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Pilgrimage West |
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Week Nine Ramblings and Pictures |
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After five
days straight of gray days and cold rain, I’m
wondering if I overstated my affinity for water in
my ramblings last week! I was deleting files off the computer this week, trying to free up some hard drive space, when I came across a letter I wrote to a relative a while back about “life”, for a better word. I thought I would share that this week, since the proverbial well feels a bit damp! Let’s start by talking about denial. Think of transformation / change / re-formation / growth as multiple levels of awareness / action / assessment / adjustment / readjustment. I like the analogy of an onion – onions have layers, multiple layers, that can be peeled away one layer at a time. When we try to grow / mature / seek transformation, the process is a bit like peeling away layers of an onion – little by little, bit by bit, we become aware / adapt / learn / relearn our self as we move through the journey we call life. Baby step by baby step, we can journey towards an ever deepening awareness of self. Therapists would likely agree that denial is the first and greatest hurdle. We all know this hurdle well. It is the distortion of our basic reality. Denial claims we have no issues / no problems / no dysfunction to work on. Our lives are fine, we can manage our “quirks” fine. An alcoholic in denial does not have a drinking problem, they can control their drinking, they can manage their situation without assistance or intervention. The situation is not nearly as extreme as friends or family make out. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has long recognized that denial is the great hurdle to overcome – members of their organization stand up and introduce themselves - Hi, I’m ____, and I’m an alcoholic. No matter if they have been without a drink for two days or twenty years, the introduction remains the same – they recognize that an alcoholic is ALWAYS recovering, never recovered. Many alcoholics never make it to step 1, which is to recognize and be able to say I am an alcoholic. Many go through their whole life denying that there is a problem to deal with. In similar fashion, many people never make to step 1 in regard to issues of race. Bishop Jack Spong of the Episcopal church, in similar fashion as AA, describes his recovering efforts with regard to racism when he labels himself as a recovering racist”. His description of his life / his experiences / his struggle with racism fit my life as well. Folks that are the age of your mother and I have from our earliest days embedded memories that are a part of our social DNA, whether we recognize / articulate it or not. I remember like it was yesterday an emotional experience of my childhood, right at home at church. It was a Sunday morning, I was either an early teen or preteen years, when suddenly in worship our preacher was speaking emotionally about the congregations need to embrace an African couple that was worshipping with us. I think that this couple was from Africa, studying at one of the local colleges, and had come to be with us in worship. Their presence caused quite an uproar, enough of an uproar that the preacher had to make an emotional appeal to the congregation to embrace this brother and sister in Christ as equals – in short, he courageously spoke out against racism So most of your elders have embedded in their past, stories and memories that have shaped how they understand people of color – in short, whether we can say it or not (denial), those of us raised in the south that are my age or older are recovering racists. We’ve lived through “forced integration” – mandatory busing / integration of schools, affirmative action / civil rights movement, etc. I could go on and on here, but suffice to say that the point is that you need to understand the family / community DNA that you live in, and the growth / maturity / transformation issues (onion layers) that family / community are challenged with. Which gets us to the topic of relationships - Lord knows I’ve been involved in people’s lives now for about 15 years. I’ve held the hands of folks that have had to bury their young children, their beloved spouse – I’ve dealt with the joys and the brokenness of human relationships for quite a while, from abusive spouses to affairs / divorce / sexually abused children – and while I’m sure I have not seen it all, I have experienced a far wider swath of life’s experiences than many. It is at least clear to me in the time that I have been privileged to be a part of people’s lives that what is important in our relationships is the ability to help each other grow / mature / live to our fullest potential. Relationships are about commitment, about helping each other find our way, about mutual respect, about balancing the power so that each person stands in their own self-esteem. So what is important in a relationship with a significant other has everything to do with how you treat each other, the capacity of the relationship to allow full growth and maturity for each partner, the way the couple can nurture each other to wholeness and health and a greater awareness of self / God / community. What has nothing to do with the quality of the relationship is the age /race / social status/ etc. of the partners. Our future is never clear. What we have is the present – to live in, to nourish, to foster love. Who knows what the future will bring? Who knows where our road will lead us? Who knows when we will meet someone that we can share the most intimate of relationships with again? We often treat our relationships like sports contests – like the Super Bowl, thinking that if our team loses this year, like the Carolina Panthers did a few years back, that there will be plenty of other opportunities down the road. But the truth is we just don’t know what is down the road – we make our decisions in the here and now. It seems obvious at least to me that you have the beginnings of a relationship that might offer the potential for mutual sharing / trust / growth / wholeness. There is no higher calling than the calling to each other in a relationship that can foster these things. Only you can discern the quality / potential of this relationship. I urge you not to base any part of your decision on the skin color of someone you care about, or to be more precise, the reaction of those you love to the skin color of a significant other. Let the family deal with the issues that it needs to deal with. Your issues are evaluating / discerning the relationship you and Billy already have, and whether the two of you together can make a way that allows each partner the freedom to grow to their fullest potential. Thinking of you as you find your way along the journey God calls each of us to. Take care, Jeff |
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Click here for a slideshow of pictures (Pics 1-5 are from past weeks) |
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