Stop Being Fake in Public
On Not Squandering an Opportunity for More Inclusion Right Now
Why is success public and suffering private? I introduced author K. J. Ramsey in my previous post. Chronic pain slammed her life a decade ago in her early twenties and knocked her out of the work force. One day she was sitting in church listening to people share dramatic stories of God’s intervention in their lives. One woman told of being healed from a chronic condition that led to problems with breathing. Two others followed. Ramsey was encouraged and happy for these people’s stories. But as she was sitting in pain and nausea she wondered, “When was the last time I heard a story like mine in church? Would a story of someone being sustained in ongoing suffering rather than having it removed ever be valued enough to be shared from the front of this church?” Ramsey’s question is a populist one in an elitist culture.
Our culture reflexively adopts a lifestyle of success and solutions, called the American dream. But it’s not contained to America. It’s a human dream built on a wish for an elevated life with suffering pushed to the periphery. The wish for success leads us to “swallow the seeds of our sorrow” instead of extending “the welcome of weakness” (163). This welcome has a life-giving potential not only for sufferers but for everyone else. What is needed to allow people to be more real in public places?
Effective subtle messages are needed. Churches send secondary messages by the people they feature publicly. My church* has a thriving ministry to families with disabilities. They recently changed the name from “Special Needs” to “Special Abilities” and dedicated a new center with a cheerful vibe and state-of-the-art furnishings. The families are an integral part of church life beyond the ministry walls. The children interact with other children, they attend proms and parties hosted by high school students, and they volunteer in a variety of ways. One of our soloists is a mother of two special abilities children. When she sings about God’s love and grace, she sends a loud message that rings true. Her ethos communicates powerfully in our culture’s obsession with pathos.
Subtle messages like these create communities of inclusion: places of reality and hope for the vulnerable and the strong. We need places that don’t pressure us to swallow the seeds of sorrow. We need communities of people tired of triumphalist platitudes and willing to speak the truth. Brave and creative people find ways to break through our reluctance to hear the truth.
Such spaces are cropping up far and wide. Author Latasha Morrison tells of visiting the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, which was purchased and renovated in the 1990’s by an affluent white New Orleans lawyer named John Cummings. Morrison was looking at her “ancestors’ concentration camp” as she stood “on the same plantation where slaves had worked themselves to death” (72). She imagined the horrors, but her imagination was no match for the actual tour. At first, she was skeptical of the white girl who led the tour. Would she sanitize the history, Morrison wondered? As they walked the property, this girl told of the brutal history, guilt, and shame of that place. “Her words offered no softening of the hard edges of truth” (73) Morrison writes. Then came the time for Morrison’s personal tour.
The guide handed out lanyards with names of slaves taken from narratives gathered by the Federal Writers’ Project of the 1920s and ‘30s. Morrison’s name was Albert Patterson, and she was asked to imagine what his life was like. After stories of enslavement and a film in the chapel, they approached a memorial with a large bell. The guide explained that it was the calling center, and the bell was a way to keep the slaves in line. “Ring the bell in remembrance of the names on the lanyard,” she instructed. That’s when Morrison’s emotions came flooding out:
“I wanted to kick the post that held the bell up. I wanted to tear it down. I wanted to scream or cry or shout or do anything other than ring it. Instead, I walked over to that post and grabbed the rope. I rang the bell, and the clear, even tone connected me to that history. That sound grounded me there with my ancestors, with those who had died on this soil. With Albert Patterson” (75).
She kept thinking of the clear sound of that bell. Truth has that ring if we are brave enough to hear it.
There’s an openness to the ring of truth right now that we shouldn’t squander. How can we toll that bell in a way that leads to hope and change? How do we make others comfortable to share their suffering with us? Secondary messages and creative approaches work to create ripe environments, but what works to create a ripe heart? An awareness of our own discomfort. Check your mind and body. Do you expect another person to get better faster than they can or to get over something? Do you struggle with not having anything to say? Do you alleviate your discomfort with statements like “I understand” or “at least it’s not” or other platitudes that spring to mind and off your lips? What if you said instead, “Tell me more!” What if you simply witnessed another’s reality and gave them your undivided attention? What if you allowed yourself to experience the shame of past sins, even ones you didn’t directly commit? I need to check my body and mind when discomfort arises.
I wrote earlier about communities of suffering where lament was not something to be avoided. (See below.) Such communities actually discover deeper peace together. Why? Because their peace is real and substantial, like a solid piece of properly aged hard wood, not a veneer over particle board. During times of veneer and cheap imitations we scream out for the genuine and true. The cost may be higher, but the product is something that lasts a lifetime. The sense of peace that comes from being genuine settles like the clear sound of Albert Patterson’s bell.
*Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village, CA
https://lifeafterwhy.com/blog/on-being-a-community-that-suffers-well
Sources Cited:
Morrison, Latasha. Be the Bridge. Waterbrook, 2019.
Ramsey, K. J. This Too Shall Last. Zondervan, 2020.