COFFEE BREAK

This is the second in a series of reflections about photographs taken by children in our photography project at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Minneapolis during the summer of 2013.

This photo was taken by one of our Young Leaders as part of the summer show “Under Construction”.  You can see that the building is more under destruction than construction.  Two glass blocks have been broken out. Knowing how sturdy these blocks are, I can assume that it wasn’t wind or another force of nature that took them out, but human action.  It makes me wonder who did it, and why.

I have to confess that I broke a lot of things on purpose when I was a teenager. Petty vandalism, which wasn’t petty to the person who had their property damaged.  I know that part of the reason I did it was to fit in with a group of youth doing it, or even to shine as the leader of that group.  Part of it also was the sound that breaking something made, a sound that was paralleled by a kind of controlled fury in my heart.  It felt good to break something. I could have tried to justify it at the time by saying others were breaking me, others were damaging me, and I was just trying to “get back”.  That didn’t exactly ring true to me, even in my wilder days. No, I think the truth is that I liked breaking things for the sake of breaking them. I liked being the destroyer.

I think we probably all like being the destroyer.  Is it innate in us, or something that we have built into our life together so that it effects every one of us?

There have been quite a few programs on the radio lately about the passing of Maya Angelou.  On at least two of them, I heard her quote from the Roman playwright Terence.  Terence was a slave from North Africa; purchased by a Roman Senator, who later gave him his freedom (that last phrase deserves a whole essay).  The quote Maya Angelou cited was "I am a human being, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.”

As a theologian and follower of Jesus, that is a great summation of the Incarnation.  As a poet, that is a blessing to write about, for and with anything human.  And as a human, that exempts me from judging.

Maya—may I call you Maya, or would you prefer Ms. Angelou?—riffed off  Terence in a talk in Minneapolis in 1984 that was replayed this spring on Minnesota Public Radio.  She talked about how all of human experience is open to us, and we are open to it.  The thing that struck me the most was when she talked about the “most heinous acts that humans commit.”  She said that, being human, we cannot say “I could never do that”.  We can say: “I will try to never do that” or “I will work with my community to get the support to never do that” and so on. I’m approximating her quotes, except the one that says “I could never do that”.  That one I know I got right.

I cannot say that I could never kill anyone. Or torture. Or betray a loved one.  I’m not planning to do any of these things, but more importantly, I am trying to build a life that will keep me and others from doing those things: prayer, meditation, my support group, being honest with my family and friends, working for justice, confessing my sins honestly and accepting forgiveness graciously, trying to build a community of love where I live and I work.  I hope that I keep doing that. But I cannot say “I could never do that”, and strangely, that has given me a great deal of freedom.  When I trust that nothing human is alien to me, my fear diminishes.  I don’t need to fear myself or others, and that also relieves me of the burden to judge myself or others.

I could knock out the glass blocks in this photo.  I could also put the coffee there.  Whether it’s an offering, a sophisticated piece of littering, or something staged by the youth photographer, I don’t know.  I just finished my morning coffee from a coffee shop, and I’m going to take it home and recycle it.  Or plant something in it.  Or fill it up with more coffee.

Be justice. Be beauty. Be human.

Patrick