White Americans: pick a side

There are two sides: racist and anti-racist. Silence equals choosing the racist side. John Pavolvitz explains it well:

[I]n this America there are only two kinds of white Americans: there are white racists and there are white anti-racists.

Not professed anti-racists, who click the roof of their mouths, feel an initial wave of sadness at news of murders of jogging black men—and then move on with their day.
Not anti-racists who endure grotesque racist dinner table diatribes from their uncles and mothers and husbands, and choose not to speak because they don’t want to deal with the blowback at home.
Not anti-racists who sit through incendiary Sunday sermons from supremacist pastors, and somehow find themselves in the same pew the next Sunday and the Sunday after that and the Sunday after that.
Not anti-racists who absorb vile break room jokes and outwardly laugh along while internally feeling sick to their stomachs.
Not anti-racists who scroll past the most dehumanizing memes and videos from people they’ve grown up with and gone to high school with, not wanting to engage the collateral damage of publicly confronting them.

In the presence of this kind of cancerous hatred, the kind that killed Ahmaud Arbery, the kind that is having a renaissance here in America—there aren’t moderate grey spaces to sit comfortably and observe from a distance.

No, this is a place of stark black and white extremist clarity:
You oppose the inhumanity or you abide it.
You condemn the violence or you are complicit in it.
You declare yourself a fierce and vocal adversary of bigotry—or you become its silent ally.

A thought for Ash Wednesday

“Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” Or, as Shel Silverstein put it:

Humility and its opposite

Today’s Daily Mediation from the Henri Nouwen Society:

One of the greatest dangers in the spiritual life is self-rejection. When we say, “If people really knew me, they wouldn’t love me,” we choose the road toward darkness. Often we are made to believe that self-deprecation is a virtue, called humility. But humility is in reality the opposite of self-deprecation. It is the grateful recognition that we are precious in God’s eyes and that all we are is pure gift. To grow beyond self-rejection we must have the courage to listen to the voice calling us God’s beloved sons and daughters, and the determination always to live our lives according to this truth.

A reminder that every day is a good day.

Here’s a reminder that today is a good day. (Hat tip to my sister Gabrielle.)

Listen to this; it’s spiritual.

My favorite band, the North Mississippi Allstars, performs Soldier. Why is this spiritual? Well, watch the video and you’ll see and hear. The song is from their album Hernando. If you’re wondering whether you need this album, the answer is: if you’re reading this blog — yes.

The Gospel in Dostoyevsky, and other free e-books on spirituality

If you’re in the mood for some spiritual reading, then you’ll want to peruse Plough Publishing’s selection of free articles and e-books. The e-book that caught my eye is The Gospel in Dostoyevsky. I haven’t read it yet, but the title sounds promising. And you can’t beat the price.

A refresher on the golden rule

The golden rule is not to do unto others as they do unto you. It’s to do to others as you want them to do unto you. E.g. Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31. This means that the other person’s actions toward you do not determine your actions toward that other person. Put another way, you’re not a slave to others’ treatment of you. You treat friend and foe the same.

Small steps of love

Today’s daily meditation from the Henri Nouwen Society:

How can we choose love when we have experienced so little of it? We choose love by taking small steps of love every time there is an opportunity. A smile, a handshake, a word of encouragement, a phone call, a card, an embrace, a kind greeting, a gesture of support, a moment of attention, a helping hand, a present, a financial contribution, a visit ... all these are little steps toward love.

Each step is like a candle burning in the night. It does not take the darkness away, but it guides us through the darkness. When we look back after many small steps of love, we will discover that we have made a long and beautiful journey.

Gerry Spence on spirituality

The most recent issue of Litigation (available to members of the ABA Litigation Section) has a terrific article by Gerry Spence: Persuading Yourself You Can Win. Its purpose is to convince inexperienced lawyers that they really can win at trial, no matter who the opponent is or how experienced the opponent may be. Along the way, he imparts wisdom for all of us:

I tell lawyers that it all begins with you. Let me repeat it: It all begins with you. Yet we have been convinced from our earliest times that we do not measure up. We are not as bright as our older brother; we are not as beautiful as our younger sister. We are dumped into school where we are sorted and graded like cattle at the killing pens, according to the standards of teachers and administrators who have no idea about who we are—or, for that matter, who they are either.

...

But the truth? The truth is each of us is unique! Each of us is the only person in the world like us. There has never been a person like us—not from the beginning of time. Never. Our beauty is distinct and singular. Our worth is incomparable. Moreover, there will never be another like us. No, never! Not if the human race endures forever.

...

Why, then, would you want to discard your own beauty to concoct a poor imitation of someone else’s? Why would you even want to be like someone else rather than celebrating your own one-of-a-kind self? The fact that we are unique and therefore incomparably beautiful is a truth we have not been permitted to see. It is as if our eyes for our own beauty have been burned from our piteous skulls, and so far as seeing ourselves, we are blind.

Gerry Spence, Persuading Yourself You Can Win, 36 Litigation 14, 15 (Winter 2010).

Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12

See, my servant will prosper,
he shall be lifted up, exalted, rise to great heights.

As the crowds were appalled on seeing him
—so disfigured did he look
that he seemed no longer human—
so will the crowds be astonished at him,
and kings stand speechless before him;for they shall see something never told
and witness something never heard before:
‘Who could believe what we have heard,
and to whom has the power of Yahweh been revealed?’
Like a sapling he grew up in front of us,
like a root in arid ground.
Without beauty, without majesty (we saw him),
no looks to attract our eyes;
a thing despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering,
a man to make people screen their faces;
he was despised and we took no account of him.

And yet ours were the sufferings he bore,
ours the sorrows he carried.
But we thought of him as someone punished,
struck by God, and brought low.
Yet he was pierced through for our faults,
crushed for our sins.
On him lies a punishment that brings us peace,
and through his wounds we are healed.

We had all gone astray like sheep,
each taking his own way,
and Yahweh burdened him
with the sins of all of us.
Harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly,
he never opened his mouth,
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house,
like a sheep that is dumb before its shearers
never opening its mouth.

By force and by law he was taken;
would anyone plead his cause?
Yes, he was torn away from the land of the living;
for our faults struck down in death.
They gave him a grave with the wicked,
a tomb with evildoers,
though he had done no wrong
and there had been no perjury in his mouth.

Yahweh has been pleased to crush him with suffering.
If he offers his life in atonement,
he shall see his heirs, he shall have a long life
and through him what Yahweh wishes will be done.

His soul's anguish over
he shall see the light and be content.
By his sufferings shall my servant justify many,
taking their faults on himself.

Hence I will grant whole hordes for his tribute,
he shall divide the spoil with the mighty,
for surrendering himself to death
and letting himself be taken for a sinner,
while he was bearing the faults of many
and praying all the time for sinners.