Capital #4b: DC
December 5, 2023
Tulip Poplar seed stuck between panels of porch swing.
KAF Session
I asked God what his heart is for DC. I sat on a swing on our front porch. As I was about to sit, I could see that there was a tulip poplar seed stuck between the panels of the swing. I tried to remove the seed. I was able to do so but not without causing some damage damaging the seed.
My takeaways:
Stuck: The seed represents “potential,” but it was stuck between two equal forces (the porch swing panels). If that potential would become unstuck, we’d have to be careful how we removed the seed.
Toxicity: Additionally, I began feeling nauseous shortly into my prayer time. I think the issue was that I had to use the bathroom - and the only solution was to “remove the waste” (Sorry if that’s TMI).
Obviously, this describes the political state of DC. So it would be interesting to see how these two points played out in my prayer time.
Phone
My Nashville drama left me with PTSD about missing another flight, so I left extremely early. I left at 5:30 for a 9:15 am flight. I caught my Lyft ride with no issue. But about 10 minutes from the airport, I realized I had left my phone at home!!!!! 🤬🤬🤬
My LYFT driver was pretty chill and helpful. Offered to call my phone to make sure it wasn’t hidden in all my stuff. Nope, it wasn’t in the car. He took me back home. I walked into the house, and my phone was sitting on the coffee table in the hallway.
Fortunately, I left so early that I went back to the airport and through TSA with plenty of time to catch my flight.
Lyft Driver
But let me give a shout-out to my Lyft Driver. He was dropping nuggets left and right. (These are from text messages I didn’t edit for grammar)
My Lyft driver in Atlanta was black. Former Air Force. He shared how he could see how US military is modern-day colonialism. We are the only ones who have a military base in other countries. No other country has military here.
Also, the driver said that section 8 = modern-day reservations but just for black people.
Oh, Atlanta Lyft driver also said US is the new Rome. When you look at some of the buildings in DC, the architecture speaks to a reflection of Rome/Greece. Nevermind the morals as well
On a funny note, he said he had just picked up some food from WF and put it in his trunk. Picked up a couple and he heard a voice saying, “They’re gonna take your food.” He normally gets out of the car as a courtesy when he drives. But this time he didn’t even though he heard that voice. Sure enough they took his food. He went back to the house and lights were dark like they weren’t home. He didn’t pursue it. But that’s how we started talking about intuition.
So I (and my text-mate!) thoroughly enjoyed our conversation!
First Things First
I happened to be looking out the window as we made our descent into DC, and I saw this. It's not the greatest picture. I was trying to capture the sight before we passed it. Glad to see UGA represented. Full disclosure, I'm not a huge college football fan, but it's good to see at least one GA football team finding success. My brother believes the Falcons are cursed: the powers that be displaced two historically black churches to build the new Mercedes Benz stadium. It's kind of like the secular kicking out the sacred. It could be that the land is "spitting out" the Falcons.
Leviticus 18:25-28
24 “‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
We'll see how the Falcons do as the years unfold.
Capitol Visit #2
This was my second time to visit the DC Capitol and pray. I was there for the first time in February 2023. On that visit, I was dropped off at the front of the Capitol. On this second trip, Lyft dropped me off at the back of the Capitol. I saw that the entrance to the Capitol Visitor Center was also on the backside of the Capitol. I hadn’t noticed that the first time.
My first visit to the capitol was just weeks after the Jan 6 Insurrection. I was focused on the scaffolding on the front of the Capitol and imagining the crowds hanging off the building and wreaking havoc in the nation’s capital. And my prayer time was spent in the front of the Capitol, so the backside of the Capitol was largely an afterthought.
My arrival at the back of the building reminded me of a conversation I had with a Delta SkyCap in the morning when flying out to DC. I told him I was nervous about catching my flight because I missed a flight to Tennessee the Monday after Thanksgiving. I didn’t make it through the TSA line in time. He shared a little tip with me: “Next time, go to the international terminal. It will take you ten minutes to check-in, and you can catch the train to your terminal.”
Being "Stuck"
As I was completing the last half of my lap around the Capitol, I heard a siren, initially off in the distance. I saw a motorcade approaching from about 3-4 blocks away. The sirens grew louder as it became apparent the motorcade was nearing the Capitol. Then they turned into the back entrance of the Capitol. As I started my final turn toward the back of the Capitol, I could see staffers running from their cars into the Capitol. Something urgent was going on, but I had no idea what exactly.
I later found out that it was likely Vice President Kamala Harris’s motorcade. She made history that day by breaking a tie in the Senate for the 32nd time (it was all over the news). She “broke a nearly 200-year-old record for casting the most tiebreaking votes in the Senate when she voted Tuesday to confirm a new federal judge in Washington, D.C.” (Citation: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/vice-president-harris-breaks-nearly-200-year-old-record-for-senate-tiebreaker-votes-casts-her-32nd).
The VP’s tie-breaking vote highlights a state of being stuck. Her vote got them “unstuck.” I believe there is potential in the US that is just stuck - for various reasons. The US has achieved great things, but there are even greater things, and greater (more righteous) ways of being it can achieve and become.
Also, on the flight to DC, Delta showed a commercial: (my paraphrase): are you stuck? Then you need to go on a vacation. I’m not a big fan of Delta, but I recognize the commercial as confirming the “stuck” word from my KAF session.
Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States
One of the flower beds in the rear of the Capitol.
Potential Retaining Walls
Looking at the Capitol from the back, there are 2 large flower beds that could be considered retaining walls. They reminded me of the two benches from the Montgomery Capitol flag display in Alabama. I didn’t pray at the flower beds, but I knew I would place my stone there once I finished praying.
Land Acknowledgment
After my trip to DC, I was scheduled to fly to Syracuse University to attend a conference titled “The Religious Origins of White Supremacy: Doctrine of Christian Discovery.” I had been reading some about Land Acknowledgements and thought it would be important in each city to acknowledge before God the Indigenous people who initially inhabited and stewarded this land before it was stolen from them. However, I recognize that land acknowledgments are “nice” but not nearly enough. Saying, “Yeah, about stealing your land…sorry we took yo’ s---, but we ain’t giving it back,” is not restitution. I felt it was important to start acknowledging whose lands we were on and then to pray for the land.
This is the first city where I would use the trauma prayer I remembered in preparation for my Nashville trip. I Googled which tribe possessed the land before European colonizers “discovered” or “invaded” the land. I didn't capture the names in my notes, but using a helpful tool I discovered via the Religious Origins of White Supremacy conference, I can share the names of the tribes with you: The Piscataway and Nacotchtank (Anacostan) tribes.
Indigenous lands as tracked in Native Land Digital
(https://native-land.ca/).
A zoomed-out view of the Indigenous lands of the Piscataway and Nacotchtank (Anacostan) tribes as tracked in Native Land Digital (https://native-land.ca/).
The Race
I saw a group recording a commercial for a TV show called The Race. Here is the show description from the internet: Go on the road with Scripps News as we travel to communities across the country to have real conversations with voters about what's impacting their everyday lives and give you a true perspective on where each political party stands.
It sounds very similar to my prayer journey, traveling from city to city, except my focus is prayer vs. interviews. I took it as a confirmation that my prayer tours are what I'm supposed to be doing. And we each have a unique way that we each can contribute to the quality of life in our respective countries.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I noticed that the flags all around the Capitol and at the SCOTUS building were at half-mast. I asked a Capital Guard why. Sandra Day O’Connor’s death. Since SCOTUS was right across the street, I prayed on that property as well. Below are images from SCOTUS grounds. Since it right across the street, I took it as an opportunity to pray on those grounds as well given the types of decisions it will be making in the months leading up to the 2024 US Elections in November.
US flag at half-mast in recognition of the death of
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Relief on the SCOTUS building.
Half-mast flag at the US Capitol.
View of the Capitol (to the right) from SCOTUS, though I was more focused on the sun.
Nice April: Having aspirations is nice...
Cynical April: Lip Service
SCOTUS in the sun.
May the light of God shine wisdom and truth on them.