lilli is an ordained minister. she considers herself continuing her father’s work whosE thesis at princeton seminary was on w.e.b. du bois as a lay theologian. she comes from a long line of ministers, but her ministry is decidedly more basic. in fact, she has boiled it all down to exactly these three words:

practice radical decency

In Lilli’s words:

I am a humanist. I do not use that word to commit any sort of hubris against any person’s particular God. I simply mean I believe in our story—our magnificent, unbelievable story—and our infinite potential in the context of the finite parameters of the universe in which we find ourselves. I believe in a future that is still calling us forward in spite of ourselves. There are mathematical workings that suggest that if the future were to disappear, so would then and so would now. So as long as we’re still here, we still have a future.

I also believe that if an individual can heal, so too can a society, and I believe that if humanity heals, our future could be amazing.

I am called forth by that future so compellingly that it dwarfs the despair of our past. But I am moved by our despair. We have been through so much: so much terror, so much pain, so much exhaustion, so much grief.

I am moved by us. I proud of us. I hope for us.

I’m married to that story. I am therefore consecrated to humanity.

My dream is to build a community who believes that our common journey involves healing above all else. I believe we in the Western world have collectively lost sight of our basic sense of wisdom. As Robert Frost might put it, the mob has been swayed to carry praise and blame too far, and we might need to choose something like a star to stay our minds.

That star is often found in the still small voice that speaks to us from our innermost core. If we stand still long enough—sit on a front porch, walk in a forest, listen to the rain—we may feel glimpses of it. The trouble is, most of us are too busy or anxious or depressed or cynical to hold on to that feeling, let alone build a life around it. But that feeling is pointing at the center of our individual wisdom and knowing, and I believe each of us must recover that if we intend to survive as a species.

The trick might be to slow down. Remain suspended. Reinvest in curiosity. At least that’s what my metabolized experience would say. But I can acknowledge that there probably is no trick. It’s probably all labor, hard work in fact. The work of coming home to oneself is no simple task.

I know we are struggling, but I believe we do know better. I sing songs to assuage the bitterness of the struggle, but I try hard not to let go of the thread that tells me we know better.

And better can look like a very simple thing. Better could start with you, dear reader. It could start with you trying to exercise radical decency in all of your moments, large and small. Decency is easy enough, but radical decency? Whatever could that mean?

Here is where I like to interject that the first and most significant word at the core of my ministry is “Practice.”

As a musician, practice can be torturous or it can be sacred, and I suspect that can be true of the word across the board. The main thing is that practice, no matter how you feel about it, does make things better. I like to say, when you first start practicing a new piece of music, you tend to “sound a hot mess” as we say here in the South.

But the more you slow down, the more you pay attention, the more you’re able to listen with big ears, feel what’s happening in your body, etc., you learn to respond to it, to lean into it, to open yourself to the surprising solutions that take care of themselves in your sleep. All of this comes by way of practice, and it tends to lead to magical experiences that can be especially poignant when achieved within an ensemble. Holy wow!

Imagine a world of people practicing being human together? It’s not perfect, but it’s intentional, and that might be the heart of the matter.

The second word that needs addressing is the word “Radical.” Why does something as straight forward as decency have to be radicalized? It’s because honestly, right now, we’ve got most things all wrong. We point the finger. We judge. We blame. We do that both internally and externally and it hurts in both directions.

It causes an inflammation of sorts, where instead we could be placing our intention. If our intention is to create more spaces where we can be treated with the gentleness that comes with basic dignity, then we must cultivate that gentleness with how we treat ourselves and each other. And we must do it always, especially when we don’t agree with the person we are talking to.

Our care must not be conditional. We must remember that we are creating this entire experience together, and there is no escape.

The last word is the one that is the most straight forward: “Decency.” I look to decency as a starting point. We must practice decency in order to achieve true justice. Justice does not involve retribution in any way. Ultimate justice is a state where the inherent worth and dignity of every individual is understood at a cellular level, and the actions society performs to embody that awareness are easily executed with the soothing lubricant of basic common sense.

The universe and the gods and the scholars and the stars and the aliens and the angels have told us everything we need to know about how to be human together. It is now necessary to metabolize what we know to be true and grow up—together.

join the movement. Augment the signal. get your practice radical decency tee Here.