“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Fred Rogers
As I scroll though my Facebook feed it is so easy to just be angry, depressed and just want to give up. We have been practicing social distancing for what seems to be forever, and we are now seeing the injustices of our racial biased culture come to a head, again. We are tired, weary, anxious, angry and we wonder what can I do to help? How can I make a difference when I am stuck inside? We have been hearing that staying home makes a difference, so we do that, but we want to do more. What else can we do? We can listen. We can listen to the ones that our culture has harmed for so long, we can listen to their pain. We can offer our support, our solidarity and ask for their forgiveness. We have also seen amazing pictures and reports of police listening to protestors, putting down their shields and showing solidarity with those who have been harmed for so long. These pictures give me hope. How do we help? We listen without judgement, without interrupting and making our excuses, without saying but that is not what I think nor how I believe. We need to listen to the pain that our society has inflected and let it sit with us and that is humbling and hard to do.
I participated in an interfaith book group that read The Book of Forgiveness by Bishop Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu. It is a book of hope and can help us find a new way to be in relationship with ourselves, family, and whole groups of society who we need forgiveness from. It can help us become helpers and live out our faith in a more complete way. I believe that this is one of the ways we can move forward in our country. In this book Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chair of The Elders, and Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu, offer a manual on the art of forgiveness—helping us to realize that we are all capable of healing and transformation.
Tutu’s role as the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission taught him much about forgiveness. If you asked anyone what they thought was going to happen to South Africa after apartheid, almost universally it was predicted that the country would be devastated by a comprehensive bloodbath. Yet, instead of revenge and retribution, this new nation chose to tread the difficult path of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
Each of us has a deep need to forgive and to be forgiven. After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing: Admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; Telling one’s story and witnessing the anguish; Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship. Forgiveness is hard work. Sometimes it even feels like an impossible task. But it is only through walking this fourfold path that Tutu says we can free ourselves of the endless and unyielding cycle of pain and retribution. The Book of Forgiving is both a touchstone and a tool, offering Tutu’s wise advice and showing the way to experience forgiveness. Ultimately, forgiving is the only means we have to heal ourselves and our aching world.
We have a lot of kingdom work to do and it will be difficult; however, I have hope. We are all God’s children and all the red, yellow, black, and white children are all precious in His sight. We need to live into that and act like we really do believe that. When we help others, we show God’s love and for better or worse that is how God tends to work in this world of our, through our actions.
Gracious and Loving God, create in us a heart that will listen to pain, pain of injustice, pain of depression, pain of loneliness, fear and change. Help us to humble ourselves and accept the pain that we have caused. Help us to be the hope in this world, help us to bring peace. Help us to work together and create a nation that more closely reflects what you call us to be.
Amen
Blessings, Suzanne