This Current Moment
Dear Friend,
I know there are many voices flooding your feed, explaining how you should feel and how your should respond and how should behave during this tumultuous time in our country. There’s a lot of fingers pointing at those horrible people on the other side who will drag our country into the swamp of socialism or racism or sexism or classism or all the other -isms that make us shake in our boots. Dear me, those fingers point long, stabbing and jabbing with righteous fervor and deep convictions like an apple from the tree, ready to tell you what’s good and what’s evil. We’ve long listened to snakes and soothsayers, selling oils and “shoulds” like a savior dressed in white.
Friend, let’s take a step back from the fury and noise. Let’s unplug from the constant stream of “I’m furious,” and “I told you so,” and “you made your bed,” so we can both possibly gain a different perspective. I know you’re angry, sad, frightened, and deeply disappointed in the direction our nation is headed and I know you wish you could change things. You did your best at the voting booth and you might see something beautiful come from some of those results, but in other ways we are still a divided nation, a severed people. It’s beginning to affect your family and friendships. Difficult subjects and beliefs you’ve ignored or avoided bringing up with people you profoundly love are now rearing forth and you don’t know how to hold back much longer.
Oh friend, I know to some degree. I’m limited in some of my knowledge simply based on certain privileges I hold, but I feel it. But, please my friend, please. When you forge into those difficult waters, when you must speak your truth and share your pain and expose your vulnerability, please do so without tearing the other person’s humanity down. Please don’t belittle or smear their personhood, only seeing the worst in them. Please don’t call them names or diminish their identity. Standing on their heads to get another breath in just causes you both to drown at a different pace.
There’s this story in John 4 of Jesus and a Samaritan woman by a well one late afternoon. This story is thick with relevance for our current moment and I would love you to read it sometime. This woman had been married multiple times and she was clearly ashamed to admit any additional sexual scandal within her story, but Jesus responded to her by simply acknowledging the truth of what she did without her actions defining her identity. Jesus knew she was not a sum-total of her mistakes. She was more than her actions and behavior.
While there are some toxic relationships we must distant from and some people we must protect ourselves from, there are other people in our lives we love even though we believe they have gone wrong. They have been deeply misguided and lead astray, away from compassionate love for the most vulnerable. We all go wrong sometimes. We all tend to see one side only. But friend, when we speak our truth, may we not diminishing their personhood in the process. The root-sin historically embedded in the soil of this nation is one bent on the destruction of a person’s identity and humanity based on their race. May we not perpetuate the subjugation of personhood any longer by tearing down the other. And may we begin by holy conversations, sacred listening, and humble repentance for the ways we’ve gotten it wrong too.
With (love),
Bethany