Category: Justice

What White Grievance Looks Like

Something is being snatched from them and it’s not just money or jobs or security or even the White House. The common refrain is a fear of an America where white privilege is challenged and whiteness as the gold standard of beauty or power or value or provenance is no longer the automatic default.

Michele L. Norris, Washngton Post

The rioting in the Capitol building was not a surprise, though the lack of security was. The mob that breached security, trashed the halls of Congress, and brought death was not a surprise given the virulent White supremacy that has supported Donald Trump and has been incited by him. That there was a noticeable “Jesus Saves” sign among protesters was not a surprise either, given the blending of White nationalist values and culture with Christian rhetoric. If we let go of our rhetoric and actually follow Jesus, we may recognize our nation’s similarities to the Roman empire that crucified Jesus. As with the Roman empire of Jesus’ time, America’s empire-building tentacles reach out globally. America’s way of doing peace (maintaining order in the empire) is not so different from the “Pax Romana.” The followers of Jesus are called to proclaim God’s reign over against the empires of this world.

Much has been made of White grievance in the news, often without unpacking the nature of the grievance. Are we surprised by the ferocity of it? Are we blind to White supremacy, not merely as an ideology, but as an attitude, expectation, and aspect of White culture? As our nation becomes more diverse on its way to becoming a nation of minorities, are we surprised by the increasing backlash, given our racist ways?

White Americans do not have to claim White supremacy or understand themselves in those terms to be supremacist. All we have to do is to think that our view of ourselves, our nation, its history, and its values are who we are as a nation. When we are able to think of this nation as our nation without really thinking about anybody else but ourselves, we are White supremacists and are likely to think of ourselves as the real Americans. Then the history of this nation that we tell is the history of our ancestors—a White history of a White nation. The history that Native Americans and African Americans tell is quite different from the history of those of us who are of European descent, and yet it is real American history. And it fills in what a White-centered history leaves out. I grew up learning from history books that were grossly incomplete and slanted. Only in receiving the history of others have I found a corrective. We must provide our children with a true and diverse history of our nation, not downplaying its sin and brutality, while, at the same time, lifting up the powerful movements for justice that largely have come from those who have been oppressed.

I remind those who call themselves Christians and who are caught up in a White nationalism: Jesus came from a subjugated and minority people in the Roman empire, and he sided with outcasts. He did not attempt to be seen as one of the “winners.” He did not side with the elite, whether their elite status was in wealth or position or in an ethnic group (being Roman). He calls all to come down from whatever perch we have put ourselves on. He tells us to lose our lives, to let go, and to follow him as he leads us out of our false allegiances to live under God’s reign and be light in the world and to love others (even our enemies) with the love of God.

Those who stormed the Capitol had no real mission or purpose. They did not come with a vision for a “more perfect union.” They came to take back America for themselves. You could hear it in their words, “This is our house.” Never mind that representatives of a great diversity of United States citizens were gathered in that place.

St. Paul wrote of grief that is godly. Some grief or grievance is ungodly. Grief that is godly, is grief that brings repentance and change. It turns away from what demeans and destroys others and works for loving transformation. It does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly with God.

Filed under: Grief, Justice, Racism

The Year That Exposed Our Ignorance
And Gave Us Work For The New Year

The disparities have always been there: the inequities in health care, education, housing, city services, job opportunities, and the injustices of the criminal justice system. In the year 2020, many Whites were awakened to these realities by the reporting of disparities in infections and deaths from COVID-19 among communities of color, and by the video of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a White police officer. But the disparities and injustices have always been there. Ignorance has been there as well.

At this end of 2020 and as we make plans for 2021, let us make the commitment to address the disparities and injustices. This will mean that we acknowledge our ignorance of what others suffer and are open to change.

Scripture is revealing in the way it treats ignorance. Ignorance is an aspect of a broken humanity and society in which we all share (Ezekiel 45:20). It is an expression of our alienation from God and is coupled with hardness of heart (Ephesians 4:18). Ignorance is not only a lack of knowledge but an act of ignoring what we ought to pay attention to. It comes from the breakdown in our relationship with God. We ignore God and God’s will. We are distant from what is on the heart of God for humanity. We are self-absorbed and do not see what God sees.

God said to Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians.” Then God engaged Moses in God’s work of deliverance. As with Moses, God continues to call us to turn from our self-centered ways and observe what God observes, and then to let God engage us in God’s work of liberation and justice.

This means that we repent from ignoring the experience of others (the others who are not kin or friend or “like us”). It means that we get to know how others are affected by our attitudes, decisions, priorities, and the kind of policies and legislation we vote for and work to get implemented. How do our actions affect the lives of others, especially those who have been marginalized by racism, poverty, or incarceration? With the help of God, we can repent and turn to what we have ignored and become intent on getting to know the lives of those who have been largely out of sight and out of mind because of our ignorance. Because we have ignored them.

As we enter 2021, let us do so in prayer, turning our hearts to God to see the way God sees, with the love of God poured into our hearts by the Spirit. And let us hear again God’s call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. Let us surrender our lives to God and to the leading of the Spirit for the concrete actions that God calls us to take, each of us with our individual abilities and ways of serving. Let us turn from ignorance to understanding and action, so that in the freedom of God’s love we work to make right what is wrong.

Filed under: Justice, Racism, Spirituality

Trump, White America, and Our Humanity

After all that Donald Trump has done, all the misery he has caused, all the racism he has aroused, all the immigrant families he has destroyed, all the people who have left this life because of his mismanagement of a pandemic, still roughly half of the country voted to extend this horror show.

White people—both men and women—were the only group in which a majority voted for Trump. (Charles M. Blow)

I have thought of Donald Trump as a mirror by which we could see ourselves as a nation. After all, we had managed to put him into the office of the presidency. My hope was that, after four years of looking in the mirror, we would not like what we saw. I had not expected Trump to grow his base by several million voters. Apparently, many looked in the mirror, saw themselves, and liked what they saw.

Many, who have been the opposition to Trump, have been alarmed by the breaking of democratic and institutional norms, practices, and mores; the narcissistic, demeaning, dishonest, and immoral behavior; the utter lack of leadership and care for the real issues of our time. We have an incredibly self-absorbed human being heading our government. He is a mirror of self-absorption. In fact, Trump has mirrored our ability, as a people, to be absorbed with our most narrow interests, to see not far beyond our personal issues and those of people like us. When Trump has expressed grievances, prejudices, and fear of others different from us, we may have seen ourselves in the mirror. When Trump has demeaned those viewed as the opposition or “not us,” we may have seen ourselves, having craved their demeaning. If we have been a part of the opposition to Trump, we may have seen ourselves in the mirror of those who have demeaned Trump and his supporters.

It is apparent that we can look into a mirror that represents something of ourselves and be blind to the defacement that is present. We need a different mirror. We need the mirror of Christ, the mirror of our true humanity, a humanity turned outward to others, not merely looking out for its own interests. In Christ, we see compassion that recognizes the needs of others and reaches out with healing and liberation. We see mercy that enters into the lives of the “least” of the human family, those marginalized by our inhumanity towards others. In Christ, we see justice that works to make right what is wrong. In Christ, we see one who loses his life for the sake of the world. We need to look into the mirror of the humanity we see in Christ. This humanity—which is compassionate and merciful—is near, as near as God is to us, the God who is in all things. But we must turn from our false humanity to our true selves made in the image of God.

If we look into the mirror of Christ, the mirror of compassionate humanity, we will begin to see truthfully. We will see the disfigurement of our humanity by sin, the spiritual roots of our blindness. We will also see that neither Trump nor support for Trump is an aberration. As Jamille Bouie expresses it, “The line to Trump runs through the whole of American history.” Trump mirrors our history. Whatever our democratic ideals, ours is a history of the degradation and subjugation of people, of native Americans and people of African descent and others. Ours has been a history of White supremacy—what many have called our nation’s original sin. The majority of Whites voted for Trump. He represented them more than the alternative that at least expressed the desire to address racial disparities and injustices and to stop the mistreatment of children and families at our border. When we look into the mirror that is Trump, we see White supremacy. And White supremacy has supported him.

White evangelicals, who saw in Trump a protector of “Christian values” or, at the least, “religious freedom,” need to turn to Christ, who said that if we seek to secure our lives, we will lose them, but if we lose our lives for Christ’s sake, we will gain them. Only when we relinquish our lives to God will we be witnesses to Christ, rather than witnesses to our fears and self-absorption and White nationalist values that exist under a guise of “Christian values.”

Dear reader, if you are finding your true self in Christ, you know that you are called to be a witness to what is on the heart of God whose image you are. We are to be witnesses in a world plagued by inhumanity. We are to be witnesses before a false Christianity. We join with others who are discovering their true humanity. They may not call it Christ, but they are increasingly living from that humanity, and we recognize them by their compassion and share with them a common labor to do justice, love mercy, and live faithfully.

Filed under: Humanity, Justice, Racism, Society, WitnessTagged with: , ,

We Choose Our Bubble

Much has been made of the influence of Fox News and social media for the continued support of Donald Trump by 42% of the electorate. There is little question that if you got someone off a diet of Fox News, it would likely affect their views. But there is a reason why people are drawn to Fox News. And there is a reason why Facebook gives its users the kind of news they seek. People choose the bubble they live in.

A White woman, in an overwhelmingly White suburb of Milwaukee, described herself as a Democrat concerned about climate change and health care who was voting for Biden, until the police killing of George Floyd and the massive protests around the country. Now she is going to vote for Trump and law and order and safety. She has depicted the Black Lives Matter movement as a guise for looting and burning. What is particularly revealing to me is that she started listening to Black conservatives and managed to find a Black commentator who portrays White privilege as a myth. We choose our bubble.

Getting out of our bubble begins when we choose to leave it. That is why Jesus says, “Repent for the Reign of God is near.” We do not have to remain in any bubble. We can enter the freedom of God’s reign. Under God’s rule of love, we begin to be liberated from our racism, xenophobia, and nationalism. We are being delivered from the ways we make an idol of our “blood and kindred,” our security, comfort, pleasure, power, money, etc. We are empowered to turn from these idols to serve the living and true God and to become a people for others.

Conversion from lives centered in ourselves to lives increasingly centered in God is the basis for deep, foundational change. Our fundamental bubble is the self-centered bubble. Spiritual conversion (which is an ongoing experience) is the way out. We come to this experience by grace. It is a gift of God who is our Liberator. Without spiritual conversion, we remain stuck, merely working around the edges of our bubbles or exchanging our bubbles for others, perhaps bigger bubbles, but which have us equally trapped.

In the Spirit, we become open to our true selves and to others. In the Spirit, there is an infinite openness that enables us to see our bubbles for what they are, one bubble among many others—bubbles of our making. In the Spirit, we are brought into the broad expanse of God’s reign of love and mercy. In that openness, we are made able to see others and to listen and receive from them. We experience the call outward and the desire to move out from our inturned selves into the lives of others. This becomes the basis for our seeking to understand and to know more of what others, different from ourselves, experience and contend with. It also allows us to examine our own hearts and our decisions and actions and their effects on the lives of others. For those of us who are White, this openness will have us stop defending ourselves with “I am not a racist” to become antiracists working to change laws and policies and the way our society has been structured by White law-making, practices, and institutions—in other words, by White supremacy.

I pray for a spiritual awakening in our nation—for the foundations upon which we have built our lives to be shaken and that we reach out for our true selves and for true community in the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.” It is in this way that we can begin to truly come out of our bubbles and meet each other and build a life together.

Filed under: Justice, Racism, SpiritualityTagged with: , , ,

Donald Trump and White Nationalist Christianity

At Dordt University, a Christian college in Sioux Center, Iowa, in January 2016, Donald Trump said to a group of Christians, “Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.” (New York Times)

Eighty percent of self-identified White evangelical Christians remembered and voted for Donald Trump. He was the one that White nationalist Christianity chose for its president. Donald Trump, however, is not a Christian president nor a president for Christians, but a president that appeals to a White nationalism that has the veneer of Christianity and uses Christian language and a theology that shelters White supremacy. A Christianity that finds in Trump a protector and provider is far removed from the life and teaching of Jesus and our participation in his death and resurrection (dying to the old life and rising to the new).

What kind of Christianity looks to Trump to give it power? An idolatrous Christianity. The roots of its idolatry go deep, to the beginnings of a nation established as a White nation for Whites built on the free labor of enslaved Africans and the genocide of Native Peoples of the land. A theology was developed (some of it ready-made for the task) that justified, supported, and reinforced White nationalist values and commitments. This theology has remained, in one form or another, through Jim Crow and the new Jim Crow. While no longer providing a rationale for slavery, it remains White supremacist. Rather than being a blatant, ideologically framed White supremacy, much of it operates hidden (especially to participants) and persistent. As Ibram X. Kendi has so clearly pointed out, the opposite of racist is not “not racist” but antiracist.

A Christianity that follows Jesus is active in doing justice. It works to make right what is wrong. It seeks to dismantle in order to build a just society. We have a mission like that which was given to the prophet Jeremiah “to pull down” in order “to build and to plant.” In its most subtle forms, White nationalist Christianity simply overlooks or diminishes the racism, disparities, and injustices experienced by people of color and seeks to maintain a White supremacist status quo. It will not acknowledge this, but its denial is seen for what it is when it supports voter suppression (while calling it something else) and dismantling affirmative action (as if it were no longer needed), opposes true reform of the criminal justice system, and works against initiatives to address disparities in health, education, and housing.

I share with other Christians the concern for the life of the unborn, but I also believe that being pro-life means care for the life of the born and therefore health care for all. I oppose the taking of any life and therefore, as with the early church, oppose capital punishment and cooperation with war. I believe that following Jesus includes doing what he told Peter to do and that was to put down his sword. It is hard to follow Jesus in loving and praying for our enemies while killing them. Jesus calls us to be witnesses to God’s reign, not to the nations of the world and their security solutions.

Now, I do believe there are evangelicals (and other Christians) who voted for Trump that know and love God and have experienced God’s grace. There are all kinds of reasons people get caught up in various belief systems and do not recognize the inconsistencies with their new life in Christ. And, of course, God comes to us where we are and has us on a journey. We begin a journey that brings us out of many false, hurtful beliefs. For Christians, this happens by following Jesus daily. We expect transformation and growth. Increasingly, we become responsible for exercising discernment, with the help of the Spirit—discernment regarding leaders and teachers in our lives. The greatest responsibility, however, goes to leaders. James says that not many should be teachers for they will be judged more harshly. The greater the responsibility, the more required. And Jesus says, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!” (Matthew 18:7)

What, at times, happens is that a person “accepts Christ” in a genuine desire for a life change, perhaps from a drug addiction which is the immediate idolatry or obsession that they are aware of, from which they need deliverance. God is gracious and they experience healing from their addiction as well as help with other personal struggles. At this point, in their spiritual journey, theirs is a malleable Christ. (If only we would be malleable to Christ.) The guidance they receive is critical. What they may receive from an available pastor is a theology shaped by nationalist values and ideologies or that does not question these (which is fine with the person who holds them). The only way out of this false religious bubble is to actually follow the Jesus of the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and the New Testament. Let Jesus’ teaching challenge, disrupt, and “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) Above all, this means that we do what Jesus tells us to do: Count the cost of following. It goes beyond initial acceptance. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves [including their present commitments and ways of thinking] and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

Filed under: Discipleship, Justice, Leadership, RacismTagged with: , ,

Gifts In A Time of Pandemics: Anger

Anger follows hurt. We experience pain, then anger. We expect fairness. We expect welcome rather than rejection. We expect to be seen, to be acknowledged, and our basic needs recognized and affirmed. We expect our lives to be valued. Our humanity expects these things. At the heart of all these expectations, we expect love—to be loved and to love. From love flows mercy, justice, and faithfulness. Our humanity is trampled upon when these are not present. And we respond with anger and a desire and a need for what is wrong to be made right, that “justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” We cannot go on under conditions devoid of justice without taking action.

When Jesus came into the temple, he saw the injustice. He saw that what was meant to be a house of prayer had become a “den of robbers.” In anger, he made a “whip of cords” (John 2:15) and “drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.” (Matthew 21:12-13) In the streets of our cities, police cars have been overturned.

We learn what replaced the selling and the buying and the money changers, in the next verse (Matthew 21:14): “The blind and the lame came to Jesus in the temple, and he cured them.” Envision for our present moment: Police violence against black and brown bodies replaced by acts of healing.

Anger, of course, can simply lash out and accomplish little more than additional pain. And those on the outside of the pain can simply judge its futility. But if the pain underneath the anger is received with compassion (rather than with judgment and self-righteousness) healing is available. I think of the judgment that gets directed at looters and those who damage property when openness to the pain would provide another view. (Take a step toward being open and the help for being open will be there because the Spirit of God is about opening our hearts and giving us eyes to see.) Rather than simply seeing the destructive behavior of individuals, we will see a society that has been crafted and structured by white supremacy and racism, from slavery to Jim Crow to the present “new Jim Crow.” We, who are white, will see our racism rather than be fixated on broken store windows. We will see the racism and greed and indifference that have historically robbed people of ownership within our society, disenfranchised them, cut off opportunity, brought death, and provided a framework within which destructive action makes sense. I saw a video clip of a couple of protesters, seeing a man with a bat in front of a store window, go over to the man and gently lead him away from the action he was contemplating, and then put their arms around him in an act of understanding and solidarity. Compassion has an altogether different mode of operation from that of self-righteous judgment.

When compassion responds to and takes up misdirected anger and redirects it, healing and liberation happen. A little compassion, like a little faith that can move mountains, is powerful. God is in it.

Love can use anger in powerful and purposeful ways. It can help focus on and target what needs to be addressed. Anger is a strong and urgent emotion carrying within it the pain from which it arises, and harnessed by compassion zeros in on the present moment with imperativeness. It takes what love clarifies and gives it emotional urgency. Love—caring enough to attend to the depth of the problem and to gain knowledge—gives rise to solutions. Anger presses us with “why we cannot wait” for the solutions. Change must come now! Jesus saw the temple turned into a den of robbers and immediately acted.

A police force (along with carefully manufactured laws) that historically has been used to “dominate” (using our president’s term) black lives, must be dismantled. It needs to be replaced with that which can truly serve. I am grateful for those who have been rethinking what makes for public safety, who are “dreaming dreams and seeing visions” for something radically different from what we have now. “Defund the police” puts before us, with urgency, the kind of change that must happen: Defund the present police organizations with their militarization and their “us against them” mentality and their opposition to reform. Funds freed up by decreasing police functions become funds for social services, mental health care and housing for the homeless (rather than have police break up their encampments), treatment (rather than criminalization) for those with addictions, and health care, education, job training, community organizations, and community mediation. My local grocery store was one of the few grocery stores on the southeast side of Chicago that was not looted. It was not the police that stopped the looting, but neighborhood residents who essentially talked potential looters out of looting. And this was going on with other stores, as well. They were saved from being looted by the mediation efforts of the community. Contrast this with what we have come to expect from police in such situations, with their oppositional relationship to the community. It is time to defund the present “public safety” institutions and build and fund something more holistic and compassionate and embedded in the community.

For those who would immediately dismiss “defunding” as an impossibility, a sign of hope came from the Minneapolis city council when they voted to dismantle the police force. They decided that the “current policing system could not be reformed.” They pledged “to begin the process of taking apart the Police Department as it now exists.” (New York Times)

The pandemics of the coronavirus and racism have both brought forth anger, in different ways. In either case, we are helped by becoming aware of the pain underneath the anger, acknowledging it, and recognizing where that pain is actually coming from, so that we do not misdirect our anger. Love of ourselves and others helps us with that. The freedom of love gives a healing, liberating direction to our anger as we address the causes of the pain.

Filed under: Grace, Justice, Love, RacismTagged with: , ,

“I Can’t Breathe”

“The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘antiracist.’

Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist

George Floyd, a black man, his arms handcuffed behind him, cries out for help with the words, “I can’t breathe,” as a white police officer presses a knee down upon his neck. There are three other officers at the scene. They all hear the cry for help. Bystanders hear and call out for the police officers to help: The man is down and handcuffed; how much more brutality is necessary to demonstrate your power? All of the officers, who are called to “serve and protect,” ignore the pleas. George Floyd dies.

There are many steps before murder: many attitudes, fears, prejudices, demeaning actions, and unjust behaviors. Some talk about a white supremacist police culture, but this kind of police culture flows out of a wider American white supremacist culture.

Often, in the media, white supremacists are depicted as an ideological minority. But white supremacy is an inherent ingredient in the narrative of this nation. The history of the United States is a history of white supremacy in the form of white law-making and actions that created and maintained the institution of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, the present mass incarceration of people of color, voter suppression, and continued support for inequities in education, health care, jobs, wealth, and power—if not supported actively, certainly by white apathy toward these injustices.

White supremacy must not be seen merely as the ideology of a few. Those of us who are white do not need to have a developed supremacist philosophy to have attitudes, tendencies, and views that keep us from truly understanding and addressing the injustices in our society. White sense of entitlement, along with denial of our racism, allows us to ignore the voices and experiences of people of color.

White supremacy involves us in viewing white ways and culture as the norm and standard by which we judge others. This all happens, of course, implicitly and in an unacknowledged manner. But it allows us to form views without listening as if all we need are the “answers” that our biases and fears provide. We simply draw from what we already think. Where and how our thoughts are formed goes unexamined.

Every aspect of racism, whether blatant or subtle, minimizes the humanity of another human being. There is a link between the apathy that ignores injustices and police officers who act with brazen disregard for the life of a fellow human being. The distance between the two is not so very great.

When we realize this, we are approaching the first step of the Twelve Step Program for Addicts (racism being very similar to an addiction). Step one requires us to come out of denial: We admit our racism and powerlessness and that this way of living has become unmanageable. The acknowledgment of unmanageability means we are recognizing the massive scale of the problem: the deep entrenchment of racism. We feel our inadequacy and realize we need power to change. We need spiritual liberation. We need step three: “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.” We need to be raised up into a higher reality—into the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.” We need to be freed into our true selves that have their source in God.

With the confession of our brokenness and a spiritual turning (repentance) and the grace that brings liberation (steps 1-3), we are released into action. In this spiritual journey, there are further steps that involve a “moral inventory” of our lives. We become involved in inner work, the Spirit helping us to acknowledge the intentions, motivations, and attitudes of our hearts, and the actions that flow from them. We are helped by words of truth that come to us from others and from their experiences. We listen to others, and the Spirit of truth helps us to receive truth.

There are also steps for “making amends,” that is, making right what is wrong. These steps have us moving outward. We become intentional about addressing racism not only in our own lives but in the institutions, laws, and structures of our society. We work for radical change and reform—the reformation of the criminal justice system, the removal of voter suppression laws, and the dismantling of discrimination and inequities of all kinds. We are becoming antiracist. The defensive “I am not a racist” does not work for us anymore. Our focus is outward on understanding the nature and extent of this social disease and equipping ourselves to fight against it.

Formerly, we were not seeking to understand and gain knowledge and wisdom for action—not about racism and white supremacy. But now that we are on a journey of openness and action, we are seeking—and finding. In our seeking, we reach out to others who have a history of being antiracist. We are being liberated into community antiracist action. Together we become agents of change. Or, as Jesus puts it, “salt and light.”

Are you on the journey? If not, this blog post is an invitation.

Filed under: Justice, Racism, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: ,

Gifts in a Time of Pandemic: Darkness

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping

Paul Simon

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139:11-12

God is present in the light and the darkness. In joy and sorrow. In success and failure. In gladness and affliction. God is in the darkness and darkened future of the present pandemic.

This year, I started growing plants for my vegetable garden from seeds. I had the opportunity to observe what many others have known: Seedlings grow faster at night. They capture the energy of the sun during the day and much of their growth happens in darkness. I am considering this as a metaphor for our growth into our true humanity. Growth often happens in the darkness and in the midst of trials.

The psalmist says, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5) Our lives include both night and morning, weeping and joy. Both darkness and light are necessary. God is in both.

I recall entering a time of trial and darkness. Because of previous experience, I was desirous of receiving what God had to give me through what I was enduring. When I came out of that period of struggle, I had mixed emotions, wondering if I had received everything from it that was meant for me. (Likely not, but I was grateful for what I did receive.)

Some trials are personal, some communal. We are presently enduring a global pandemic. It is a dark night that we share with others—although not all in the same way. Those who have lost loved ones to the virus experience the darkness acutely. Health workers on the front lines experience the depth of this pandemic in ways that most of us escape. And there are great societal disparities in the way this pandemic is experienced.

There are pandemics in the midst of pandemics. The pandemic of racism has a long history that continues alongside the coronavirus pandemic. The recent shooting death of a young black jogger by two white men (who were not charged until a video surfaced two months later) is a manifestation of this brutal pandemic—as are the historic inequities that are exacerbated by the virus. One pandemic affects the other. Will the darkness of the one help us to enter, in some manner, the darkness of the other? Because of the great unevenness of this virus’ impact, mainline news has had more to say about disparities than we are used to hearing. Will we stay with the hearing and go deeper?

The COVID-19 pandemic may be heightening our awareness—as the darkness often does. If we are open, we may no longer be able to ignore these other pandemics. We may gain hearts that move us to do justice and love mercy. We may find ourselves working to overcome the divisions that we have erected. We may receive an elevated sense of community that calls us to action, as we share with others during this pandemic.

In the darkness of this pandemic, there is great potential for change and growth. In the darkness, we may become more self-aware and engaged in inner work, acknowledging our false attachments, motivations, and attitudes. In the quietness of the night, we may wonder about our purpose. What is our true calling? What is truly essential for our growth as human beings? In the darkness, we become still and wait. We become open and receptive. In the darkness, we let go of trying to secure ourselves and, in letting go, we gain our true humanity made in the image of God.

God is in the darkness as well as in the light. We find God there if we do not attempt to fill the darkness with something foreign to it: binge-watching videos or drowning ourselves in social media or dulling our fears and insecurities with various addictions. And yet, even our addictions may play a part. Their enchainment may bring us to our knees and have us crying out to God for deliverance. When that happens, we have allowed ourselves to enter the darkness to receive its gift: The gift of growth and change and greater awareness of our need and the needs of others and the sharing of ourselves in the building of true community.

Filed under: Grace, Justice, SpiritualityTagged with: , , ,

Gifts in a Time of Pandemic

The very depth of emotion, the connecting to the core of one’s being, the calling into play one’s strongest feelings and abilities, can be rich, even on deathbeds, in wars and emergencies, while what is often assumed to be the circumstance of happiness sometimes is only insulation from the depths, or so the plagues of ennui and angst among the comfortable suggest.

Rebecca Solnit, “A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster”

Rebecca Solnit examines catastrophes such as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and Hurricane Katrina for the extraordinary experiences of community, sharing, and deep compassion. She gives expression to the hurt and suffering as well as the actions, often by those in authority, that make matters worse in the crisis. Her focus, however, is on human beings shining with the beauty of humanity in the midst of great trials.

We see this humanity played out today in the many concrete acts of compassion in the midst of the pandemic. Relationships often take on a deeper significance, not only relationships to those near and dear, but to neighbors and strangers. There is the sense that we are going through this together. Often it is very simple experiences that are deepened in their significance for our lives. Recently, on a pleasant weather day, neighbors came out of their back doors to enjoy the sun. We immediately greeted one another across two fences and entered into conversation. My neighbor two doors down shared how wonderful it was, in the midst of our “staying in place,” to find each other outside at the same moment and be able to share with one another.

We experience a deeper appreciation for neighbors and for those who deliver our mail, pick up our garbage, and work in our grocery stores. In addition to the health care workers on the front lines of combating this virus, we are recognizing other “essential workers:” bus drivers, farmworkers, food processors, first responders of all kinds, delivery people, maintenance people, home health aides. Some, like the last in this list, often receive less than a living wage. Many essential workers are undocumented. Will our recognition of the essential nature of their work bring about a societal change that ensures a living wage, health care for all, and a path to legalization for the millions of undocumented workers? Can we acknowledge that every one of us is “essential” and are to be loved?

We are given an opportunity, during this time of COVID-19, to reflect on the inequalities that are present and on the kind of society we want to have. The crisis this virus has created shines a light on the inequities. The statistics that show a much larger percentage of deaths in communities of color are a reminder of what has historically been the reality: The state of health, in these communities, is an outcome of years of inequities in the provision of health care, in the existence of food deserts, underfunded education, and diminished job opportunities. What this pandemic reveals to us about these injustices, we must not ignore. Deepened understanding is a gift, as is the call to work toward the kind of change that comes from doing justice and loving mercy. Will we receive these gifts?

There is much we can receive as we go through this time of pandemic, gifts that will change our lives. Saint Paul encourages us to make the most of the time: “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time.” There is something to receive during this time for the upbuilding and renewal of community. Therefore, we must make the most of this time, so that we receive the gifts given for the recreating of our relationships and society.

Filed under: Grace, Humanity, Justice, SocietyTagged with: , ,

A Pandemic Reminder: The World Is One

If we have ignored this reality, the present pandemic is a reminder: the world is one. A virus that began in Wuhan, China, is now global. It will increasingly effect every part of our global community. We are all in this together. What has been moving rapidly across the northern hemisphere will do the same in the southern hemisphere. What we have shared with those to the south will come back to the north from the south. It will move in every direction finding many various ways to spread.

Of course, this virus that knows no boundaries does not make us interconnected; it makes it harder to ignore our interconnection. We are one world, no matter how many boundaries or barriers we erect: physical, social, national, ethnic, class, etc. We affect one another across boundaries and by means of the barriers we erect: the wealthy here, the poor over there.

Those who are poorest among us, having the fewest resources, will experience greater devastation from this virus—the result of the inequality we have built within our nations and the global community. The poor do not simply choose to be poor. Poverty is produced by greed, racism, nationalism, fear; by the loss of love and compassion. As Augustine said, “The superfluities of the rich are the necessities of the poor.” We cause the divisions and breakdown of our one world. And yet the reality of the one human race is primary. We are one world. The coronavirus is a reminder. It touches us all.

This virus is expected to grow much more rapidly among poorer communities across the world. Consequently, it will be kept alive and pervasive longer because of the barriers we have erected and the oneness we have ignored. We are one world and one human family, but we have acted like we were adversaries in a quest to carve up this globe into kingdoms of wealth and power. Never mind the losers.

It is clear that if we, as a global community, were to address the needs of the hungry and poor among us, especially by addressing the systemic ways of operating that have produced inequities, we would break down barriers to the one world that we inescapably are. It may be that the reality of this pandemic forces us to make changes. After all, we are all helped when the necessities for healthy communities are available to all. The deeper change, however, comes with a change of heart, a movement toward love and compassion.

On this Maundy Thursday, Christians remember and reenact the last meal Jesus had with his followers. We share in a meal at which Jesus is the host. Jesus gathers us from every corner of the global community. The barriers of class, race, nation, and gender are removed. As Paul writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Followers of Jesus are to be witnesses to this reality—witnesses to the true humanity to which all are called, a humanity made in the image of the God who is love.

Filed under: Justice, Love, Poverty, WitnessTagged with: , , ,