We Could Stop Being Racist if We Truly Believed in Forgiveness

After watching the film Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity (http://crackingthecodes.org/), I have been mulling over a set of truths and the problems they cause.

·         We are all (in this instance, I speak of those living in the USA) conditioned and taught to be racists.

·         Racism goes deeper than personal choice and belief; it is structural and generational, practically in our DNA.

·         Even well-intentioned white people who work for racial equality hold biases, some of them subconscious.

·         Economic, social, and governmental structures propagate racism.

When I face these realities, I am tempted to feel defeated and hopeless. I was set up to be a racist long before I was born, long before my parents were born. As a white person in this country, I automatically have privilege, and this same privilege—and the system that birthed it—hurts other people, all the time.

White people are uncomfortable talking about racism. We like to think that we understand it and that we’re doing something about it. What might happen if we talk about it, openly and bravely, with people of color? The moment the discussion starts, some quite specific fears set into my white mind and body:

·         I will say something that reveals me to be biased, prejudiced, racist.

·         I will discover that I indeed carry biases, prejudices, and racist tendencies.

·         I will have to face this horrible fact: I have been wrong.

·         I will have to face this horrible fact: I have hurt others.

·         I will have to face this horrible fact: I am a sinner.

And if all of these things happen, where in the world can I go from here?

If I have tried hard, perhaps for decades, to be a compassionate, fair-minded, un-racist person, and still I have failed, what can I possibly do now?

If I have been wrong in my perceptions, for years, being as smart and aware and moral as I am, then what good is all that?

I believe that I resist these conversations because I don’t know what I will do with the shame, guilt, and disappointment that are bound to come.

Racism is complex, and I won’t pretend to simplify it or supply an answer that is easy to implement. However, I do believe that if we treated racism as the sin it is, perhaps we could allow Divine Love to deal with that sin.

I’ve been a practicing Christian for 47 years, and all that time I have claimed that God’s forgiveness can deal effectively with any and every wrong, sin, defilement, shame, guilt, and wound. Yet, when it comes to racism, I pull back, as if I’m the one in charge and it’s my responsibility to clean up my act and prove to everyone that I’m okay now.

So what if I have been a racist? I’ve also been a liar. I’ve also been jealous, envious, hateful, lustful. All these other sins I entrust to God. I can confess that I’m greedy and too worried about money and can ask for help in adjusting the way I think about money and possessions. My greed may have caused all kinds of grief for others. But I can acknowledge and own my misbehavior and my bad attitude and treat them as sins.

Why can’t I do this so easily with racism? Why am I so afraid of discovering the depth of my sin in this area? Why am I so afraid to say, “Yes, I’m a racist. I keep trying to root out these attitudes and perceptions, but some of them are deep in my history and culture, and I still have a long ways to go” ? Why is the possibility of discovering and naming this sin such a threat to me? Why is it such a threat to us, as white people in the USA? Why is this one thing that we fight and fight in regard to our personal confessions?

I’m not sure why racism, out of so many sins, is so difficult to treat as sin, and I mean that in the traditional, centuries-old Christian sense. It’s a defect, a wound, an interior crime, an orientation away from love and toward self-seeking and self-protection. Sin is not something we solve. It’s something we learn to recognize and confess and for which to seek healing and restoration.

Racism, like all other sins, hurts both the victim and the perpetrator. It cannot simply be solved. Of course, it can be dealt with in structures. We can pass legislation and revise organizational processes and communications to deal with structural racism. But we won’t have the will or the strength to do that until we face the personal racism that riddles us with cruelty and bad judgment. Personal racism makes us defensive and afraid. Personal racism shuts us down and triggers our self-justification.

I can’t speak to people outside the Christian community, but to other Christians I can say this: Treat racism as the sin it is. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see it in yourself. Identify it, grieve over it, confess it, and ask for help to move on. Ask for wisdom to make apology and reparation when necessary. If you truly believe in the power of Divine forgiveness, racism will not remain this huge black hole of shame and avoidance. It will become yet another aspect of your spiritual growth and your growing, Christlike compassion for others.

Six Poems for Advent and Christmas

Shrine at Christmastime

A tree in my neighborhood

serves as memorial shrine;
two years ago, ribbons and stuffed toys
nestled at its base. Later, vodka bottles.
Out of respect, I pulled the dogs away,
sent bits of prayer for the woman or boy,
the man or toddler gunned down
or killed in the crash.

More recent months found it empty.

Time heals or, more likely, wears away.
But this week, a new totem:
One large dolphin, all silver plush,
store tags intact. It hangs, head down,
its tail fin nailed to the tree.
I don’t know if this victim is old or new.

Maybe a bare winter oak calls out

the long sadness; maybe Christmas shopping
was rent by a sudden memory.
As for me, who must bear witness,
Advent proclaims the Child but
cries of children who, unnaturally still,
leave their toys perpetually new.
© 2009 Vinita Hampton Wright

  Before Annunciation

Just before snow covers,
it reveals. In the gloom and gray
appear the bright veins of stone
and rippled bark, the sharp character
of shingles, street signs, forgotten toys
and paper bags. As if the interior
of everything has grown outward,
adorning itself in fine lace.

I like to think that, before the great angel

pronounced and the Holy Spirit overwhelmed,
the girl Mary had a moment—or perhaps years—
of revelatory and incidental wonders,
and even that morning, taking her breakfast,
she said something startling, and her dreams glistened
upon the outlines of face, shoulders, hips, and feet;
and something gusted through the room,
hinting of chill and snowflakes.
© 2009 Vinita Hampton Wright
 

Mary’s Mom

I’d like to know if you noticed anything different

about your daughter. On a particular day, did she seem pale
or out of breath? Was she weepy? Did you have to tell her things twice?
When the truth came out, did you agonize that she had not
confided in you? Did you tell her father, or did she?
And—be honest—when you, being the mother, being a woman—
understood the situation, didn’t you enjoy some moments
of sheer satisfaction? Didn’t you say to God, one eyebrow arched,
“You couldn’t have picked a better one”?
© 2009 Vinita Hampton Wright

 

Gabriel

How much did you have to shrink

before entering the house?
How much shine did you rub off
before she could see you?
Did you carry the plan like a secret fire in the heart,
knowing that such information could cause
a whole new rebellion up there?
And when the girl said yes, how much
did you ache to grow legs and lungs and
a head of hair, just to know the sensation
of your spirit breaking open?
© 2009 Vinita Hampton Wright

 

Liturgy

Later I will choose ornaments

and dig out the holiday tea towels.
But now the cross is carried aloft from the nave
to the font to the table to its place near the lectern,
and we sing words almost too old for connection.
The vestments are shot through with greens and purples;
the cup and candlesticks glimmer. Such tones ring
uncomfortably deep, into memories bright and dark,
into twists of theology and the crowded dreams
of a conflicted race—that’s us,
hoping for heaven while the cookies bake,
praying our rosaries of unraveled lights and bells.
© 2009 Vinita Hampton Wright

 

Star

People who often traveled this road noticed

how familiar shadows had sharpened, cast upon
the ground by some fresh brightness in the night.
Halting, they identified the frightful star.
Jabbing fingers upward, voices tight,
they murmured debates about the meaning of it.
But nothing had changed; the road remained the road.
Their lives passed by beneath their feet,
moving forever in the same direction—only now,
across their bent necks, a band of warmth,
a deep hum that would not leave.
© 2009 Vinita Hampton Wright

Holy Instincts, Autumn 2015

Go ahead and give in. It's that time of year. Actually, the urge strikes many of us twice a year, in spring and in autumn. Something about the weather changing, probably. We get these little urges. We find ourselves gravitating toward old behaviors, those practiced by mothers and fathers and great-grandparents before us.

We feel the need to clean things and to clean out things: cupboards, drawers, closets, garages, rooms, gardens, back yards. In the spring we clean to make room for summer's activity and growth. This time of year, in the autumn, we clean to eliminate the clutter of all that summer accomplished.

May we remember that we are creatures, tied to this earth through our chemistry and memory. As much as our minds and interior worlds churn away to create esoteric systems of thought and religion, our bodies sense the change of temperature and season and move us to do the work necessary for riding our little island home in its murmuring galaxy, through time and atmosphere.

And so I make many lists of tasks to complete before the winter holidays. There are home repairs and the clearing of flowerbeds and vegetable garden; there's putting away the summer items, also pulling out the winter clothing and the heavier bedding. Every bit of dust and grease seems to show more precisely in the clear air of October, the gusty winds revealing my laxity at home keeping. When did I last dust every item in Grandmother's china cupboard? How did the silverware drawer become so icky? Exactly how many second-hand paperbacks have accumulated on that over-laden shelf?

But the instincts dive deeper. What shall I do with the rest of my life? What goals have I allowed to languish through evenings of watching too much television? What qualities of character are important to me and need to be helped along by, perhaps, a new practice of prayer or charitable work? With whom should I spend more time, and whose needs might be calling upon my gifts, if I can unclutter myself enough to notice?

What creative work is waiting to be accomplished? Can I write more regularly, learn a new knitting pattern (maybe friends and family would love to have socks rather than another scarf?), work a little harder to create meals with more flavor and benefit?

I'm grateful for seasons and the subtle shifts that occur in an ordinary year. I'm glad they trigger within me the basic desire--God given, I think--to live with great love and purpose. In the same way, I'm glad that such fluctuations revive the desire for joy, a holy want that is easily pushed aside in the service of getting through the week. But joy deserves its own post: maybe next week.

A Quite Difficult Prayer

Yesterday's sermon was about aspects of the Bible that are offensive. It helps, from time to time, to say that out loud, or to write it for all to see. Parts of holy writ just don't sit well with me. I won't supply a list of examples here, but I'm sure that if you read holy writ--whether the Christian scriptures or something else--you suffer your own discomfort.

Here's the bit that's irritating me today:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."

Jesus of Nazareth said that. And it sounds wonderful and noble and generous, and usually I feel pretty good about these words.

But it occurred to me yesterday that the obvious enemy these days is more atrocious, more persistent, than anything I've heard about before in my life of nearly six decades. ISIS has become the enemy of just about every human on the planet. That's Enemy with a capital E or, perhaps ENEMY. This growing entity is fueled by the worst kind of fundamentalism; it claims to be the most pure form of Islam; its members commit atrocities and call them prayers (the systematic rape of "infidel" girls, for instance).

I am very nearly pacifist, am opposed to military solutions 99 percent of the time. But I have said to my husband recently that it seems the only solution to the ISIS problem is just to kill every last one of them. Yes, I said that. There seems to be no reasoning with such people. This is the type of organization that attracts people who are already imbalanced in some way--many of them are probably pathological to begin with--and there seems to be no rational way to reach them. The whole world is frustrated to the hilt with figuring out how to thwart the evil work of this organization.

Then I read Jesus' words, and I know what I must do, and it really pisses me off. I'm supposed to pray for the people who are involved with ISIS. I'm not obligated to pray for ISIS as an entity. But I must pray for the people within it.

I don't even know where to start with this. Am I a radical enough Christian to pray for the members of ISIS? To ask God to heal their souls and draw them away from their evil? I'd rather pray that God wipe them off the planet. Fortunately, I am not Jesus.

So, who is with me? Shall we actually pray for our enemies? Today? Now?

Why We Stop Talking about Our Depression

 After a point, with depression, you just stop talking about it.

After all, there’s no new information. You don’t want to remind family and coworkers that you are unhappy and you struggle to function. There’s little, if anything, they can do, so why burden them?

So when you return from possibly the most difficult vacation of your life, you say, when asked, that it was wonderful, and you show them the beautiful photos that represent the better 50-60 percent of what actually happened. You don’t tell them that you cried—rather, sobbed—nearly every day, or that the pristine forest around your cabin felt oppressive, or that most afternoons you hid in your room and alternated between sleep and panic.

You don’t want the people who shared the time with you to understand how difficult it was because then they would feel responsible somehow, or they would wonder why you took a vacation in the first place, if things were that bad. You don’t want to belabor the point that you scheduled events so that you would be on this new medication a few weeks prior to the trip, so that it would have time to take effect and thus allow a lighter, better you to step off the plane and into an enjoyable few days with loved ones.

How could you know that the medication would not work, that it would in fact backfire, making you jittery, robbing you of sleep, and turning mild habits into moderate compulsions? You did not plan to be so fidgety that you hoped no one at dinner would notice your legs bouncing rapidly, out of sight under the table. You did not plan to be exhausted by noon and then again by 8 p.m., even after spending most of the afternoon lying in bed and struggling for moments of calm. 

And you could not help that these days included events you could not control, such as the two military guys driving on the mountain illegally in an off-road vehicle and scraping the side of your rental car, even though you had pulled all the way over and come to a complete stop to let them pass—and then they had an attitude about it and made it difficult for you to get information, all the while claiming that it was a no-fault state and, well, they were the military so they had no insurance. Even in more normal circumstances, that would put a damper on the trip. But add to it your current state of mind, and then try to think of anything but that and try not to worry that you will end up stuck with a huge bill even though it was absolutely no fault of yours. Try not to spend the hour or two before you finally sleep obsessing over how you’d like to tell them off or track down their commanding officer (they refused to give you a name or the commander’s contact information) or even post photos of them and the accident on Facebook and Twitter and hope it will go viral and cause them decades of misery.

And the road itself—that narrow, winding mountain road with minimal grading and no guard rails—on this trip it becomes the focus of all your fear. The Road becomes a menacing archetype that might have been living inside your kinspeople for centuries but just now revealed its dark power to you, on this trip. Such a mountain road would likely make you nervous and extra cautious under “normal” circumstances, but people drive it all the time—mothers with carloads of small children drive it, delivery trucks traverse it numerous times a year—and if you were someone other than who you are right now, the Road would not possess you as it did for that entire week. Your imagination was on a loop the whole time, spinning images of every possible disaster, of every way the car could skid or slide or stall or get crashed off the mountain, killing all of you. Your breathing grew rapid hours before all of you made the trip down to the town to give the children an excursion into town. By the time you made the final descent, to a day somewhere else and then the airport to home, you huddled on the back seat, eyes squeezed shut, hands clutching as if you had already fallen over the cliff but found a tree limb to grab, and trying not to whimper with every bump or every sensation of turning. You cannot remember ever being as terrified as on that one twenty-minute drive. To be so overwhelmed by the situation has unhinged your sense of who you are.

In fact, you don’t even know who the real you is. Well, you do know, in that chemically disrupted part of your brain. You know that, really, you are weak and cannot manage your life, that you need to grow up and develop better coping skills. You need to pray more and trust God. However, you have tried to pray, and every sense you have tells you that God has gone away, ultimately and finally and with no regard for you or your suffering. You feel God slipping into absence and yourself slipping off the divine radar. You try various prayers and methods, hoping that something will break through that wretched barrier of desperation and despair. But nothing breaks through, and no relief comes. And you know the truth about yourself: you have failed at life and at faith.

You don’t tell friends or colleagues any of this, because you don’t want them to find out now, after all these years, that your spirituality and your life skills are variations of fraudulence. You would rather they not know the fragility of your belief or the depth of your emotional disability. You can still do your job; this is often true of someone who has reached a certain level of accomplishment and competence. You go to work and do your job well, and people may pick up on a strange vibe, but they see you functioning and leave it alone. You know that you function but at a great price. You do the same work you have done for years, only the energy around it is weakened and your passion for it muted.

Also, you do not reveal to others the horrible secret that your life is over, that you are sailing in a giddy fall to the floor of the world and just waiting to feel the impact of the crash. How would you communicate such a profound truth to people as they sit with you at lunch or share jokes during a meeting? You simply can’t. At least you finally understand that such things are impossible and should not be attempted.

We stop talking about our depression because talking uses up the power it takes to get out of bed and get dressed and walk, step by step and moment by moment, through a frighteningly ordinary day. We stop talking about our depression because we have nothing revolutionary or insightful to say about it. And we know that healthy people have low tolerance for this kind of truth telling. They stay close for a while but then feel the pull of negativity as they would discern an undertow and then hurriedly swim away.

I enjoyed spending time with family. I was able to enjoy good food. I hiked a mountain trail and got an infant to stop crying and smile at me. I read books and played electronic solitaire (another never-ending loop of compulsion). And I slid through an immense, deep gorge by train, focusing my gaze upon rocks and fissures and wildflowers and foamy river water. You see, much of what we call depression is not total. It is merely debilitating.

I publish this blog post knowing it is a risk. Who will find out this unattractive truth about me? Who will pass it on to others? Who, learning of it, will have it in their power to deprive me of respect or job security? Who will judge me as weak or hysterical and dismiss as self-indulgent these words upon words that I have drawn out of myself as though they were sharp threads twined and tangled up in my intestines and blood vessels?

But I draw out the words because, although I might stop talking about my depression because it seems to me completely useless, I will perhaps create, with this post, a place in which other depressed people can pause. Perhaps they will recognize this experience and understand that they are not alone and that the experience—even at its most delusional—is painfully and empirically real. Many of us stop talking about it, but the phrases are always there, however silent or invisible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living with Two Black Dogs

I have lived with one black dog most of my life. He’s not noisy or rude, just ever present. He dogs my steps—yes, I intentionally use “dogs” as a verb. If you’ve ever had a dog who has taken possession of you, you understand precisely how your every step is accompanied. You are dogged, every hour of every day.

This non-noisy, ever-present black dog has become such a familiar presence that I feel at home around him/her. I can assign no gender to this black dog, which has no physical manifestation other than my aching bones and labored steps. The invisible black dog—yes, he/she is black although invisible and non-material—manifests through my own body. I sense the breath of this black dog nearly everyplace I go and in most breaths I take and in my trudging steps and in that dizziness of heart and mind that can lap over my day. Black Dog pants right next to my face, as though to take the air that is meant for me. Black Dog constantly paces and frets, as though to use up every cell of my energy.

No matter what other people think of me or how many of them gather round, Black Dog is right next to me, closer than them all. No matter what I accomplish or how many blessings fill up my days, Black Dog stands over the entire collection, ominous and quiet, legs and chest set firmly to establish ownership of my everything.

Black Dog tries to assure me that this is companionship. But I have my doubts.

The other black dog who lives with me has only been in the house a few months. He is quite physical and vocal—with his love and with his complaints. And he follows me everywhere. He is also demanding—walk me, feed me, pet me, feed me, pet me, pet me, pet me, walk me. Now that he is in the house, my husband and I realize that we share ownership of ourselves with this beautiful beast (his name is, after all, Beau).

Yet, Beau the black dog does not dog me. His presence lifts rather than presses upon me. When Beau Black Dog is in the room, my heart feels lighter, and I breathe more easily, and I laugh often. Whereas the ever-with-me Black Dog takes away my words, even my thoughts, Beau Black Dog inspires all sort of words and thoughts. Black Dog takes away my life, and Beau Black Dog infuses it with more liveliness.

I am in love with Beau Black Dog, and I cannot imagine life without him.

However, I struggle to exist with Black Dog without resorting to hatred or despair or violence.

Really, it is a shame that Black Dog is a term applied to depression. In a way, it fits—the ever-presence, the dogging of steps, the dark and silence and lurking. But the actual dogs I have known stayed close without suffocating me. They gave and gave and gave. Black Dog takes and gives nothing in return.

Very soon I will visit a doctor and hope for a humane way to eliminate Black Dog from my life. I feel apprehensive about this. Will I still be myself, with that lifelong presence gone? Will I know how to walk through a day lightly, without that constant pull at my steps? Will I miss the company of the dark and quiet and sense of everything lurking? We’ll see.

Conversation with Jesus on the Cross

I get off the bus at the wrong stop

and walk two blocks of tough neighborhood,
see you tied to a post in a vacant lot,
I can’t help it—come up close
to see if you’re dead.
You are not dead, but only God knows
what they’ve done to you;
blood still seeps, some of it sticky in your hair.
Your eyes are open and see me.
 
“Did you ask to be here," I ask,
"on this spot, or here in general? I mean,
is this precise torture part of the plan?
Was this a mistake?
Is it what you wanted?”
I ask questions because I cannot
figure out how to free or comfort you.
 
You answer, “Why not here, and now?
I entered the fray, this glittering life
that moans and mourns.
Why are you here?
You could have kept walking.”

I say, “All of it feels wrong.
Atonement, propitiation—what do they mean
and how could they be necessary?
This is no formula of sin and hope, but nonsense;
it is—pardon the expression—overkill.”

Your gaze burns though I know you are dying,

slipping while I watch, leaving without anxiety
as though turning loose of a handrail to get a better view.
I throb with rage you seem to have missed;
are you not violently disappointed
that this death has not stopped all others?
Are you not disturbed
that the world’s architecture is destroyed,
its virtues twisted like melted beams
and its straight, tall doors torn agape
at the vulnerable space of death?

“You have undone everything,” I say,

but my tears betray bone-deep relief.
My hollow places ring dark praise.
You smile through blood and broken teeth.
My knees buckle and I kneel, resisting,
on the stained grass.

“It needed undoing,” you say,

then cry with me quietly, so lovely.
I grasp your swollen purple hand and say,
“Thank you.”

—VHWright, 11/11/11, revised 4/7/14