Looking in the mirror can be a challenge. Sometimes we don’t always like what we see. Many times, in fact. We are often very self-judgemental about our appearance.
An unwanted bulge here, a sag or a wrinkle there. Gray hairs, perhaps well-earned, but nonetheless preferred on other heads than ours.
Taking stock of ourselves is rarely a wasted exercise, however. Acknowledging who we are, how we look, and the effect of our actions is a practice worth undertaking.
It is a useful activity, primarily because it will occur with or without our consent, eventually. The longer we wait to face our history, or our wrinkles, for that matter, the more traumatic that inevitable discovery becomes.
The challenge is even more grave when that examination yields shame. Shame over our past, of our failures of kindness, of equality, of basic consideration toward our fellow human. Sins against those whom we’ve come to recognize as our neighbors.
This profound self-evaluation comes at an emotional cost. It is a very literal loss of innocence. When you really think about it, who can blame those who want to go back to a simpler time before we became aware of such things; before we felt the weight of accusation on our shoulders?
We have arrived at a point in time and the development of our human civilization where we can no longer ignore the cries of our neighbor. We cannot help but hear now the lament of those who have been victims of oppression and violence. Their moans have in many ways become the fabric of our current lives.
Now the problem becomes not only how to better serve those who were previously, and in many cases still are, oppressed, but how to cope with the grief that has resulted from our new awareness.
It is quite important to recognize it as grief. Crucial, even. Because in doing so, it opens us up to recognizing that grief always appears in several particular ways: anger, denial, justification, sorrow, even despair. Grief makes the seemingly irrational rational. Grief wounds us. Especially when we don’t realize that’s what we are experiencing.
When we don’t acknowledge that we are in grief, we are not in the process of healing it. And then our actions compound upon themselves because we feel as though we are being entirely rational, and that others should be responding to us as though we are being entirely rational. We feel outrage and even shame when those we love and respect do not seem to share the intensity of our feelings.
Human society is experiencing a tremendous amount of grief right now. Not only from the increasing knowledge of the darker parts of our history, but from the exceptional weight of this present societal moment.
The endless pandemic, our ongoing political conflict, and the constant loss of dear friends and family members to both ideology as well as illness has positioned our society in a perilous state.
In the gospel of Luke, Jesus asks God to forgive those who are in the process of crucifying him because “they know not what they do.“ It is one of the more elegant moments in scripture, yet does not exist in any of the other three gospels.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if it truly occurred, because the lesson within it is clear: we must forgive those who know not what they do, because fear and grief has compelled them into actions which are outside of the boundaries of their own divinity.
Forgiving them does not mean failing to hold them accountable for their actions, but it does equip us to make decisions about what happens to them next from a place of calm reason rather than unacknowledged grief. Operating from our grief does not make good jurisprudence. It only compounds the problem.
Seek to learn about your grief. Because believe me, you are experiencing some. There is not one of us who isn’t right now. Grief has touched us all. When watching the news, look to the actions of others with a more compassionate eye. Look at them recognizing that their grief has compelled them to behave this way. Love your enemy.
And while you’re at it, love yourself a bit too. Even your wrinkles.
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