Appealing To You As My Heart Breaks
This is an appeal to my more conservative friends, those who consider themselves Christian. I am putting down my sword for a bit, and taking off my armor, and hoping that we can sit for a moment and consider our ways. If you are so angry that you cannot do that, I understand. I am often there too. For my non-Christian, atheist, and agnostic friends — I know how tired of this all you must feel. I feel it right along with you. But, as people who inhabit this earth together, I have occasional hopes for some kind of moment of reconciliation where we can beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Maybe we can see a day where we no longer take up the sword against each other, nor be constantly on a war footing with each other. Maybe we can all sit again on our porches and watch the children play and wave to our neighbors in peace. And maybe, just maybe, we can live without fear, fear of the other, fear of difference, fear of failure. And maybe, not fearing, we can learn to love, appreciate, and even smile a little at our differences?
Conservative Christians — I was once one of you. I preached from your pulpits, I sat in your pews, I knew your hopes and fears. I once had them too. But, can we forget for a moment my own journey, because I want to speak to us, not just you or me. I want to appeal to the “better angels of our nature” to use the beautiful words from Lincoln’s second inaugural.
Please hear me. I am not asking you to agree with me. I am not asking you to like me. I am not asking you to do anything but read and consider. Surely this won’t hurt? What I fear is that we have all lost what can be called our Prophetic Imagination — to quote from Walter Brueggemann. I was recently reminded of this idea by a friend on a Zoom meeting. We have lost the ability to imagine another path, a better way, a different way.
That same day I was reminded of this, on my Facebook wall, one of my former TA’s now a professor in his own right wrote, “ You have some of the worst, so-called Christian friends Malcolm. Their heartlessness is astounding to witness given who they claim to believe in and who they believe they are working towards. It’s cruel to dress up Christianity as selfish nihilism, and it’s cruel to threaten people’s access to life saving medicine and tests during a Pandemic. But here we are….”
Please hear me, I wish I could have defended you. I wish I could have said, but I know them and this is what they really mean…. I wish I could. But I could not. Do you know why? Because I no longer recognize you. I once knew you. I once counted on your good hearts to overcome even your worst impulses, I have watched you care for the orphan and stranger, the poor and the outcast. I have seen you at times rise to the calling you said you had and show genuine love. But not now. Now I read you and I see contorted faces. Faces of people I do not know. Strangers in the land of my birth.
Politics, power, and fear have changed you into something I can no longer understand. I am asking you to consider if this is who you want to be? I am asking if you can see how your support of the current status quo can be interpreted as uncaring cruelty? When you post your support of that status quo with the caveats that you “don’t endorse all that the current administration is doing — but…” do you not see how that looks to be endorsing that administration? Can you at least understand why you seem to be part of a power structure that those outside your circles fear? Do you really want to be feared? Is that your goal? I can’t believe you have changed that much. Have you?
So, here, let’s at least try to imagine. Can we put ourselves in the place of a child in a cage? A family unable to pay their bills on the low wage jobs that have proliferated in recent years? Someone facing a life-threatening disease with no healthcare? Can we imagine ourselves in the place of an outsider, a young person struggling with their sexuality, a person struggling with the language and customs of a strange land, the families bombed out of their once comfortable homes where they celebrated family birthdays, weddings, family parties, love? People who are now running in fear, desperate to find peace again? Can we imagine what it is like to be a person of a different color? Can we imagine a different response to the world than the one we are giving now?
What if we dropped fear and anger and embraced love and hope? What if we welcomed the outsider? What if we cared for those who needed it without trying to make them change? What if we simply loved? Can we imagine that? Can we imagine a world where we are all patient and kind, long-suffering and tolerant of difference, caring and compassionate, can we imagine that?
What if we could say in the words of the poet Marisa Donnelly; “…I can’t erase your pain. I can’t promise you blue skies and sunshine. I can’t give you answers, or make sense of what you’ve lost. But what I can give you is care. What I can give you is support. What I can give you is attention, answered phone calls, late nights up talking about who we are and what this all means, my hands in yours.
I can’t go back and change what has happened to you. I can’t rewrite your story so that your heart stops aching. I can’t help you solve all the problems in your mind, but I can help you see what lies ahead. I can change your focus, so that you aren’t constantly reminded of what could have been, and instead see all that can be.
I can be there for you when push comes to shove, when you’ve lost all hope, when you feel empty and broken and don’t think you can take another step….”[1]
All I am asking us to do right now is just imagine.
[1] Marisa Donnelly, I Can’t Erase Your Pain, But Maybe My Love Can Help It Hurt A Little Less, https://thoughtcatalog.com/marisa-donnelly/2017/07/i-cant-erase-your-pain-but-maybe-my-love-can-help-it-hurt-a-little-less/
