When It's Complicated

A few days ago, I was driving down a busy Anchorage road with both my kids in the car. I glimpsed something in my lane up ahead and tried to make sense of what it was. As part of my brain registered that it was a crumpled American flag in my lane, the other part of my brain began to scan for where I could safely pull off and grab it, before it was run over, soiled, further disrespected.

I have not said the Pledge of Allegiance in years. I remember clearly the curious looks I got for standing with my hands by side on my son's first day of kindergarten, silent while everyone else recited along with the principal over the intercom. I love to sing and the American national anthem is great for a soprano who wants to pretend she's Beverly Sills, but I stay quiet. My relationship to my country is not my greatest allegiance and I've pledged everything I've got to the One Who Loved Me First.

Due to my activism, my efforts to bring change on a variety of levels of society, to what people are sure they know about my politics... (Just a week ago someone mentioned assuming everyone in a group was registered as voters for a certain party- I'm not registered with any party.)... due to what people see and hear from me, assumptions are made. For most of those doing the assuming, it is an impossible idea that I would be found sprinting down the sidewalk toward a crumpled American flag, hoping to reach it before the situation was any worse. Yet there I was.

When I was about 50 yards from the flag, a man sprinted across several lanes of traffic from the other side of the road and snatched it up, rescuing the cloth itself from additional ignominy. And I returned to my car, panting, trying to figure out how to explain to my children why their mom was suddenly possessed with a frantic need to rescue a particularly patterned fabric from the street.

I barely understood the frantic need myself.

I wanted to save my own hope in the flag as a symbol of what this nation can be and could be.

I wanted to show my children that you can be deeply frustrated and disappointed and still faithful.

I want to continue to have the hope of General Lafayette in the "perpetual union of the United States" that it may "one day save the world".

Inside me, beyond how impotent I feel, how grieved, how desperate, how revolutionary, I believe there is a soul of an idea of who the United States can be that seeks to repair the wounds of the Doctrine of Discovery, to heal and repent of the on-going injury of enslavement, racism, and white supremacy, that truly embraces the concepts of equality and equity relative to justice, access, and opportunity.

My jaw is tight, I cry, and I'm so tired.

Better is possible.

Surely, better is possible.

It is a sign of high privilege that I can even entertain that notion.

And, yet, I know that I am an Esther among Esthers, an Abigail among Abigails, a Huldah among Huldahs, a Priscilla among Priscillas. I am not alone in the work or the call or the disappointment or the anger.

I will resist the efforts to cave and accept oppression, silence, complicity, lies, or misdirection as normal, representative, or necessary.

I will fight.

And I will hope.

And, if I have to again, I will sprint down a sidewalk along Tudor Road on a Monday evening, to rescue a tangible symbol that is more than history; it is possibility. It is that possibility that my Truest Allegiance will not let me ignore.

Guilt, Shame, and Ashes to Go

One of the struggles with Lent (and with being human) is that, in Western conversation and in spoken and written English, we have conflated guilt and shame. They are not the same. Furthermore, making them interchangeable does real spiritual and psychic harm to individuals and communities.

Regardless of official definition (denotation), the common understanding of shame (connotation) is to be embarrassed or regretful of who you are. This stems from being told or believing that bad choices or personal struggles are rooted in being a bad person. This isn't even a question of being human and, thus, prone to mistakes. In common parlance, shame is rooted, fundamentally, in being a bad person of little to no redeeming value.

When we hear people saying that people aren't "ashamed" anymore, what is usually meant is either 1)  people "like that" used to not be visible in society and I would prefer for that to be the case again OR 2) they should feel guilty for their choices or actions. 

Guilt is different from shame and has a different function. Guilt is feeling bad about actions or choices. Guilt is not rooted in who you are as a person, but in the fact that you have done things that are not in keeping with who you are (or whose you are). Guilt is the feeling that arises out of regret or remorse. Often guilt makes us double-down on a choice, reiterating that we were correct in our actions- even though we doubt that ourselves. Negative choices can stem from fear, longing, grief, and frustration. We have few communal outlets for acknowledging these realities and, thus, they continue to be motivators toward negative actions, which feed guilt.

Guilt that we do not release can become shame.

Adam and Eve felt guilty because of their disobedience. The guilt grew beyond their ability to hold it in their hearts with the truth that God had made them and walked and talked with them. They then doubted who they were in that relationship and their value. In the resulting shame, they covered themselves and hid.

Ashes to Go is a Lenten practice that is embraced enthusiastically by some Christians and less so by others. Critics rightly note that Ash Wednesday seems like a poor day in the church year for evangelism, especially when Christians don't do a great job of talking about death, sin, and guilt on the other 364 days in of faithful living. True, true, true. The Church is the place where we learn to live and die in Jesus Christ. We model ourselves on his faithfulness.

When I go out, in the COLD, on Ash Wednesday to distribute ashes, I'm not thinking about evangelism in the classical, fundamentalist Christian sense. I'm not there in my robe, hoping someone will ask me about Christ, so that I can pray the "Sinner's Prayer" with them.

What I hope is that someone who has been shamed by the church will see me and feel courageous enough to challenge me on that, so that I might offer an apology and regret for the actions that caused shame. I hope that someone will refuse the ashes, but ask for prayer. I hope that someone will say can I talk with you after this and that I will buy them lunch and listen to their story. I hope that someone will bow their head to receive ashes and that I will pray for them and we will both feel the power of the Spirit in that moment. I hope that I will be able to give information about how to get rental assistance, medical help, spiritual care, or assurance of God's love. This is my evangel- the good news of Christ that I carry into the town square and beyond.

The reality of Ashes to Go isn't that we shouldn't be out, attempting to counter shame and relieve guilt, on this day, but that it shouldn't be the only day that we do it. 

The Divine Being overflows with love for creation. We are part of that creation. Becoming rooted in that truth does not allow the weed of shame to take hold and choke out the grace of that knowledge.

Guilt has a performative function of helping us see how we have strayed from loving God, loving our neighbors, and loving ourselves. Releasing guilt sometimes requires hard work of confessing to God or to one another, reparative work, or learning new information toward a change of heart. Lent is a good time to work on releasing guilt so that we have clearer vision to celebrate the joy of resurrection at Easter.