The third “No Kings” protest happened October 18, and here I am just getting around to publishing this blog  the 3rd week of Advent in December.   Sadly, in that space of time, our daughter Erin was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery, then my sister Helen died suddenly.  My mind and heart were elsewhere.  But I have this piece of writing so I’m going ahead with it, slightly reframed for the Jesus event some of us celebrate near the Winter Solstice every year.  Probably a little disjointed from new edits to a past rhyme.  But maybe this makes sense because whatever that birth in a manger has come to mean in 2025, it was first announced when the Empire was taking census to further tax and strangle the poorest of the poor, among whom were Jesus’ birth parents.  And any thought of the advent of justice and affordability in that time was a cruel rumor started by the King’s un-intelligent intelligence cabinet.   The incarnation event in a small rural village in Bethlehem (The House of Bread), though tiny, was an ancient NO KINGS protest, a light in the darkness Caesar Augustus and his puppet King Herod could not extinguish.  Much the same as now.

October 18, 7 million of us in at least 2,700 locations across the United States of America engaged in what many have called tactical frivolity. As a phenomenon, tactical frivolity is “a form of public protest involving humor, often including peaceful non-compliance with authorities using carnival and whimsical antics.”  We had leaping frogs dancing with ICE agents, inflated “mollusks against monarchs,” cookie monsters who “eat fascists” and unicorns adding their unconditional magic.  In so doing we joined a tradition going far back as ancient Greece, spanning the ages of non-violent non-cooperation, guerrilla theater and non-confrontational strategies using humor instead of aggression and mean mockery.  Intentional frivolity has long been a slow-burning light in vast societal darkness.  All we were missing were a few signs many Jesus people might be afraid to carry in public:

Molly Ivins once reported on tactical frivolity in Austin when fifty Ku Klux Klansmen appeared in front of the state capitol where they were greeted by 5,000 locals who turned out for their own “Moon the Klan Rally.”  Citizens dropped trou, in a splendid wave effect.  At NO KINGS, the hilarity of signs were excellent as always…adding to the satire and comedic resistance.  Here are some of our faves from Bend and protests around the region:

I apologize if some of these are on the border of respect and disrespect…the sacred and profane.  We’re all, I think, in the process of figuring out what is truth, what is kind, what is holy.  If, like me, you were raised in a faith tradition where Jesus was Mr. Nice, a surrogate for Santa Claus and the babe in a manger was all meek and mild, this kind of frivolity might be a problem.  I would argue Jesus was always kind, but I would never say he was nice.  Always respectful, the Good News was often quite rude in the face of nationalized authoritarian rudeness.

Janelle Bynum, our representative from the 5th Congressional District and Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley joined the fun.  Bynum had this to say from the podium before we started walking: “There may be days when you feel like you might wanta give up. But I’m here to tell you that is not an option. 

Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was a lifelong pacifist.  Her activism famously opposed war, nuclear testing and called for civil rights.  She was arrested for protesting with Cesar Chavez in 1973.  Her poem “The Oasis” speaks to our narrative:

What we would like to do is change the world — make it
a little simpler for people to feed, clothe and shelter themselves
as God intended.  And to a certain extent,
by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly
for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute —
the rights of the “worthy” and the “unworthy” poor
in other words, we can to a certain extent,
change the world. We can work for the oasis,
the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world.

We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident
that its ever widening circle will reach around the world.

You gotta love this: “We can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy…”  That’s what we’re doing all over the place right now, creating cells of joy across this land.  If you’ve been to a Christian Sunday School or camp at any time in your life, you’ve probably sung: “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.” It was always one of my un-favoritist songs, because we are capable of singing: “We’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy out in the streets.” Now that would be a song! Because this is happening and we all feel it (even, I suspect, many of those who say our protests are a Hate America movement)!  It’s a phenomenon because blow-up frogs and T-Rexs make protest safe for families to join and families bring children.  Oh my gosh the children!  I could’ve spent my whole time at NO KINGS getting photos of all the kids, but kid-pics with blurred faces aren’t fun.  We have to blur in this time of masked ICE marauders, forgotten identities, lost whereabouts and nursing babes ripped from their mother’s breast.  I’ve taken thousands of pics of family over the years.  This most recent one is now an all-time favorite.  Mother, son, grandson holding hands and signs together.  This is literally “Joy To the World” in our house. 

Goody goody christians still love to say “the family who prays together, stays together.”  Which is maybe true half the time, but not for piety.  I like “families who protest together do best together.”  We crowded Drake Park, we marched through downtown, we loaded the bridge across the Deschutes river.  There was a big

mess of joyousness everywhere…a really big mess.  And our grandson led us through the most crowded places…he wanted to be all in.  If you wanted to say “and a little child will lead us,” it wouldn’t be lost on me. Because the messy masses of joy we created across our land and around the world October 18, as it turns out, prepared our way to this season when we continue to light the fires who remind us that a world where lions lie with lambs is not only on its way, but present now and here.

Like most of our campaigns, we do a lot of repeat-after-the-one-with-the-megaphone chants.  To hear kids like our own grandson and 3 or 4 of the school mates he met in the crowd that day, chanting “This is what democracy looks like!” It was goosebumps.  Several years ago, I attended a training in preparation for a protest and the leaders had us go around the room and tell about the first protest experience of our lives.  I was amazed at how many said their first times were with their parents and their families.  We’re just getting started…again.  

Take your kids.  Take your grandkids, nieces and nephews.  Let them take you.  This is making a difference.  We are.  I’m sure some of you have been hearing about the 3.5% Rule.  It is a concept in political science suggesting that 3.5% of a population actively participating in a nonviolent protest can successfully bring about significant political change. It requires a critical mass of people actively participating over a sustained period, not just a one-time event.  That’s what we’ve been doing.  When 3.5% actively participate, it grows even broader support within the population.  We’ve had 3 million showing up, then 5 million, now between 7 and 8 million in the streets across all 50 states chanting the new hope of NO KINGS.   For a country our size, 3.5% is approximately 12 million people.  We can do this, right?  Meet monarchs with mollusks, bullies with bull frogs, injustice with an irrefutable solidarity of bold kindness. 

“I need to be able to tell my grandchildren I did not stay silent.”  There’s a sign like that in every crowd and there will be more.  7 or 8 million of us can tell our grandchildren and they will tell theirs. Some say heaven is where we go when we die, that the Kingdom of God is a city in the sky with no more suffering and streets of gold.  The same ones say Resurrection is corpses rising to live again as reward for being good or being white or accepting Jesus.  I mean, who am I to say, but when we fill the streets and roadways with joy, that’s heaven; when we occupy our cities and towns with Unicorns of Unconditional love, that’s the new birth of Kingdom or Kindom if you will, right here, right now.  When we join together to raise ALL boats and lift all neighborhoods out of poverty, fear and colonization to interdependence, safety and self-determination, this is Emanuel (God-With-Us) in the flesh.   And we decide everyday whether to live in deep shit or with deep love. As we are now in the next season, this is also real Nativity. 

What I hope for us who are followers of the Jesus Way is a real conversion.  That Christmastide is less a birthday party and more like NO KINGS protests, less shopping sprees and more like sitting around a tree full of stars on the front lawns of power till the King restores SNAP benefits.  We have another chance to re-imagine our allegiances and our call in this otherwise deadly time.

After the NO KINGS march in Bend, we walked home along the river with other protesters.   We passed a grassy hill and the grandkid couldn’t help himself; he had to project his small body down that hill.  Real Joy isn’t some external arrival with xmas ads that now start way before Thanksgiving.  Joy is what humans do.  It’s who we are.  You can call it tactical frivolity or non-violent non-cooperation.  Call it the Dance.  Call it Joyeux Noel.  It’s contagious.  It’s how we roll.  

The words of Luke 2:12 will be repeated again this year, millions of times around the world on Christmas Eve: “And this will be a sign to you.  You will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”  This will be a sign to you.  What signs are we looking for?  Maybe for these?

As we roll through this historic moment and march and protest our ways into the Epiphany of 2026, look for the signs that will keep hope alive and guide us to the places of Oasis and cells of joy.  Yes, look for the signs and carry them.  Take your kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews.  Let them take you.  Be seriously tactical and boldly frivolous. Hold hands and raise your signs high.  “Repeat the sounding joy!”  Everywhere.