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4 clock ticks
“It’s past time to broaden the narrative” (said by Sequana Murray)
Intro Music
Introduction: Hello and welcome to another episode of Broadening the Narrative. This is a podcast where I talk to some of my favorite people who have broadened the narrative for me. I'm your host, Nicki Pappas, and I'm so glad you're here.
Transition Music
First Segment
Nicki: On today's episode of Broadening the Narrative, I am joined by a very special guest, Cameron Bellm. I connected with Cameron through Instagram, and I am so grateful. We will be discussing the poetry Cameron has been writing during the current pandemic as well as the Jesus of justice that fuels her to love in word and deed. Before we begin, I just want to say that Cameron is one of my favorite people because of her kindness that comes through in everything she posts. Thank you, Cameron, for giving glimpses just into your life that highlight the intentionality with which you live, and thank you for coming onto the podcast!
Cameron: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Nicki: Yeah. Well let’s jump in. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?
Cameron: Sure. I currently live in Seattle. My husband and I have two boys who are 5 and 2 who keep things lively for us. I’m actually from Memphis. I was born and raised there and still have a lot of family there even though I’ve been on the West Coast for a long time. My degree, my undergrad degree, was a double major in English and Russian, and then I went on to get my PhD in Russian Literature.
Nicki: Wow.
Cameron: Which was really pretty fun.
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: And I finished in 2011, and then have just been kind of writing in my own way, working on my own projects since then. And a little bit about my faith background. I was raised Catholic, and I went to Catholic school. When I was about 16, I left the church for, I left the Catholic church for, and then spent some time in the evangelical and nondenominational church, and then I came back to the Catholic church when I was about 25, and so I guess that’s been like maybe 12, 12, 13 years now, and that's been a continual learning about the roots of my faith but also doing some deconstructing and reconstructing and definitely broadening the, broadening the narrative and broadening the perspective.
Nicki: Yeah. I love that. Thank you for sharing that.
Cameron: Yeah.
Nicki: Well, can we talk about your Instagram handle?
Cameron: Yes. I know. It’s so weird. It’s very strange, and maybe someday I’ll change it to just my name. It is krugthethinker, and it comes from a Nabokov novel, actually, called Bend Sinister, and I, when I was preparing for my masters exams, it was a really stressful time, and I sat in on a class of Nabokov, and I feel like he really taught me how to see, how to see things, how to stop and look at things, which now I realize, like a decade later, is very Ignatian, that’s a very Ignatian way of approaching the world around us, that we find God in all things. Nabokov would not be ok with that. He was not into the church. So the quote that that name comes from, it’s just this little paragraph, and it’s really about the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of love, and it just really struck me, and I’d be happy to read that quote if that’s ok.
Nicki: Yes please.
Cameron: Ok. “And what agony, thought Krug the thinker, to love so madly a little creature, formed in some mysterious fashion (even more mysterious to us than it had been to the very first thinkers in their pale olive gloves) by the fusion of two mysteries, or rather two sets of a trillion of mysteries each; formed by a fusion which is, at the same time, a matter of choice and a matter of chance and a matter of pure enchantment; thus formed and then permitted to accumulate trillions of its own mysteries; the whole suffused with consciousness, which is the only real thing in the world and the greatest mystery of all.” And I just, I just love that, the idea of mystery and how that forms us as people and in our relationships. And he’s talking, this character Krug, he’s talking about his son here and just what a mystery his son is, and I don't know, it’s just something I’ve always carried with me. So that’s where my weird name comes from.
Nicki: No, I love that story and everything behind it, so thank you.
Cameron: Yeah.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, when did you begin writing poetry, Cameron?
Cameron: Well I think I started writing it in its current form really not that long ago, maybe just last year.
Nicki: Oh wow.
Cameron: Yeah, well I wrote a lot of poetry when I was in high school in the way that we all kind of do.
(laughter)
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: My friends and I were very serious about our poetry, and so I started last year writing these things that are kind of half poem and half prayer. One of the first ones that I wrote was a prayer for a lockdown drill, and that was a result of just me wrestling with the emotions of a situation in my life that my son, my older son, just started kindergarten, and I think it was maybe the first week of school, we received an email that they were going to be having a lockdown drill for active shooters, and it just, of course like every parent, it just destroyed me. And that was one of the first prayers that I wrote, and I really feel like in this time in my life when I’m home with my kids, and now I’m home with them a lot more due to the pandemic, I feel like I really spent, I spent some years of my early motherhood really being discouraged and disheartened that I couldn’t be part of ministries the way that I wanted to be. Our parish has this amazing prison ministry, they have a racial justice book club, there’s just so much stuff going on that I really want to be part of, and I really just physically can’t be there, and I started writing these prayers not thinking that it was going to turn into anything at all. It just felt like something that I needed to do, and now it’s just carried on this way. So I write these prayers on my sons’ construction paper most of the time.
(laughter)
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: We have lots of that around. And it’s just kind of become a part of my life that I spend a lot of time playing trains and playing Legos and playing tag at the park, but the whole time my mind and my heart are churning with what’s happening in the world, what’s happening in my family and my community, and I don’t know, this is how, this is the outward expression of that, I guess, when I can make it to a piece of paper and get this stuff down.
Nicki: Yeah. It’s that intentionality of slowing down, being present in this moment but without forgetting everything happening outside of this moment, so that’s just really beautiful.
Cameron: Yeah, yeah. That’s beautiful. It’s definitely a real, it’s a lifesaver I feel like. My kids kind of, they keep me present, but also I’m just really determined to try to make a better world for them. And you know, when I say my children, I really mean everyone’s children, you know, not just for my own boys, but for everyone.
Nicki: Yeah. Yeah. So can we talk about what shapes the poetry you write and if that’s changed over, I guess really the past year since you started doing it more frequently?
Cameron: Yeah, I think it’s, there’s a couple of sources that seem to really set my mind off in that direction, and one of the big ones is the news, honestly, everything that is happening in the world. For a long time, I think I was in grad school, I was probably about 25, when I decided that I wanted to be a global citizen, and I got a Sunday subscription to the New York Times, and I feel like that has grown for me into a spiritual practice of reading the newspaper on Sunday morning because I feel like there just isn’t anything that’s happening in the world that Jesus doesn’t care about. And I feel, yeah, I feel like, I feel like what I’m doing a lot of times in my prayers and in my poems, I’m carrying all of this on my back, and I’m carrying it, and I’m just laying it at the feet of Jesus and knowing that his compassion is boundless. So, yeah, a lot of times it’s the news. It’s also a lot of times scripture. In our Catholic tradition, we have a lectionary with daily readings that are the same for every church, and I read those, I read those every morning sitting next to my son, who’s watching cartoons on my phone, so that I can have a meditative moment, and there’s always an Old Testament reading and then a psalm. Well I guess on Sundays there’s also a New Testament reading, but there’s always, always a gospel reading. And that will sometimes set me off in a certain direction. The other thing I think that I’m trying to do is to dig really deeply into the roots of the language. Obviously, I’m a language nerd, and that is just endlessly fascinating to me. But I really like, I wrote a prayer for people who had lost their homes in this crisis, and I wanted to look at scripture and see, “Well, how is home discussed in scripture and what words does Jesus use when he’s talking about home, and what exactly do those words mean, but also what are the other, what are the other roots and you know tangled gnarled roots of that word that we’re not getting when we just say ‘home’?” And that’s something that I always really want to do. I really believe language is sacred, and it’s something that I always want to honor in my work and in the scriptures that I read, that they don’t come to us in our modern English, but they come to us with their roots and their dirt still attached coming from Greek or Aramic or Hebrew or wherever they are coming from.
Nicki: Ooh, I love this so much. So much of what you said. Like with the news, that there’s nothing that Jesus doesn’t care about. That really resonated with me. And then, yeah, the love of words. I love words, too, studying the origins and all of that, will definitely nerd out on all of that, too.
(laughter)
Nicki: Yeah, I just found that all really fascinating. So, how does the Jesus of justice impact your poetry? I know you already hit on there’s nothing that Jesus doesn’t care about and that you can bring all of that to Jesus, but I was wondering if you could kind of unflesh some more of how Jesus impacts your poetry, particularly the Jesus of justice.
Cameron: Of justice. I love that question. I just love that question. I think that, I think that the Jesus of justice is the only Jesus there is. And that to me is just foundational and really reading the gospels, of course I’ve been reading the gospels all my life, but I think you see different things at different times in your life, and I feel like really in the last decade or so I feel like my heart has been made much more sensitive to the Jesus who cares for the lepers, the Jesus who isn’t afraid to be seen with someone of a lower caste or someone who’s seen as an outsider. But truthfully, it’s not even just Jesus. It’s really the entire, the entire Judeo-Christian tradition, and the Muslim tradition as well. We all share these Abrahamic roots, and these notions of justice, of care for the widow and the orphan and the stranger, of not considering our needs first, that really goes just so far back, all the way back, and it’s really consistent, it’s a really consistent narrative, and I think I’ve just been wanting to pay more attention to the things that Jesus pays the most attention to. So, for instance, Jesus talks a lot about money, he talks a lot about what we do with our money and that’s really, that’s really uncomfortable to talk about in a group setting, but it's something that I don’t want to brush aside as an afterthought because that’s something that Jesus takes very seriously. So I’m trying, certainly am not, certainly am not perfect at it, but I want my focus to be on, on the people that, that Jesus really went out of his way to care for. And some of that comes from our tradition of Catholic social teaching, which is just a lot of really beautiful doctrine that we have that is about solidarity. It’s about care for the earth, it’s about care for the poor, it’s about a just distribution of our resources. We have this huge 400 page book that I’m working my way through, it’s very dense, but it’s very beautiful, and one of the things that is a central tenet of our faith is that we have a preferential, a preferential care for the poor, for the marginalized and the excluded, and that really is, that is the coffee in my cup, that is the fuel in my fire, basically, for how I write and also how I approach the world.
Nicki: Wow. That, too, is just really beautiful. I’m curious. Can I ask -
Cameron: Yeah.
Nicki: -what it looks like for tithing for you? Because we’re kind of in this place now where we aren’t part of a church actively since September of last year, and so obviously our tithing looks different now, and then we’re thinking if we ever do go back to a church, we still want to continue some of these practices we’ve put in place with tithing that prioritize, the wording you were using of preferential care for the poor, that we just weren’t seeing happen.
Cameron: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. We belong to a parish here in Seattle, a Jesuit parish, and we make a monthly offering to them that supports their ministries, but also, you know the work of God carries on outside of the church, absolutely, and so we also support and donate to a lot of different organizations that are, that, some are faith-based and so are not faith-based, but anything that is done to provide care and treatment and support to the people who need it most, I consider all of that to be part of what some of the saints call the great work of redemption of all of creation. And that carries on inside the church and outside the church, so we want to be, my husband and I, really careful to contribute to both of those things. And we know just that our parish, when we’re giving we’re supporting the outreach to several women’s shelters. We work with the Chief Seattle Club, which is, we have a large Native population here, and we occupy their land. This is their land. They have, they still, the Duwamish tribe, whose land we are on, they still don’t even have federal recognition actually, which is just horrifying. So that’s one of the, one of our parish ministries, is we support the Chief Seattle Club, which provides support and works in native, their native languages with native peoples who have been displaced here in Seattle, and we have, like many, many, many cities, a very shameful history of excluding and turning those people out. So there are ways in which the church supports that work and there are also many, many ways in which the hands and feet of Jesus are in action through organizations that exist outside of a church.
Nicki: Right.
Cameron: So I think, but if you’re in a situation where you’re in a church where you don’t see that that’s where that funding is going, I certainly think that you’re well within your rights to redirect your funds to where, to where that, that care and help is being given.
Nicki: Yeah, for us, we were thinking through when Jesus talks in Luke 4 about the good news and what good news does, oftentimes, in the circles at least that we’ve been a part of, those verses are spiritualized.
Cameron: Oh, huge problem.
Nicki: It’s like, you know, spiritual bankruptcy, right, like people are spiritually poor and then it erases the physicality of the verses.
Cameron: Absolutely.
Nicki: It erases our call to embody, as the hands and feet of Christ, to go out and actually care, not just with words, but in deed, with our finances and all of that. So, I really appreciate you sharing about your experience there.
Cameron: Yeah, yeah. I think that’s, that’s a big problem in the church. When we kind of strip away the incarnation of Jesus, that we forget, or we, in the worst of circumstances just elide that truth that the good news is not just for making us feel comfortable and safe, it's for radical change in the world in which we live, a radical change in our values and distribution of our resources.
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: Yeah, yeah, I totally hear that.
Nicki: Yeah. I’m curious, have you read Jemar Tisby’s The Color of Compromise?
Cameron: It’s very next on my to-read list.
Nicki: Yes.
Cameron: Yes. I, yeah there is so much that I am learning, and frankly it is all disheartening.
Transition Music
Second Segment
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: We don’t have an awesome history, and this goes for the Catholic church as well as the evangelical church. We have our own problems in our own ways with our history, and I’m so grateful for the people who are bringing that to light because we, we have to be aware of our history or we’re never going to confront these problems. And I have to say one of my favorite saints is Saint Óscar Romero, who’s from El Salvador, and he was the Archbishop in the 70s during, during the kind of wind up to a very bloody civil war. There was a lot of unrest. He actually was martyred in 1980, but what he says, almost every Sunday, I read his homilies a lot, is that he says we have to allow the gospel to shine a light on our current historical circumstances, but the gospel is not something that is disembodied and floating somewhere 2,000 years away from us, but the gospel is taking place every moment, and we have to shine a clear light on what’s happening and say this is unjust or where do we see Jesus suffering right now in this day and age, and it’s just not very hard to find, you know. Jesus is suffering everywhere that injustice is being carried out, and he suffers in solidarity with us, but he also calls us to action.
Nicki: Yeah. I think about Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, when he says, “I’m not interested in punishing America. I want to liberate America.” And if we believe, right, that truth sets us free, then we want to be truth-tellers, and come face to face with those parts of our history that are very, yeah, just grotesque, but not to be shamed, right, since shame will keep us from stepping into better works, but rather to acknowledge them and then be able to walk in freedom.
Cameron: Yes. Absolutely.
Nicki: Well, I’m curious, during this time of the pandemic specifically, what prompted you to begin writing poems for now?
Cameron: For now? Well, the first poem that I wrote about the pandemic was at the very beginning, it was way back at the beginning of March, and Seattle was the first landing point of the virus in the United States, and so we knew that it was here, but it was before we had really any conception of what was going to happen, but already even in those days with just a few isolated cases, already there was just this panic. The news was showing photos of people just clawing for hand sanitizer and the toilet paper panic of 2020 had begun here in Seattle and just the general message seemed to be panic, stockpile, give a hard elbow to anybody who is in your way, and I just thought, “No, that is not what the gospel calls us to.” There’s no hoarding in the gospel. And you know, it’s a very, very human impulse, I’m certainly not immune to it, to want to protect ourselves and our own, but I just felt that as the wheels of the virus were starting to turn that what we needed to be doing was thinking, “Ok, well, let me think about the people who were already on the edge, who were already barely making their rent. How is this impacting them and how can we help those people?” And the first poem that I wrote, “Prayer for a Pandemic,” that’s what it was about. It was really a call for all of us, and myself included, to say, “Ok, I’m having to cancel my vacation. Ok, I’m not going to be able to do this, but I need to turn my thoughts of my own inconvenience toward people who are really in crisis and direct my care and my concern towards the people who are going to be hurting the most during this crisis.” And I don’t know, it just sort of kept going from there, and I’m still writing these as they come to me.
Nicki: And they’ve been so beautiful and really ministered to many people, I know, and so thank you for writing them, and not only for writing them but for sharing them because I think it could be easy to keep them to yourself, but to make them available to others is really beautiful. And something you said about the human impulse to hoard, but seeing the other side of that, the human in us that also can give generously, and we’re faced with that choice constantly, and so, will I, yeah, which way will I lean, you know, seeing that it’s human to do both, and so I want to be a better human. I want to be a human -
Cameron: I want to be a better human, too, every day. Every day.
Nicki: I want to be a human that looks more like Christ, and so -
Cameron: Yes. Yes, and I think when I was working on that particular prayer, what was really going through my head was we were just starting to see, ok, we’re probably going to need to do remote learning, we’re probably going to need to shut down this and this and cancel this and this, and I was thinking, “Ok, a big change is coming,” and I was rolling through my head and thinking, “Ok, we’re going to be ok.” We’re very fortunate. My husband is able to work from home. I’m able to do everything that I need to do from home. We’re able to care for our children during this time. And I was thinking to myself, “Ok, we’re going to be ok.” But then my next thought was, “Ok, but what about the people who are not going to be ok?”
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: It’s not wrong to want to take care of ourselves and our families, but I think the key for me has been to not stop there but to just keep going. To not close the door and say, “Ok, well I’m ok, and everything else that’s happening is outside my purview,” but to keep that door open and to keep going forth into the world. Yeah and just being, being open to our family that’s outside of what we understand as our immediate family.
Nicki: Yeah. That’s so true. I think, too, when we look at verses like counting others more significant, right, like doing things that look not only to our own interests but to the interests of others, kind of, you know, gives the permission to think about your family or the people in your immediate circle, but then, like you said, to step out of that, too.
Cameron: Yeah.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, how have you been feeling during the pandemic and has writing poetry helped you?
Cameron: Oh yes. Yeah, I was thinking about this one. Devastated. Devastated. Honestly a lot of the time really infuriated. I have some angry prayers, and I think that’s, but you know we have those traditions, we have those traditions of lament, we have those traditions of indignation about injustice. It’s a lot of the songs, a lot of the prophets were dealing with similar situations of just a callous indifference to, a callous indifference among a culture to care for others, basically. So it has helped me to feel connected to those traditions, but also it helps me tremendously to feel connected to other people during this time because I kind of don’t feel like I live in Seattle, I kind of just feel like I live in my house now. It’s very easy to feel like we’re literally disconnected in a way that has not happened in any of our lifetimes, and it’s been really meaningful to me to be in touch with so many people, and particularly people from so many different faith traditions and also people who don’t come from a faith tradition. That has been so beautiful and life giving to me, and I told my husband like maybe a couple of months ago I said I think this is the reason why I’m sort of ok -
(laughter)
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: - in this really, really stressful time is that I feel like I’m connected to something that’s bigger than me and something that takes place outside of the four walls that we live in. And I feel like it’s been a gift for me to pour my thoughts and my emotions out on paper and be able to contribute in the tiniest way to a larger conversation about what’s happening in our world, what’s happening in our country, what’s happening in our communities, and we are in crisis on top of crisis on top of crisis, just the number of things that are going on right now that are devastating, and I don’t know what I would do without it in a way. It’s a way that I communicate with God and with the Divine, but it’s also a way that I am able to be connected to people all around the world and to feel that sense of goodness and connection that I think is innate to us as humans, so it’s really been a gift.
Nicki: Yeah. That’s, and like I said, again not only for you to write it but then to share it and then to continue the connection, right. Like you’re connecting to Godde through the writing and then to others as you share it, and it’s just been really beautiful to get to read your poetry.
Cameron: Oh thank you.
Nicki: Yeah. So can you talk about the book A Consoling Embrace: Prayers for a Time of Pandemic and two words that you would use to describe your book?
Cameron: Yeah, that is such a good question. So this is the, it’s an ebook, and I guess physical publishing is time consuming, and so we wanted to get it out right away, and it’s a collection of I think it’s 25 poems, poem prayers, or whatever, whatever form that they’re in, and they really just touch on so many different situations. And they’re prayers of lament. They’re prayers of desolation. But they’re also prayers of consolation. They’re prayers of hope. And I think the two words that I hope describe, that I hope describe it are comforting and honest. Because I really, what I really don’t want to do is offer platitudes. I really, in my work, I want to look the thing in the eye because I think shying away from the very real suffering in so many different forms that people are going through right now, I just think that does a disservice to everyone to sort of spiritualize that away.
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: And I really think Jesus himself did not shy away from suffering, so I find a lot of consolation in knowing that wherever we suffer, he suffers with us and that we’re not alone in that. So I hope, my hope for it is that it has this sense of looking the thing in the eye and also still finding in that sorrow, and just the extreme depth of suffering that we’re encountering right now, finding ourselves within the embrace of God.
Nicki: Oh I love that, and I downloaded it, purchased and downloaded it, and then I just read straight through it, I didn’t want to stop, you know, and definitely want to go back to it more, and on my end, I can say comforting as well as honest both describe your work, so thank you again for writing that.
Cameron: Thank you.
Nicki: Well how did the book come about and what was the experience like for you compiling your collection of prayers?
Cameron: Well it’s actually kind of a funny story, but I connected with so many people through my writing, and one of them is, I hope it’s ok to use this word, a really badass nun.
(laughter)
Nicki: It is perfectly fine to use that word.
Cameron: Ok because she really is, she’s a badass. So many nuns are, but she, one of these prayers went viral, and it was a beautiful experience to be so connected to so many different people, and she was one of the people that I connected with, and as I kept writing prayers, she actually in this funny reversal of roles, I write these prayers with a sharpie on my sons’ construction paper and then she has the technological know-how to make them into pretty text images, and so she did that for me for some of my poems. And then after a little while, she said, “Do you publish anywhere? Because I was, I’m the former editor of this Catholic journal, and I know the acquisitions editor at this press, and is it ok if I give her your information?” And I said, “Sure,” and just didn’t think anything would come of it at all. But it did, and I really, I love the press that I am working with. It’s called Twenty-Third. It’s named after Pope and now Saint John XXIII, who is the pope who presided over Vatican II when a lot of reforms that opened the church wider to the modern world were undertaken. And one of the things he said was the goal of Vatican II was to open wide the windows and let some fresh air in, and I just love that, I love that so much. And so we started talking about putting this collection together, and some of the prayers I had already written. They had a couple of suggestions for particular situations that they thought it would be nice to have a prayer for, and basically it was really, it was really amazing. I kind of holed up down here in my office/closet with my scriptures and my dictionaries, and it kind of all came together in one fell swoop, and it was a beautiful, wonderful experience, and I’m so happy that it’s out in the world. And I feel like also it was kind of a healing process for me. Academic writing was kind of a traumatic experience for me, and I think for a lot of people, too. A dissertation is a brave undertaking. And it was wonderful to be writing about my faith and about seeking the common good, and it was just a very different experience than academic writing. I’m really grateful for that.
Nicki: Yeah, what an amazing story, but then also the redemptive aspect of the writing for you personally is really beautiful.
Cameron: It really has been such a gift, yeah. It really has been very sweet.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, would you mind reading one of your prayers?
Cameron: Oh sure. And this is funny that we were kind of just talking about this, but I was reading through this last night, and the one that I picked is actually, kind of addresses what we were talking about earlier.
Nicki: Ok, yeah.
Cameron: Yeah. So this is “Prayer for Opening Our Hearts to the Poor.”
This crisis has been an x-ray of our culture,
showing us in blinding white
all our broken bones
All those who are forgotten
All those who are overlooked
Everyone who was hurting before
is hurting so much more now
When the rich man comes to Jesus,
and he tells him to sell all he has and give it to the poor,
what does he mean by that?
Don’t we have an obligation to take care of our families?
Yes, I imagine the answer coming,
but our families include
every human being on earth
Our privilege, our money—
let’s spend it all
Amen
Nicki: Oh wow. Yeah.
Cameron: Yeah. Yeah, so I think it’s kind of similar to what we were saying about think of yourself but don’t stop there. And I wanted to come back to these stories in the gospel, and that one in particular I think we read and we think, “Ok but do you really mean that? Like literally?” And I think we’re all in some ways still trying to figure out what we do in light of that, and I think the key is just not to walk away, you know. The rich young man, Jesus says that, and he just walks away. He doesn’t say, “Ok, well what do you mean by that?” But he just says, “Ok, well I can’t do that.” And I think for us it’s more of a constant investigation of our finances, where is our money going to ethical companies, and what are we, I mean basically does our budget reflect our values? And one thing that I really wanted to do, I’m sure you must be familiar with D.L. Mayfield, she’s a writer who, she has a new book out called The Myth of the American Dream, which is just amazing. Really amazing. It’s like one of the books that you read, and as soon as you finish you think, ok I’m going to reread this. And she mentioned a couple of years ago, and she mentions it also in this book, going through a program called Lazarus at the Gate, which is, it’s a financial program for groups to really look at their finances and prioritize where their money is going and how we can gospelify our finances, and that is something I really, really wanted to do. And we haven’t done that yet. And frankly, you know, right now it’s kind of all we can do to keep the household running, but that’s something that we’d really like to do in the future.
Nicki: Yeah, and can you say the author and the title again?
Cameron: Oh yes, it’s D.L. Mayfield, and the book is called The Myth of the American Dream, and I think the subtitle is Power, Affluence, Autonomy, I think there’s one more. It’s upstairs. I can go get it. I can’t remember. But it’s about basically what she does in that book is she takes, she takes Isaiah 61, which has always been one of my favorite scriptures, that says, “I’ve come to, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news-”
Nicki: Yes.
Cameron: “- to free the prisoners,” you know, all of the things that are the directives of that scripture, and then she thinks about what the opposites of those things are, and what the opposites of those things are happen to be some of our most cherished American values.
Nicki: Oof.
Cameron: Yeah. Yeah so it’s a really wonderful look at those values and how to try to live a truly radical gospel-centered life while we’re swimming in the water that we’re swimming in, basically.
Nicki: Yeah. I’m definitely going to have to check that out because I haven’t heard of it, and so that sounds very fascinating.
Cameron: She’s great. Yeah.
Nicki: Well how can people purchase a copy of A Consoling Embrace to download?
Cameron: There’s a link in my Linktree on my Instagram, and also I have a blog that is mostly neglected, but it’s the same name as my Instagram handle. It’s krugthethinker.com, and there’s a post there with a link also. And the wonderful thing about it being an ebook is that it’s so affordable. It’s $3.00, which I love, because that just makes it accessible, so I’m very glad for that.
Nicki: Yeah, and can you spell your Instagram handle and blog?
Cameron: Sure. It’s krugthethinker, and so it’s all together, k-r-u-g-t-h-e-t-h-i-n-k-e-r.com, and that’s my blog, and then that’s the same for the handle.
Nicki: Nice. Well, I’m curious what advice you have for people as they read your prayers?
Cameron: Oh that’s a good question. I think the only thing I could say would be to just, whatever you’re carrying, just bring it. Don’t feel like you have to set aside your burdens. Your burdens are real, and they’re things that Jesus cares about intimately, so I’d just encourage everyone, however you come to prayer, however you come into dialogue with the Divine, I hope that you never feel like there are parts of your life or parts of your heart that you have to leave behind. Just bring it all with you.
Nicki: Yeah. Is there anything you would add for your hope for A Consoling Embrace?
Cameron: I think the only real hope that I can have for it is that it will actually feel like a consoling embrace, you know, from Jesus, from God, from the Divine Mystery, but also from me because I would give everyone a hug if I could. Yeah, I’m a big, I’m a hugger.
Nicki: I am, too, and I’m like that’s something I’ve missed so much during this time.
Cameron: Me, too. My poor children are just getting kissed to smithereens because I just, they’re my people that I can give hugs to.
Nicki: Yes. Well what is one action that people in privileged positions can commit to to bring your hope to fruition?
Cameron: That is a beautiful question. I think I would say more than any advice from me, I would say, and this goes for me, too, to take a really long, hard look at who we are listening to, making sure that we are listening to the unfiltered voices of our sisters and brothers of color, and then actually doing, the advice would be to just do what they are asking of us. So, what are our Black sisters and brothers asking of us? What are our Native sisters and brothers asking of us? What are our undocumented sisters and brothers asking us to do? Maybe it’s asking us to make calls or sign petitions or send faxes or show up to marches or protests or to enter into a broader conversation or to rethink some of our preconceived notions. Just, I really think that one of our greatest responsibilities is just to take very seriously what our sisters and brothers are asking of us as privileged, as privileged people, as white people. I just really, I want to, I know that we’re all right now doing a lot of listening and learning, and that is so great, that is absolutely key, but I don’t want to stop there, and this is directed at me, too, I want to carry that through into, I want that to lead into action. And so that’s really my benchmark. That’s what I really am committed to doing is starting first with what specific things are being asked of us.
Nicki: Ah I love that.
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Cameron: We have just so many incredible leaders, and I’ve really never been more grateful for social media with all its faults, but it has really been amazing to be connected and to just to find it so easy to be under the leadership of people who have been doing this work for decades, and to learn from their wisdom and to carry on their work in the ways that they’re asking us to participate in work that they’ve already been doing.
Nicki: Yeah, and as we’re recording this, John Lewis -
Cameron: I know.
Nicki: - the news just came, yesterday before I got in bed, seeing that, just so what it can be like moving forward for those who can step, not into that place because those are big shoes, but for other Black and Brown and Indigenous people that can keep moving things forward, as well as Asian American and Pacific Islander People of Color.
Cameron: Absolutely.
Nicki: Yeah to just move things forward and for those of us in privileged places, particularly as white people, to be able to submit to those leaders.
Cameron: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That was, I just saw the news this morning, and it’s just crushing, and I think, what I think many other people have thought at many points during this year, was just please stop 2020.
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: Please stop.
Nicki: Yeah. For sure.
Cameron: It’s a tremendous loss, and I know there are a lot of people who are carrying on his work, and I’m really grateful for that.
Nicki: Yeah.
Cameron: Yeah.
Nicki: Well, Cameron, this has been so amazing, and I just want to thank you for being willing to come onto a brand new show.
Cameron: Oh thank you for having me. It’s been wonderful talking to you.
Nicki: And thank you for opening up about what it’s been like for you to write poetry during this pandemic.
Cameron: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Nicki: Yeah. And hopefully we’ll get to connect again soon.
Cameron: Yeah. That would be amazing.
Nicki: Yeah.
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Closing: I want to thank Sequana Murray for the voice clip she sent to me for the episode intro. You can purchase her music on Bandcamp at bandy17.bandcamp.com. Her music is available on most streaming services under the name Bandy. I also want to thank Jordan Lukens for his help with editing and Danielle Bolin for creating the episode graphic. Please subscribe and review the show, but only if you’re planning on leaving a 5-star review. Otherwise, you can just skip this part. You can access the Broadening the Narrative blog by visiting broadeningthenarrative.blogspot.com, and you can find the Broadening the Narrative page on Instagram by searching for @broadeningthenarrative and on Twitter by searching for @broadnarrative. I hope that if you know and love me you can engage with the Broadening the Narrative blog, social media accounts, and podcast, as well as any recommended resources. Then, you can share with people who know and love you, and little by little, person by person, we can broaden the narrative. Grace and peace, friends.
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