I am prone to finding messages in things that many call “coincidences.” I won’t even get into how most people interchange “irony” with “coincidence.” Alanis Morisette’s magnum opus to irony in the 90’s was just about a bunch of things that sucked. Most of them weren’t ironic in the text book sense…. but this blog is not about semantics keeping us apart as a nation. I am writing about what will keep us together.
Please know, I’m not saying that the anti-racism movement can be exclusively boiled down to a problem in linguistics. Yes, misunderstanding the meaning and context of what you say plays a huge role in systemic racism. I’ve already seen and will undoubtedly read more from exceptional scholars who can outline the problems in the divide using linguistic studies on the semantic and pragmatic analyses of “All Lives Matter” and the many other phrases that one population thinks helpful another population finds it hurtful. They hash it out much better than I ever could.
I’ve been reading a lot this week.
It’s dizzying and overwhelming.
It should be.
This is important stuff.
Trying to bring millions of people onto the same page is an impossibly enormous task.
So what will do it?
Love.
Back to the coincidence….On the first Sunday of protests and rioting and looting, May 31st, our Church and many other celebrated Pentecost. In the Bible, 40 days after Easter, the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples. Of course, it happens very dramatically:
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Acts 2:1–4
From there, they are able to go out into the world and understand ANYONE speaking ANY LANGUAGE. The disciples could emerge from hiding and tell their story. It is so easy to look any passage from the Bible and just see a bunch of magical things happening that couldn’t possibly be true, but if you dig into it, you have to question if there is a way to speak to someone without using the same language.
There is.
The universal language that we all share is within our hearts. It is our bare, raw need for other people. The desire to be seen and respected.
There are an infinite amount of words written about love. So many of them are wrong.
To me, love is unconditional acceptance of what is inside any living thing. It is patient. It is kind.
It is when 2 or more people come together and choose not to hurt each other.
It is when two or more people join together and sacrifice things that don’t serve or could harm the whole.
We make it so hard, don’t we? We set up all these definitions and prerequisites to love. We build invisible fortresses around ourselves to make sure that another person is worthy of our internal life. We hurt those that we think will hurt us.
Why? It never works. All of these protections just leave us in a nervous little bubble wondering why we can’t find love, wondering why the world doesn’t see the magic inside you the way that you do.
Maybe it’s time to stop fluffing our inner lives and open our eyes (and hearts/fortresses/cages) to those around us. Receive and respect others.
I’m choosing to believe that Pentecost falling on the first Sunday of this swell of unrest was not a coincidence. It was a message to me on how to approach these times we live in.
Don’t choose to think this is the end of days.
Every day is our opportunity to find the beginning.
Lisa Moves 