Making sense of the senseless
Blog by Debbie Williams, MitE Regional Volunteer Co-ordinator
This week has seen some terrible things happening outside of the Covid-19 news. The haunting images of a white policeman kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed, defenceless black man will stay with many of us forever and will cause us to question our emotional reaction to all of the different responses to George Floyd’s needless and senseless suffering.
Despite the title of this post, I cannot even begin to try to make any sense out of such an act. Anger, hurt, betrayal are all automatic human responses to such a situation. It’s what we do with, or how we manage, those feelings that define us and the society we live in. The riots and looting are being enacted against black businesspeople as well as white. From news reports we can see that the looters are non-discriminatory. Their actions are detracting from the wrongs in the situation they are reacting to and taking advantage of the tinder box of emotions already prevalent in these weird and unprecedented times as we deal with Covid-19.
The image quote says that two things define us, our patience when we have nothing and our attitude when we have everything – I believe that patience is one of the hardest things for humans to learn and practice. Particularly in Western societies we learn to want everything on immediate demand rather than waiting and working for, then savouring it. Patience when we have nothing is not about accepting that is our lot in life, it’s about being able to live in the moment enough to enjoy simple pleasures and having confidence that society has enough fairness to enable us to achieve a comfortable level of living. A home where we can be safe, a community where we can feel valued and participate regardless of whether we work or how much we earn or what things we own, then it is about learning to enjoy those things and to be thankful for each of those blessings. A space where we are not being afraid to want more but being mindful of what’s motivating us and always remembering to be kind.
Genesis (1:27) tells us that God created man in His image. He created each of us as unique and special and declared us good. There is something of God within each of us and if we believe that, we cannot look on another human being in a derogatory way regardless of how different they seem to us or how much we think they contribute. When we put God first, as Christians are taught though don’t always manage, we are no longer the centre of our universe and it becomes easier to see value in other people, to see them through God’s eyes and not through the preconceptions of our societal norms.
Likewise, our attitude when we have everything is key to creating this type of community. We may not think that we have everything but there is nearly always someone in this world who is worse off than us and who would look at our life with envy, wishing that they had what we have. If we learned to be more generous with our time, our knowledge, our hearts and our money would there be less envy in the world? There will always be people who want more but if there were more people willing to share more of what they have and if there were less divergence between the wealthiest and the poorest, would there be less unrest and a lot more difficulty feeding violent protest?
People who do not follow the Christian faith, often describe Christians as naïve. Innocents who don’t live in the real world; but Jesus didn’t teach us to close our eyes to the world around us and live in a faith bubble. He taught us to speak up when we see injustice, to share our good fortune and to care about each other as humans. We should care about what happens even to those who hate us and to lead by example, to live the life we preach, not just to talk about it. Those things need daily work and commitment, they aren’t automatic human traits for the vast majority of us and they relate to the type of patience that is mentioned in the quote. Having patience when we have nothing materially is easier if we feel valued for our attributes and our contribution to our community. People value actions and no matter how little we have materially there are little kindnesses that cost nothing but mean a lot to those whose lives we touch. How often is that devalued when we live in a world that puts money and possessions over everything else? How hard does living in that kind of world make it for us to risk sharing our good fortune and possessions? How hard does it make it for us to respect those who make different life choices or struggle to fit in with societal norms, or simply who look different to us because of the colour of their skin or because they have a disability? How do you want to be defined? What legacy do you want to leave to those whose lives you touch?
Difficult questions require a lot of reflection and that’s one of the things that I love about my faith. It challenges and encourages me to keep reflecting on and adjusting my values and reactions. Repent in Christian terms means to change your behaviour, to change the way that you think about something and to change your actions because of that, to turn around and walk a different path.