Over the past couple weeks I’ve started exploring the impact of Words on our lives and our comprehension of the world around us. I started by looking at how Words have a big impact, whether we realize it or not, and Words are the thing that makes up the Story we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it.
Because we use Words to define our life and our story, they
also define our Culture—the way we see ourselves as part of the whole. Miriam
Webster says that culture is “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material
traits of a racial, religious, or social group…the characteristic features of
everyday existence shared by people in a place or time.” It is “the set of
shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices… the integrated pattern
of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that…[transmits] knowledge to
succeeding generations.”
Words define the “shared attitudes, values, goals and
practices.” Words in the Story we learn and that we tell ourselves characterize
how we see our self in relation to God, in relation to history, in relation to
one another, and in relation to friends, neighbors, and even to those we call
enemy.
The Story of our nation, the Story of our family, the Story
of our personal and corporate past all impact how we tell the Story of this
moment, and the tell the story of our cultural experience. What we forget,
too often, is that not everyone has the same definitions of nation, family,
history, or even the present moment.
My understanding of something as simple as music can be
totally different from someone else. Nia McKenney wrote of her
experience as church music director in Forward Day by Day for May 28.
She said, “I was a young black woman dropped into a community of people I feared—mostly
rich, mostly white people—and responsible for shaping the musical experience at
one of the church services…I was in charge of picking the offertory music. I
chose “If You’re Out There” by John Legend. The lyrics beg us to fight for peace and to
strengthen ourselves and others with love. I sang it in the faces of 400 white
people who I believed would have no idea what I was really singing about: my
tiny black presence against their huge white power.”
If I had been in that congregation, I’m not sure I would
have understood the undertone of her music choice or the fact that she was
begging to be heard and listened to, and yes, affirmed and understood. My own story
as WASP born in the 1950’s might have blinded (or deafened) me to her story.
McKenney concludes, “there was purity in their listening that could only be
God, and there was demand in my singing that could only be God. In this
conversation amongst us all, I spoke with the Lord.” And that is the important
thing—to hear one another’s deepest Story through and with God’s loving lens.
For me, one thing the COVID19 stay-at-home reality highlighted
was a new understanding of the men and women who live a never-ending life of
stay-at-home. Whether it’s due to health or age, there are so many who don’t have
the option of stepping outside, going to the grocery, having a lunch at a restaurant,
or other things that most of us take for granted. Or at least that we did
before the pandemic shuttered businesses and closed us in our homes. I have
gained a new respect and empathy for those who live lives of isolation. And I’ve
made small efforts to reach out to some I know via phone and cards. What I
haven’t done is ask them to share their story. Even though I’ve lived a life of
mostly isolation over the past many months, my experience is still different
from theirs.
The action suggested by Forward Day by Day on May 28 was “Make plans to have a difficult conversation that you’ve been putting off. Pray to God for strength and courage.” For that we need the gracious words spoken of in Proverbs 16:24 that are healing to the bones. We need to listen with and through God so that God can speak and be heard in the words of each other.
A conversation with someone about their stay-at-home
experience isn’t as threatening as initiating a conversation about race or
politics or religion. However, maybe hearing the simple story of what it’s like
to have health or age issues that define your life or culture is a way to start
hearing and listening to another whose cultural experience is defined
differently.
I'm going to try and make time this week to talk to someone about their life as a stay-at-home person.
