat in on a few sessions of a permaculture design course…to name a few. BTW — You probably want to watch Seed: an untold story ASAP, pretty much blew my gourd. 

One of the benefits to me of this pilgrimage is to gather input from collaborators, elders, relatives, and friends about how they see me. It’s almost like getting a new mirror, or like realizing that the lighting I’ve been using in my bathroom trying to shave my face has been pretty dim. No wonder I leave little patchy jawns behind sometimes LOL! Some bright light and fresh perspectives on what gifts and skills I have to offer has been very encouraging. It’s fun to imagine possibilities for regenerative projects and build into the connective tissue of the Movement.

Rebirth Brass Band is playing on Friday while I’m in New Orleans! I’m really jazzed to see them again! 

Vocational Pivot

I’ve begun a significant vocational transition. After serving as pastor of Circle of Hope in

Joel Embiid (right) demonstrating a pivot

Philadelphia for the last 15 years, I discerned—with a lot of help from friends—that it was time to make way for younger leaders. Having resigned from that position, I am entering into a season of transition, which extends from now through February 2019.During these five months I’ll be sitting with heavy questions, resting, and undertaking four pilgrimages to launch me into the next season of my calling. I’m inviting you to accompany me in my journey.

It’s hard to quantify the love, blood, sweat, and tears I’ve expended pastoring and nurturing a small non-profit ministry. I love Circle of Hope church, and am pleased how the transition plan is unfolding. My pastoral successor, Jonny Rashid, has been a trusted friend for years; I have discipled him since he was 19, and watched him grow into an outstanding pastor over the past eight years. I consider it an honor to pass a vibrant congregation on to Jonny and the other leaders, and look forward to returning to this community as a covenant member in March of next year.

But what’s next for me? Vocationally speaking, over the last 15 years I’ve been accountable to a local community embedded in a specific place. In this historic

Another example of what a pivot can look like

al moment I sense a broader calling. We as a nation are hurtling towards further environmental catastrophe, and overt white supremacy has again reared its ugly head. So I’m compelled to help build movements for justice in ways that strengthen the soft tissue of our ecclesial Bodies.

As I approach my 40^th birthday (and my daughter Helena’s 18^th) I’ve been reflecting on what the second half of life could mean vocationally and professionally. What can I best contribute to the ongoing wider struggle “for the soul of America” as Dr. King put it 60 years ago? These are some of the questions I want to explore:

• What can I not not do?
• What is the core of the projects I’ve undertaken to date (which range from playing music to facilitating workshops, from economic reimagining to communication, from prophetic public speaking to private pastoral listening)?
• What kind of work—and working environment—will give me life, so that I’m living and giving out of my fullest spirit?

I am looking at a few opportunities for projects, some of which might potentially earn some income, many of which will continue to be volunteer. I need help discerning priorities.

In the course of my ministry I’ve picked up many skills and competences, but my most valuable asset is my ability to relate well to people and social networks. So during this season of re-orientation, I am going to makes some “pilgrimages” to various places,

I feel most at home in brackish spaces, where ideas and social groups converge

persons and communities. In a pilgrimage, time and travel take on a holier meaning. My four proposed pilgrimages will hopefully help me gain insight into who I am outside my (rather comfortable) role of pastoring. I’ll visit aunties and uncles, collaborators, relations, and friends, across North America. I want to further investigate my family roots in Europe. I want to spend extended time in the wilderness. I long to sit with mentors.

I estimate that these pilgrimages over the next four months may cost nearly $10,000. So I’m putting the word out to you—friends, relatives, and perhaps future collaborators. I’m offering you an opportunity to help me make this vocational pivot and gain a clearer sense for what I am called to be doing next, and with whom. When I have completed this discernment journey, at the end of February, as a tithe I will redistribute 10% of everything I raise to deserving projects connected to urban farming, Indigenous leadership development, and getting Black people out of jail in Philly.

I am grateful to my friends at Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, a nonprofit ministry registered in California (and who I will visit twice during this journey) for fiscally sponsoring this project. You can send a check (memo line: Joshua Grace Pivot) to BCM at PO Box 328, Oak View, CA 93022, or use the Paypal button on their website (again, please specify that your donation go to the Joshua Grace Pivot restricted fund).Thank you for considering making a tax-deductible donation, by which you will accompany me on this journey forward, deeper into faith and justice.

PS – I’m about to leave for a two-month solo road trip, spanning about 12,000 miles around North America. If you would like a visit take a look at my draft schedule and let’s try to line it up.