Greetings,
We have a very busy weekend in our family. A baby shower for my son and his fiancée. The Rolling Stones Concert. A birthday party/ farewell party for my daughter (she is moving to Connecticut). It’s Friday as I write this, and I am already tired! Haha!
I am sharing the final installment of my excursion into Frank Bruni’s, “The Age of Grievance.” As I have said throughout, this is a tough, but important topic. I would recommend reading and wrestling with the words he wrote. Here are highlights of the last three chapters.
“The Price Is Not Right.” Basically, our succumbing to grievance detracts from our shared community and us individually. Seriously, how can we be joyous if we are always angry about something? The key quote from this chapter is a mouthful…but true:
Our insufficiently questioned, inadequately modulated grievances endanger us in ways less obvious and final than violence, and they impede and diminish us apart from turning our governments into instruments clumsier, more ineffectual, and less honestly representative than they could and should be. They affect how, every day, we interact or fail to interact with one another. They affect the stories we tell about ourselves and about our world, ratcheting up the subjectivity of those narratives and corrupting the truth of them. They skew our perspectives. They skew us.
This is a lot to ponder! As I read this, I wonder, “what stories are we telling ourselves as a country?” Is our story one of hopeless division? Are we capable of seeing one another? How has the church been complicit? Or how can the church (all of us!) be helpful?
As ALC is in transition, what might God be inviting our congregation to do? I would love to hear your perspectives!
The next chapter is titled, “Don’t Be a Stranger.” It’s a pretty self-explanative title. What would our community look like if we specifically tried to have conversation with people we don’t know, and with whom we disagree about things? The author mentions lots of things that people are doing (read it!). The group that most intrigued me is Braver Angels. This group specifically formed to purposely create spaces where people can talk and listen to one another. Check them out.
Some churches have partnered with them. What might it look like if ALC explored the possibility of using our space to foster dialog? With a group like Braver Angels we would not “have to reinvent the wheel,” but rather can explore ways to work together. Check it out and let me know what you think.
The final chapter is “The Antidote.”
What might be the antidote to toxic grievance? Humility.
This is not a book of faith, but the antidote is such a wonderfully faithful response. Humility. What might happen when we are open to others? Or when we learn and in the process of learning change our minds (he talks about the sea change of acceptance to the LGBTQ community). What happens when political leaders are able to admit fault, or to admit they’ve learned that their way is not the only way? Our gospel lesson this week introduces an atrocity that happened when a political leader could not do this.
A key quote for me in this chapter is from a conversation with Evan Wolfson, the founder of Freedom to Marry:
’I don’t want to disparage shouting and demands – everything has its place…But I used to say, ‘yes, there’s demanding, but there’s also asking,’ he recalled “And one is not the enemy of the other. People don’t like being accused, people don’t like being condemned, people don’t like being alienated. It’s a matter of conversation and persuasion.’
I appreciate Evan’s words because I know that when people accuse or condemn me, I am not much interested in what they have to say. By extension, when I see that happening to someone else it feels pretty horrible as well. I wonder what God might be inviting us to do? I think that a church that is concerned about the decline of people participating in church might want to explore ways to foster community. It’s a thought.
Again, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Peace in Christ,
Pastor Nancy
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