Ibram Kendi, in his book Stamped from the Beginning, makes a bold assertion: people don’t start with racist ideas (beliefs) and then engage in behavior driven by those beliefs. Instead, people begin with racist acts and then find beliefs and ideas that justify or match those acts.

Philosopher James K.A. Smith develops an entire book–Desiring the Kingdom–around a similar notion. For Smith, humans do not begin with a “worldview”–a set of guiding principles that they use to structure their lives. Instead, people engage in acts that form them to be certain kinds of people.

Smith’s is a broad philosophical review of what makes us human. He concludes that we are not primarily “thinking” beings but beings who “love”–who desire. Our love and desire point to what we believe human thriving requires, but we do not start with the idea of what thriving is. Instead, we live into that understanding. Our actions form us to be certain kinds of people–they form us to love and desire. We do not “think” our way into our values; we “act” our way into them.

He discusses our identities as formed by rituals, many of which have lost meaning, but some of which are critical to understanding who we are. The latter, a subset of cultural rituals or practices he refers to as “liturgies.” A liturgy is a “formative practice”–a repeated act that forms us into certain kinds of people. While liturgy is a religious term, Smith describes secular liturgies that shape us in specific ways:

• The liturgy of the mall (or, if he were writing today “Amazon), forms us to love instant gratification of our every desire–a kind of healing for our yearning for meaning;
• The liturgy of the military-entertainment complex forms us to a deep allegiance to the nation as protector and savior; and
• The liturgy of the university forms us to be productive consumers who will lead society to be faithful consumers.

The Compassion Bench in Davis, CA is a place of liturgies—over time and in recent days, it is a place where we have engaged in practices that have formed us to be certain kinds of people.

At the bench we have engaged in a liturgy of compassion—a practice that has formed us to be people of compassion. At the bench (and elsewhere) we have engaged in a liturgy of lament—a practice that has formed us to be people who mourn the brokenness in the world, and express a yearning for healing.

Liturgy of Compassion

David Breaux led us in a liturgy. He did not ask us to think about compassion. Rather, he asked us to write about it, and in the writing to own our ideas in a different way. He fully expected that the act of writing would lead to acts of compassion—and, in fact, for David, compassion meant action.

But beyond the act of writing, in which many of us participated over the years, David sitting at the bench created a daily liturgy. Every time we passed by the bench, we were required to think about our commitments to compassion.

His very presence prompted us to engage in an ongoing formative practice: Have I loved as I should? Have I forgiven? Have I sought forgiveness? Have I been reconciled? Have I pursued reconciliation?

His question “how do you define compassion?” and his presence formed us to be people of compassion.

Liturgy of Lament

David’s death brought many of us back to the bench to engage in another formative practice—another liturgy—that we, as a community, have practiced far too many times in recent years.

This is the liturgy of lament.

As our community has faced devastating events—either directly or in solidarity with others—we have engaged in the formative practice of coming together to express our pain, support one another, and commit to action in the face of our sense of loss.

Whether the event was a murder, a mass killing, a hate crime, or the coming to power of people who dehumanize and destroy, we have come together to lament. We have gathered again, and again, and again to participate in a liturgy of mourning. But our mourning has always been accompanied by a commitment to stand against the hate that we lament.

We have come together to seek and offer solidarity: a hug, a smile of recognition, a communal song, a shared promise, a commitment. This formative practice has had a profound effect on all of us who join in the liturgy of lament. We have left our shared time prepared to not just “carry on,” but to live lives characterized by love and support of our neighbors.

The compassion bench is a place where our community has and will engage in liturgies—formative practices: practices that form us to be people who will face the challenges of our time with grace, compassion, and a will to seek change.

In the space of just a few months, two dear friends, both unhoused, both named David, died in my hometown. My relationship with each one was complex. But I loved them both, and both of them taught me lessons I could not have learned anywhere else.

Because both were named David, if you search online you can find them. I sit here tonight sad that I was not a better friend to David—both Davids.

Two Davids

Two Davids taken this year

One by train

The other by knife.

Bodies riven. Life

Driven from them

(We cannot pause too long, to consider the violence that renders flesh inert)

Oh David

Oh David

Two Davids

There was no place for them, for

We made no place for them.

They slept in “locations not meant for human habitation”

A definition.

And we allowed that because

They might inconvenience us, or

They made choices, or

We lack the fiscal resources, or

It’s not our problem, or

I just don’t have any fucking time for this right now.

Two Davids

David behind a jailhouse glass, stable

We speak of Ellul, and Keizer, and Help and what it takes to succeed in the world—what would it take?

David on the corner, purpose-driven

We speak of sympathy, empathy, compassion and the potential to heal all of mankind—what would it take?

Two Davids

I see David on the curb between two cops—they will beat him

I see David on the bench—they will confide in him (and reveal their lostness)

I see David, sitting in a circle with a homeless crowd too impaired to speak—he shares pizza with them and binds up their many wounds. Oh, they are wanderers on the planet and they will never find peace, but David feeds them.

I see David, standing on the corner with a housed crowd too privileged to identify the source of their angst—he shares a space with them and binds up all their many wounds. Oh, they are wanderers on the planet and they refuse to find peace, but David feeds them.

Two Davids

Oh, god. They left too soon.

They were the best of us—without portfolio

We simply could not see.

In other times or places, maybe

Maybe we would have made a place for them

A space for them

But we are not in that space/time—that universe

Out here and now in this place—in this space

We are poorer

They are gone.

Two Davids

If there were fairness

If there were just a tiny space for justice that restores

If there were an economy that valued peacemaking, truth telling, and love offering.

If there were a world in which gifts of healing were honored

If there were a place for two Davids

Two Davids