Did you ever play with magnifiers when you were a kid?
Sometimes I would keep my grandmother company while they worked on the house. She, seated in her plastic folding chair within shouting range from Granddad, would occasionally encourage him with 'looks good, Charlie!' One of my jobs was to help Grandmother keep Grandad organized and that meant returning tools or things I had taken back to the workbench. I frequently kept the magnifier with me. Not necessarily because I was a budding botanist but because I was working on metaphors.
And the magnifier had become a metaphor for me.
Who you are can be represented differently depending on who holds the lens.
As a child, I grew up sitting on a pew listening to my Dad weave a story of grace every Sunday. Some were learning the love of God, I was listening to the magic of words. And crafting tortuous poetry in journals no one ever wanted to read.
When I saw my granddad's magnifier I recognized a truth. What is one thing for someone, can become something else for another person. And I thought of the magnifier when we talked about Amy Jill Levine's 3rd chapter of 'Difficult Teachings of Jesus.' A reminder the class conversation is as I remember, not verbatim.
'Whoever wishes to be first among you must be a slave to all.'
No one wanted to start the conversation. How do you have language about something when the language itself is problematic? And by problematic I mean, how does white privilege speak about slavery as knowledgable with intent to teach a point? I can't.
Maybe we are to seek leadership from the position and in relationship with someone marginalized. Posing the question, 'What would leadership from the margin look like?' A class member offered a reflection, ‘Marxist critique would suggest that this is only maintaining the corrupt capitalist structure.' (Don't you wish someone used the phrase Marxist critique in your class?) Maybe being in relationship with those on the margins isn't to explore leadership skills but to challenge the premise those margins are built on.
Why didn't the writer of Mark's gospel speak to the atrocities of slavery?
About their relationships to positional power?
To those denied access to their humanity?
And that made me think of my granddad's magnifier.
There are social and religious constructs that distort our true selves. Social and religious norms stunt, harm, and deny life to those without access to health care, education, to living in relationships with those they love as who they know themselves to be.
Last week CMT removed a blatantly racist and hateful music video following criticism after the video was released. It is heart wrenching to know there was a submission process/committee that approved the music video, thought it had a receptive audience and would be a financial success.
My challenge to the gospel writer holds true for us today.
What are we doing to speak to the atrocities of slavery?
What are our relationships to positional power?
To those denied access to their humanity?
A few thoughts.
I think living with difficult questions, with status quo shaking questions, and with quiet soul-searching questions is a place to begin. These are taken from D. Thomas Shanks, with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. I am going to live with these questions for a while.
Did I practice any virtues (e.g., integrity, honesty, compassion)?
Did I do more good than harm?
Did I treat others with dignity and respect?
Was I fair and just?
Was my community better because I was in it? Was I better because I was in my community?
May we learn to live with difficult questions and act in ways that bring life to all.
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