Sr. Josephine garrett
A tangible expression of the spiritual gap
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| A tangible expression of the spiritual gap
I use a Theology of the Body curriculum for grade school students in my guidance counseling program. There is a question I love to ask the kids when we are beginning with those lessons. I ask them, “Is there any way to show love or kindness or any virtue without using your body?” They will say you can pray, but don’t you need a brain to pray? They will say a smile—but don’t you use your mouth to smile? A wink? Well, that is with your eye. Squeeze a hand? I think your hands are a part of your body. We go in circles for a while, and they soon realize that our bodies are needed to make the invisible visible. Even when our bodies have serious disabilities and limitations, there is always some sign. There is a sacramentality to our bodies. COVID created physical distance at an unprecedented level. I spoke with a friend during the initial shutdown who lives alone, and she could not remember the last time she was hugged. Six feet or more became the standard. We were distanced from extended family, the elderly members of our family, our friends, our coworkers, and, when churches closed, we even seemed to be experiencing distance from God. Screens stood between us and our loved ones. Screens stood between us and the sacramental presence of Jesus. But I don’t think anything entirely new was happening. Had there not been a spiritual gulf growing between us all along? Was this tangible reality revealing something that had been spiritually true all along? When we could be close, did we make eye contact? When we could be close, did we listen long enough to even know how someone answered the question “How are you?” Were we steeped in a culture amassing more and more mechanisms of division through label after label after label? Labels of race, labels of gender, labels of sexual orientation, labels of political ideology; an endless onslaught of labels that were further dividing us, with the label of God’s child, the only one to unite us, being viciously swallowed up in the chaos. COVID gave us a chance to add to our labels: mask people, anti-mask people, vaxxers, anti-vaxxers; and then it seems like the isolation brought about an overflow of our common woundedness, and we heard labels like racist, fascist, and communist emerging in our day-today conversations. It may be unpleasant, but I need to say it. We were far off from one another—and, as a Church, in many ways far off from our God—well before social distancing. I live in East Texas, which unfortunately has an unshakeable reputation of a higher prevalence of racism. I struggle with fear when I drive home to Houston from Tyler because I have to take a lot of back roads, the cell service is not very good, and I feel afraid to run into trouble and run into someone who has a problem with my black skin. In the late fall, my godmother died, and there was a small graveside service planned because COVID cases were rising and a larger service seemed too risky. I wanted to be present, so I hopped on those back roads for a one-day round trip. I was in Houston a little longer than planned, so I ended up doing some of the return drive in the dark. My anxiety reached a peak level because of the darkness. I had a huge headache and needed to stop for water, so I pulled into a gas station. I looked around for other people of color and saw none; everyone was white. I saw a guy in what looked like overalls that someone would have worn in that Duck Dynasty show. No one was wearing a mask. I entered the store and saw more camouflage clothing and long scruffy beards. I was reeling with fear. My biases stored safely in my brain were in overdrive, and they had fully activated my reptilian brain, shutting down my reasoning and logical brain. My breath was quick, my face hot, and my body was telling me I was in danger and needed to prepare myself to fight or flee—all because of beards, white skin, and camouflage coupled with the biases that mostly media and not my personal experience had masterfully helped my brain develop and foster. I got my water, got back in my car, and got out of there as quickly as I could. Immediately the phone rang, and I answered on the car speaker. It was a friend, a new friend that I made while living in East Texas. She is a good woman. She is a southern woman. She is a white woman. We have a lot in common in our hearts; we don’t have a lot in common on the surface. Her call reminded me to pause, to calm down, to check my biases, to draw from the graces given to me in the vows and the common life, and to remember I belong to Jesus, and so does she, and so do the bearded camouflaged, white men. tải về 64.08 Kb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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