Such
a Gift
“And
this is it. This is the life we get here on earth. We get to give away what we
receive. We get to believe in each other. We get to forgive and be forgiven. We
get to love imperfectly. And we never know what effect it will have for years
to come. And all of it…all of it is completely worth it.”
Nadia
Bolz-Weber (Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People)
Nadia
Bolz-Weber knows of what she speaks when she says, “We are simultaneously
sinner and saint, 100 percent of both, all the time.” Every time I think I’ve
climbed the mountain and seen the valley of truth, I inevitably fall off the
cliff and land in the fullness of my sinner-hood. For instance, there is no
good response for me, as a white person, to have to the monstrous wrongs that
have been perpetrated on black and brown people, not just now, but forever. I
could wear sackcloth and ashes for the rest of my born days, and it would not
cause their wounds to be one bit better.
In the
documentary on climate change that I watched Sunday night, the man who was
interviewing a Cherokee elder spoke of the burden of guilt and shame he feels
as a white person whose lineage has done so much harm to others for so many thousands
of years. The response from the Cherokee elder was not to soothe the man, and
not to condemn him either. He said, “That’s good. Guilt is a good starting
place.” I’d never thought of guilt as good, honestly; only as something to reconcile
and get past as quickly as possible. But when we look at our colonial past and our
present-day behavior toward black and brown people, people of other
nationalities, faiths and sexual orientations, guilt is the proper response. If
you can, for instance, visit the Equal Justice Initiative’s museum and memorial
in Montgomery, AL, and not come away feeling terrible shame about the way black people were and are treated in America, then I think there is no hope for
your heart.
To be sure,
we cannot undo what has been done in the past. We can, however, accept it and
teach our children the truth about what happened, and still is happening, in
this land of the free and home of the brave. We can get down off our high-horse, and take off our white hats
that are melting like ice cream on a hot sidewalk. We can do everything in our
power to level the playing field in every area of society. We can identify with
the saintly part of our nature while still recognizing that the 100 % sinner is
still alive and well and sitting side by side with our better angels. And, we
can do the hardest thing of all—we can listen. We can listen, and when the
verdict of our guilt and complicity becomes overwhelming, then perhaps we will
have a tiny inkling of how hard it has been for them for thousands of years.
We will
never right the wrongs that white Colonialists have perpetrated on the rest of
the world, but from here on out, I, for one, will do my best to listen and
respond with an open heart. This life that we are given here on earth is such a
precious thing that it’s worth trying to do what’s right every single day that
we’re here. Even when we stumble and fall, even when we are our own worst
enemy, even when we can’t bear to look at ourselves in the mirror, all of it is
completely worth it. All of it is a blessing.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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