Month: August 2021

I had to go to a local store to get paperwork to pay for the installation of a purchase. I went to the customer service desk, figuring they would know the process. They sent me back to the plumbing department to get the paperwork.

There were two people at the desk in plumbing. They both said that they couldn’t help me. When I protested that I was following instructions, one of them gave me that look men give to women who are being what they consider unreasonable. I hate that look and told him not to talk down to me. Things spiraled from there and I walked away.

I went to the customer service desk, found the woman who sent me and told her I wanted the paperwork. After multiple explanations I was told to go back to plumbing and a manager would help me. I said no. So they found me a manager at customer service who could figure it out. 

It took a while, and in the meantime one of the people from plumbing came to check in and “make sure I was OK”. When it was done, the manager said she would take care of the person in plumbing who was rude to me. When I said times are tough and that wasn’t necessary, I was told there was no excuse for rudeness. They are supposed to make me happy. 

Which one of the people in this story is Black? What makes you think so? 

I work really hard to not be a part of racist behavior or systems. This one was a failure on my part. I am not sure how to fix it except to speak the truth about it. 

Groundhogs. I hate them. Don’t bother telling me they are cute. I have them at church and in my backyard, and they are destructive beasts. I have witnessed the efforts to rid the church of them, including an undisclosed person in camo staging a surprise raid. They persist. 

So there has been some tough talk around ridding both yards of groundhogs. If they all died tomorrow, I would not mourn. Who are their natural predators? I had better never see one face to face. They would be sorry!

So of course, the other day a groundhog ran right out in front of my car when I was going the legal speed limit, making it hard to miss. For a split second the animal’s life hung in the balance. But not because of me. I slammed on the brakes, and amazingly did not hit it.

Immediately I thought, some tough talker you are. And I spent some time realizing the violence that finds its way into my words. I would never kill an animal on purpose, but I talk like it. So I am resolved to change that. To say what I mean, to be careful of the words I use, and not to engage in violent language even when I am angry. I need to be reminded of that regularly.

We use violent language because it makes us feel powerful. It is saturated in our daily lives, in the news we consume and the programs we watch. So much of what we say we don’t even think about or reflect on. As a Christian I want to be more aware and more intentional. 

In a broader sense I was thinking how hard it is to live in peace with nature. I want to be a good steward of the environment, and I work hard on that. I keep some of my back yard untended so that wildlife can find a refuge. I am careful about what I consume and how it affects the environment. But I realize I want the wildlife that I want, and not groundhogs, rodents or mosquitos.

It is a discipline to live in peace with God’s creation, and we all need to pray more about that, how we live into that. I will never love groundhogs. Ever. But they are my neighbor, and as long as that lasts I have to be at peace with that.

One of the most important lessons a child can learn is not how to succeed, but how to fail. I know that sounds counterintuitive. We want children to have plenty of examples and opportunities to learn how to live a good and happy life. That is important. We also want our children to admire us, and think we are wise.  And we are human, so we make mistakes, we make bad choices, we all inevitably fail. 

The example of how to do that well, how deal with the inevitable pitfalls in life in a way that shows character, that is a lesson that needs to be learned. Our children need to learn humility, how to make amends, how to genuinely express remorse and to do better next time. They need to learn how to earn the forgiveness of others and become better for it. None of this is fun. But we all know people who have not learned these lessons. And we probably don’t like them. 

Such hard work, but critical to becoming human. People who model this are the people that I want as friends, people who ask for forgiveness, and people who are gracious enough to realize that we all make mistakes and to forgive me when I deserve it. These are the people we also want as our leaders.

It makes sense that we need to learn these things not only as individuals in our relationships and work, but also as a society and a country. We look to history to show us leaders who have done well, who inspire us, who have lead with strength of character. We also see people who we do not admire, who have lead us where we should not have gone. I know that opinions will differ but we can agree that history teaches us valuable lessons about people and policies, and that mistakes have been made.

So when it comes to teaching history, we have to be honest with our children. They have the right to know about racism, about the Holocaust, about the struggles for justice among minorities and women. How will they be able to even form an opinion if they don’t know the truth as we currently understand it? Our children need to be prepared to be citizens as well as leaders, and they deserve to be respected as the intelligent and inquisitive people they are. Our children will not be ready to function in our complicated world if they are not grounded in reality. Mistakes have been made. We don’t have to make them again.

We may be concerned about interpretation. I had a professor in college who was highly charismatic, an excellent teacher, and had definite political and religious opinions. He asked me to dinner one time to try to understand my faith. He wasn’t trying to talk me out of it, he just didn’t understand it. We had a wonderful discussion that helped me come to clarity about some of my beliefs. It didn’t threaten me or God that I talked about it. In fact, I left the discussion proud of the way I had held my own, and I know the professor admired me for that as well.

We are not threatened when our children learn about systemic racism. In fact, it might help us gain some clarity about the history of institutional racism in our country. Maybe when our grandchildren talk about what they are learning, we can see ways to be an ally we had not considered. There is history and current reality that we would all benefit from knowing more about. Maybe we will stop making the same mistakes.

We don’t have to be afraid of letting teachers do the wonderful job of teaching that they do. We don’t have to legislate what they say. We don’t need to prove anyone’s loyalty or right belief. We do have to trust one another, listen, be willing to learn ourselves. We have to commit to making our world better, not continuing the oppression.