1. We rented "First Man" this week. The space program has always fascinated me-- when I was in third grade, I wanted to be an astronaut more than anything, in spite of the fact that I was blind without my glasses and I had recently thrown up on the Mexican hat ride at Six Flags. The space program part of the movie was fascinating and well done, but like everybody, we thought Ryan Gosling's portrayal of Armstrong with a totally flat affect was a) kinda boring and b) not accurate, based on the little we know. Interesting choice to portray him that way, but not entirely successful.
2. So, on to the real topic of today's post (just didn't want it to show up in the lede). I wrote a post about this once before and then deleted it, because it sounds nuts. But I'm tired of worrying so much about what other people think-- literally exhausted by it-- so I'm writing it again and this time I'm not deleting it.
3. I sometimes get sort-of psychic responses to the things I post here. I'm definitely not psychic, in fact I can be remarkably clueless about what's going on around me (I should write a post about this sometime because I have some stories to tell). Butsometimes, somehow, I know how someone responded to a post, without them ever contacting me in any way. This doesn't include knowing who the someone is, but just a very clear sense of someone's approval, or disgust, or anger, or eye-roll. The reason it seems psychic rather than just something-that-occurs-to-me is because sometimes it surprises the hell out of me. In the vein of, it never occurred to me that someone would think that way.
4. In response to the post that went up on Wednesday, really I got nothing. Which may just mean that nobody read it. But in response to the second part that I posted yesterday, I got a very strong response: No no no no. We are not building bridges. This is a war and we are going to win it.
5. Which would never in a million years occur to me, because I am a middle child and an Enneagram 5 (with strong tendencies toward 9) or maybe it's just me, and I am incapable of not seeing both sides of an issue. I am a peacemaker, a bridge builder. The thought Why can't we all just get along? occurs to me regularly.
That thought, that this is a war that someone will win, inevitably makes me think, well then what are we going to do with the losers? Think about the aftermath of WWI, or WWII, or Vietnam. Is that what we want here? To be the same-old, same-old, to the victors go the spoils and devil take the hindmost?
(give me a minute here while I think of some more clichés.)
6. Maybe that is what you want. And if so, you've lost me. It's not much help to me as I'm involved in trying to hold a congregation of much-loved church members together. We're supposed to pick a side and say to the 20% of our congregation (on either end) that would leave, sorry, we've moved on. You're no longer welcome here. That may be what happens. But if it is, it's wrong.
7. I guess it's kind of presumptuous of me, but I see our congregation as a microcosm of what's happening in the larger world. I'm hoping we can BUILD BRIDGES. Take your war somewhere else.
I get that the reason I can think this way is because I am white and not poor and my children are not in danger of being shot because they're wearing a hoodie. And maybe that's all it is. Maybe this is just me being insensitive about how bad it is. But I can't help but hope that we could figure out some way to bring us all along toward a new way of being together.
That will probably get an eye-roll. Excuse me while I find my eight track tape of kum-by-yah. I still know all the words to I'd Like to Teach the World To Sing. (in perfect harmony)
I just went and watched the YouTube video of the New Seekers singing that song in 1972. They're all white.
No comments:
Post a Comment