It’s been a good week for the garden but a bad week for the world. So please, enjoy these pictures of the produce I grew and fed to my family and the flowers I cut for my dining room table while I unload my heart.
My very least favorite thing about living through this pandemic is by far all the division it is causing. We are a people divided. Maybe we’ve always been divided, but the cause of division has never been so obvious - as in right there, on-your-face obvious. And it’s not just the masks. We are divided on restrictions to business operations, we are divided on schools re-opening, we are divided on how public worship should or should not be conducted. These are not just differing opinions. These are deep divisions and if we are not careful they will become breeding ground for all sorts of other new maladies; mistrust, resentment, gossip, slander.
You are wearing a mask so you must be a blind and brainwashed follower.
You are not wearing a mask so you must not care if other people get sick and die.
You are going out to stores and restaurants so you must be reckless and irresponsible.
You don’t think businesses should be opening up yet so you must not care if people lose their jobs.
You don’t want schools to open up so you must not care about all those families who rely on schools for childcare, meals, and overall stability.
You want schools to open up so you must not care at all for the safety of teachers and all the students in their overcrowded classrooms.
I may not know you at all but because of a small piece of cloth on your face, or everyday action, or a passing comment, I feel I’ve got you all figured out and I’m going to make a judgment. Maybe just to myself, maybe to someone else, but in passing judgement I make you a little bit less of a person and little bit more of an enemy. Instead of trying to understand why you do or do not wear a mask, or why you do or do not want schools to reopen, I will just talk louder and dig my heels in deeper. I am right and you are wrong. Never mind that you are a unique human being with intrinsic value and dignity, with your own unique history and present reality. To me you’re just wrong.
Are you finding this depressing? Just wait, there’s more.
We are also divided about racism. What is it? Is it a real thing? Is it a real problem? Some people think racism has been built into the systems of our society. Some people think that we don’t have a racism problem at all. Some people think we have a statue toppling and church burning problem. I think we’ve got all those problems. But I have to wonder, if churches had been faster to acknowledge one problem would we have had as many instances of the others? Now it feels like both sides are just talking louder and louder and no one is listening.
Readers, I think you know I am no expert of this subject, but I do know that we are divided. And I do know that the divisions caused by racism are so much older and deeper and more painful than those caused by Covid-19.
So what do we do with all of this division? These words from the prayer of St. Francis keep coming to my mind:
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to
comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
Understanding is the key. Looking outward instead of inward. When I try to understand someone whose opinion differs from my own I remember that they are a living, breathing person. And when I remember they are a person it is harder for me to turn them into an enemy.
These are some questions I find helpful to ask myself when thinking and talking about points of division related to the pandemic: Am I trying to understand, or be understood? Do I talk more than I listen? Do I spend more time trying to prove my own point than trying understand someone else’s? Do I make a quick judgement about someone, or try to find out more about them? These are also good questions to ask myself when thinking or talking about racism. But when it comes to racism, I have one more suggestion. And this is just for you readers who are white, like me. Please, let’s not make the problem of racism worse by saying racism is not a problem. We have never been a minority in this county, and until we have been, we cannot make that claim.
But we can listen and try to understand.
There is no quick fix to all the division going on around us. The problem of racism in our country will require a lot of time and hard work to heal. And I don’t think the pandemic is going away any time soon either. We are all tired and stressed and I would wager not at our best. And that is understandable. But remember, we all still have to live together when this is over. So I can continue to talk loudly and dig my heels in and think of those whose opinions differ from mine not as people, but just as wrong. Or I can try to understand. When I try to understand someone I restore their humanity to them, and in doing so I restore my humanity to me.
