Every morning when I get up and read the news, I feel like the ground is shifting beneath my feet, and everything I once counted on is losing its shape. The institutions I once trusted are being destroyed. The language we used to share collapses into noise. The stories of hope that I lived by have lost their endings. The word compassion has become a dirty word—at least for those in power. I don’t know what to stand on anymore.
Are there others who feel it too—the disorientation, the grief, the sense that the old world is cracking and something unnamed is pressing in? And who feel the anger, too—the anger that so many seem bent on such destruction, the rage at what is being lost and what is being willingly torn apart. Especially the anger at what is happening to the vulnerable—to immigrants, to the poor and powerless—whose lives are being crushed by the weight of policies, indifference, and cruelty.
Process theologians suggest that a cosmic Spirit moves in the shaking—not as the cause of the rupture, but as the gentle, persistent presence within it. Not to restore what was, but to guide us toward what might yet be born from the rubble.
Is this true? Does process theology offer a theology for times like these—for fault lines and fractures, for mourning and anger, for rebuilding with trembling hands?
A Theology for the Shaking
If process theology offers anything for times like these, it is honesty—and hope that does not bypass grief.
It begins with the recognition that the universe itself is alive with becoming, filled with creativity and risk, beauty and tragedy. God, in this vision, is not the distant architect of every detail, nor the silent author of suffering. God is not above the fault lines, orchestrating collapse from some heavenly throne. God is within the trembling--with us—not as a hidden hand of control, but as the deep companion of all who suffer.
In open and relational theology, God does not override the agency of the world. Earthquakes happen—physical, political, moral—because the universe is real, dynamic, and free. Tectonic plates shift. Institutions rot. Empires fall. People choose cruelty. And still, God remains—not as the force behind destruction, but as the gentle, grieving presence within it. The Spirit does not impose, but invites. God lures, moment by moment, toward justice, toward healing, toward beauty. That lure may be ignored. It often is. But it never ceases.
This is not a theology of comfort, but a theology of accompaniment. It offers no illusions of safety. What it offers is presence. Not the presence of a savior swooping in to erase the pain, but of a cosmic companion whose own heart breaks with the world, and who still believes—in us, with us—that something new can be born. And in the very act of becoming—in the trembling itself—God is present as the lure toward response. A call to protect the vulnerable. A whisper to tell the truth. A courage to begin again. Not to rebuild what was, but to co-create what could be.
Steps to Take Amid the Trembling
Here are some of those steps—simple, difficult, courageous ways to live with integrity in the tremble:
1. Tell the Truth Name what is happening. To yourself. To others. Speak honestly about the harm being done, the grief you carry, the danger you see. Silence can feel safe, but in times of collapse, it can become complicity. Truth-telling is a form of faithfulness.
2. Stay Close to the Vulnerable The Spirit is most fully present in those who suffer. Stand with the poor, the displaced, the silenced, the despised. Listen to their voices. Let their lives shape your priorities. Let your theology be grounded in solidarity.
3. Grieve Without Shame Let yourself mourn what is being lost—the institutions, the dreams, the language, the shared meaning. Grief is not a weakness to be hidden. It is a faithful response to rupture. To grieve is to love what is passing. And only those who grieve can hope with honesty.
4. Resist the Machinery of Harm Where you see systems perpetuating cruelty, join the work of resistance. This may mean protest, or policy, or simply refusing to normalize what is not normal. There is power in small refusals, sacred in every no that protects the vulnerable.
5. Create Micro-Sanctuaries Find or form communities of tenderness, justice, and courage—spaces where compassion is not a dirty word but a holy one. These small circles of trust are seeds of a better world. Tend them. Water them. Share bread and stories within them.
6. Let the Spirit Guide the Next Right Step You don’t need to know the whole path. You don’t need to rebuild the whole world. Just listen for the next right step. In process theology, God is not a dictator of outcomes but a companion in discernment. The lure is gentle, the guidance persistent. Trust it.
7. Be Angry but Avoid Bitterness.
“You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.” Maya Angelou
8. Stay committed to the Long Road of Love.
it is a long road—a road whose end you may never see in your lifetime, especially if you are of a certain age. But that road, process theologians believe, exists nonetheless. It is not merely a dream or an ideal. It is real.
That long road is what they call the consequent nature of God—the ongoing, evolving, all-embracing memory and feeling of the universe itself, as a living Whole. It is a harmony of harmonies that gathers every moment of joy and sorrow, every act of kindness and every struggle for justice, into a larger wholeness that overlaps with, and ultimately includes, the entire universe. It is in its own way a destination as well as a journey. The long road is the Omega of creation, as it exists alongside each and every here-and-now. To walk that road is an act of faith—not faith in certainty, but faith in process, in love, and in the possibility that nothing good is ever lost.