Facing Ourselves to Forge Hope Together
What do we face today? What are we willing to look at, see, engage with? What is asked of each of us, and all of us, especially as the scourge of COVID continues to ravage our nation, our economy sputters and indiscriminately spits people out, and systemic racism calls out to us to bravely step up and take action?
James Baldwin once wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Let his prescient words stir within your heart and soul for a moment before reading on.
Today, amid the forces and factors acting upon us, we see evidence of people coming together to solve shared problems; and we are witnesses, too, to fragmented factions increasingly picking fights with their targeted enemies.
In recent weeks, divisions across our land are growing in response to violence in our cities and its potential remedies; whether or not to wear a mask; the polarization crippling Congress that prevents desperately needed action; the name-calling and race-baiting in response to a Black woman joining a national ticket.
Not everything that we face can be changed—at least, not immediately; but what will we face? What will we choose to work on? What are we willing to see and hear and feel nowadays?
The good and inspiring actions emerging from our local communities are to be heralded and celebrated. We are in the midst of a potential national awakening. But to be awake, means we must be present, alive, attuned, engaged. To be awake means that we must do more than lift up the good; we must face the bad, the troubled, even the evil.
To do this, we must be willing to transcend our divisions and find empathy for others whose suffering and pain we do not even fully recognize nor surely understand. We must not fall prey to easy divisions and divisive arguments and racist tendencies spread by those who try to score points, take up sides, and strip others of their dignity.
Baldwin asked us, urged us, implored us, to “see life differently.”
In order to see life differently and forge hope together, we must each face ourselves so that we can face what is before us collectively. We must transcend our own limitations, and confront our own biases and preconceived notions and personal blind spots. We must face a broken system and how we may have contributed to it, even benefited from it. And we must forgo the urge to divvy ourselves up into enemy camps, and resist demonizing and denigrating “the other.”
We must do these things even when—especially when—there are so many forces and factors that would make it easier to run the other way.
Yes, we must run, but we must run toward one another, not away from each other. Amid our pain and suffering and differences, this is our path to real hope.