{"id":22843,"date":"2024-11-14T08:52:40","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T14:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/?p=22843"},"modified":"2026-02-09T08:27:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:27:57","slug":"all-you-touch-you-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/2024\/11\/14\/all-you-touch-you-change\/","title":{"rendered":"All You Touch, You Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In light of a second Trump term, I\u2019m turning to writers and artists who live their values through their art. I seek inspiration and sustenance and courage to do the same\u2014to let words change me and live with integrity and touch this bruised and burning world with bare, loving hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1934, T.S. Eliot visited Burnt Norton, a mansion that was set on fire by its British landowner in 1741, in the green and forested Gloucestershire, England. The man caught his mistress having an affair, killed her, then set the house on fire, killing himself. The garden survived, and that\u2019s where T.S. Eliot stood, among its roses, feeling the haunting and heavy sorrow of what happened there. He wrote the poem \u201cBurnt Norton<\/a>\u201d about it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time past and time future<\/em>
What might have been and what has been<\/em>
Point to one end, which is always present\u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Footfalls echo in the memory<\/em>
Down the passage which we did not take<\/em>
Towards the door we never opened<\/em>
Into the rose-garden.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Burnt Norton House. Image from Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

T.S. Eliot felt within the rose garden a place forever changed by tragedy. The flowers and birds echo that sadness and at the same time remind us what could have been, and how the future could be different. I imagine time itself living in our flesh, writhing for redemption and hope which can only be birthed in us. In this present\u2014this aching, cracking second\u2014I write and sit in scatter-brained anxiety about the future of this country and world. Both what did happen and what could have happened exist right now. And what we might do in the future also exists right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The morning of election day, I read an email newsletter called Reimagined<\/em><\/a>, written by Nicole Cardoza. She quotes from an article Octavia Butler wrote in 2000<\/a> in Essence<\/em> magazine about writing dystopian science fiction. Butler writes about a time when a student asked her if she believed all the things in her novels would come true. The student was referring to the problems Butler writes about in Parable of the Sower<\/em> and Parable of the Talents<\/em>, which take place in a future of \u201cincreasing drug addiction and illiteracy, marked by the popularity of prisons and the unpopularity of public schools, the vast and growing gap between the rich and everyone else, and the whole nasty family of problems brought on by global warming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She tells the student that she didn\u2019t make these problems up: \u201cAll I did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters.” The student then asks: \u201cSo what\u2019s the answer?\u201d Butler says there isn\u2019t one single answer. \u201cInstead there are thousands of answers\u2014at least,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can be one of them if you choose to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read Parable of the Sower<\/em> for the first time in 2020, when the world felt overwhelming and I felt guilty about my privilege. I opened the book, asking the same question as the student: So what\u2019s the answer?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll that you touch\/You Change
All that you Change\/Changes you,\u201d says Lauren, the main character. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe one thing that I and my main characters never do when contemplating the future is give up hope,\u201d Butler writes in the Essence<\/em> article. \u201cIn fact, the very act of trying to look ahead to discern possibilities and offer warnings is in itself an act of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Octavia E. Butler. Image from Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Yet Butler warns against \u201csuperstitious hope,\u201d or predicting an \u201cimpossible state of permanent prosperity,\u201d which has its roots in fear. Similarly, she writes that predicting doom might have more to do with our sorrow and depression than insights into real possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being an answer, if we choose, means changing; it means taking responsibility. Being an answer means being in community with all the other thousands of answers. It means discerning our next steps along with God and taking our lives, and the future, and hope, seriously. We take turns being prophets. Burnt Norton is a changed place because T.S. Eliot visited and wrote about it and was a witness to sorrowful resurrection. Our minds are changed because of Octavia Butler\u2019s novels that help us imagine new possibilities. All that you touch you change<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I\u2019m in a rainy rose garden in my head, seeing all around me a world that cries out for redemption. I hear repeated words that in Christ, all things are possible; in Christ, all things are possible. We birth God in that place of rot and possibility. A thousand answers, a thousand beating hearts, a world that is forever changed by our touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Messy<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cassidy Klein<\/strong> is a journalist, writer, and editor based in Chicago. She has worked as an editorial assistant at Sojourners magazine and U.S. Catholic magazine. She grew up in Denver, Colorado and studied journalism and philosophy at PLNU in San Diego. Find more of her work at cassidyrklein.weebly.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In light of a second Trump term, I\u2019m turning to writers and artists who live their values through their art. I seek inspiration and sustenance and courage to do the same\u2014to let words change me and live with integrity and touch this bruised and burning world with bare, loving hands. In 1934, T.S. Eliot visited...","protected":false},"author":149585910,"featured_media":22846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6469729],"tags":[177,698756772,14526,698756773,20816,698756770,93648,698756771],"series":[698756626],"class_list":["post-22843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-activism","tag-art","tag-burntnorton","tag-change","tag-election2024","tag-hope","tag-octaviaebutler","tag-resurrection","tag-tseliot","series-messy-jesus-business"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/fenced-flower-scaled.png","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/feed\/podcast\/messy-jesus-business","embedCode":"

All You Touch, You Change<\/a><\/blockquote>