I
went to our church building yesterday to set up some things for “virtual
worship” (whatever the hell that means!).
I happened to look at, not just glance at, the bulletin board by the front
door. It still had the Lenten flyer with
the schedule and the list of Sunday Gospels.
I had written it in late January, in order to send it out ahead of time,
and had forgotten our theme of Lent. It is: “A Big Change Is Coming!” I guess so!
I was referring to the wonderful stories of liberation: the Samaritan
woman, the man born blind, Lazarus raised from the dead. I did NOT anticipate thousands dying, the
economy ground to a halt, physical isolation of our flock.
I’ve
seen memes on social media that say something like: “Look out for a bush of babies born nine
months from now!” Maybe. But maybe, also we need to look out for a
rush of divorces in two or three months.
Sharing space all day has it’s blessings; it also uncovers some of our
defects of character and lack of real communication gifts.
For
me, it has also opened me up to reflecting more on the world view, or
cosmovision of how we live together. Let
me start by sharing some reflections on this old, battered book that I’ve been
reading during Lent:
If
you can see, the book has been with me a long time. The price tag says $1.45,
but I think I may even have bought it for less at a used book store, back in
the 1970’s. Conjectures of a Guilty
Bystander was published in 1966. It was written by Thomas Merton, who was a
Cistercian monk, part of an order that maintains a strict silence. And yet, Merton was one of the most astute
commentators on social issues of the day, from civil rights to the war in Viet
Nam to the environment.
Merton
writes about the “disease” of the U.S. involves seeing ourselves through lenses
of innocence. That way of seeing (which
is really a way of blindness) imagines our country as being liberated from history:
we are the New World. We’ve started
fresh, without the old evil of the places we left (meaning Europe). Because of that core belief, our ideology
refuses to see evil as something in us.
Rather, evil, decay, sin are located “outside of us”. In other cultures and ways of thinking. In the sixties, Merton sees how the
prevailing ideology locates evil in communism, “outside agitators” and “uncivilized
peoples” and how our collective memory celebrates only our unique
goodness. Even the evil we have done—for
example, slavery—is celebrated as something we ended. We took care of it with a terrible war, and
then moved on.
Of
course, that is not the experience of those who were enslaved—before and after legal
slavery. Nor the genocide experience of Native Americans, nor the experience of
Vietnamese and Central Americans, where the US “fought for democracy”, and for
many other people. In “seeing for
innocence”, we make even the victims of our oppression and violence into the
guilty ones.
I
can’t find the exact quote from him, but the essence is that when we locate
evil as something outside of us, we always end up being violent.
Merton
also reflects on the great Myth of the American State, which flows from our
supposed Innocence: a fervent belief in Progress. It is so hard for me not to fall under the
spell of that power. I so want the world
to be better, and I have seen advances we have made. But faith in Progress is a shaky faith.
I’ve
heard over and over during these past weeks the phrase: “we will get through
this”. I’ve said it to others, usually
adding the word “together” at the end.
On the one hand, it is a message of hope, and hope is so needed right
now.
But
clinging to the idea that “we will get through this” can keep us from doing the
hard work of grieving that this terrible crisis is causing.
The
truth of it is that we will not be all right.
Not all of us will be all right. Our
Lt. Governor’s brother has died of Covid-19. A Latino owned restaurant was destroyed by fire, and four
other businesses adjacent were heavily damaged.
Five people living in an apartment above the restaurant are now
homeless. Many of our members work in
the service industry and have been laid off.
Those who are undocumented will get nothing from the government programs.
Not
all of us will be all right. And in profound
ways, all of us will not be all right.
We
may not get through this as we imagine.
We may never “return to normal”. We don’t know what is coming, but we do
know that what is happening now is horrible.
Hope
has an answer for that, but true hope—as opposed to optimism—is born out of suffering
(see Romans 5:1-5). In order to get to hope in this time, I think we need to
lament first. So much of what is
presented to us by the news—and what we ourselves share on social media—are ways
to distract us while we are sequestered.
Read books, do home repair projects, binge watch TV series and movies.
Some
of those coping mechanisms may be necessary.
But what if we took time to actually feel our grief, experience our
loneliness, accept the fact that we are going to die—not in this epidemic
necessarily, but some day—and mourn all the daily losses we suffer. Grief is hard to bear alone, but we do have
means of communicating when we can’t be in person.
Many
people around the world—Palestinians in eternal lockdown, Yemenis starving in
the midst of war, families separated at our border—have learned how to live in
the midst of grief and uncertainty that things will get better. Maybe they can be our teachers. What better time to do that but Holy Week.
I
encourage you to read Merton. Another
good book I’m reading is “Glimpsing Resurrection” by
Deanna
Thompson, who writes about living with the trauma of incurable cancer.
The
poem “Lament” I include here is first of all, a call to me to not run away from
my sorrow and the sorrow of my family and my flock. It doesn’t offer answers, but I hope that it
can help us to journey through our grief together.
Be
beauty. Be justice. Be lament.
Patrick
LAMENT
God is the straw
within the straw.
Edith
Sitwell
God
is the straw within the straw.
The
quota of bricks not lessened.
The
lash across the slaves’ backs.
God
is the straw within the straw.
The
family shamed to give birth with the animals.
The
baby barely born laid in a feed trough.
The
body hunted like a plague.
God
is the grass within the grass.
The
withering, the scythe,
The
roaring oven,
The
word that does not end.
God
is the flesh within each battered flesh.
Bones
ground like wheat,
Wind
ripened and let loose,
A
goblet of sweet and bitter wine passed around the table.
God
is the stone within the stone.
Lapis
angularis
shattered with iron rods.
The
rock struck and then struck again,
The
pool stirred by the angel.
God
is the water within the water.
Leviathan
hung by a hook.
A
coin in a carp’s mouth.
Rain
that refuses to wash away the blood.
God
is the wood within the wood.
The
seed dead and sprouting green.
Limbs
sheltering birds and their songs.
A
box shaped like a no.
God
is the night within the night.
Moon
full, stars strung like teeth,
Comet
slung across the horizon,
Silence
hounding silence.
God
is the cry within the cry.
Nipples
cracked and bleeding,
The
war child’s mouth rippled with sores.
The
storehouse locked, horses ready to ride.
God
is the question within the question.
How
long?
Why
me?
Where
are you?
God
is the pain within the pain.
God
is the prayer within the prayer.
God
is the doubt within the doubt.
God
is the hope within the …
