Before Forgiveness

Today my church hosted a workshop on Crucial Conversations that was intended to help us have constructive conversations around racial issues over the upcoming holidays. Of course when the session was organized, nobody expected that Donald Trump would be moving into the White House, but there you have it — fortuitous timing in that racism is now front and center in the national conversation.

How can we, as followers of Christ who are hurting and angry after the election of a man whose words and behavior fly in the face of decency, curtail our emotions and interact in loving, constructive ways with friends and family who might have voted for that same man?

I won’t go in to all we talked about because it’s late and I have to get my houseplants inside before it freezes tonight, plus I’m tired because I haven’t been sleeping well since the Tuesday of Darkness.

I did want to share a few photos taken at a solidarity rally I attended last night that was meant to support Muslims and immigrants but which ended being a huge help to everyone. Four or five hundred of us sang and cried and listened to speakers and waved signs. America.

Waving signs is good for my soul

The next generation holds hope and love

It does

Use your first amendment rights while you’ve got ’em!

I also want to share a Desmond Tutu poem that was read at the end of our Crucial Racial Conversations workshop. It’s called the Prayer Before the Prayer and it’s perfect for this moment.

 

“I want to be willing to forgive
But I dare not ask for the will to forgive
In case you give it to me
And I am not yet ready
I am not yet ready for my heart to soften
I am not yet ready to be vulnerable again
Not yet ready to see that there is humanity in my tormentor’s eyes
Or that the one who hurt me may also have cried
I am not yet ready for the journey
I am not yet interested in the path
I am at the prayer before the prayer of forgiveness
Grant me the will to want to forgive
Grant it to me not yet but soon . . .”

 

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