I had a little bit of trouble getting logged into WordPress so I’m a little late to joining our blogging community. As they say, “Better late than never.” Here we go. 🙂
How did today’s (2/7) session heighten your hope, deepen your ache, or refine your pressing question?
Heighten my hope: Sitting with Ruth enriched my own commitment to leaning into conflict. My favorite gift from our time together was watching the way she embodies courage and joy in her work. I remain impressed that she could discuss deep conflict with a sense of calm, non-reactivity, and confidence. When I asked about her obvious joy in the face of conflict, Ruth mentioned that she has not been a stranger to pain, which allows her to keep things in perspective. I’m still mulling this over. I don’t consider myself a stranger to pain either– but I think I’m still in the process of learning to sit with pain without a need to move anybody. This has been a lesson I’ve revisited many times over, and I imagine one I’ll keep coming to throughout my life’s journey. My own experiences and professional training have taught me that there’s no short circuiting the healing process– and yet, I still love to reach for a solution that brings connection and harmony… (as quickly as possible, if I can!).
Deepen your ache: I don’t remember who said this in our meeting, but I wrote it down and it’s been something I’ve been tinkering with in my mind. “Our ache is not solvable. We’re not trying to solve it, we’re trying to deepen it.” Big oof. Feels connected to what I wrote above about pain. But my connections and thoughts about this aren’t super well-organized at this moment in time. I’m still very much in the middle of pondering or mindfully meandering this right now.
Refine your pressing question: Okay, full transparency. Every time we talk about our pressing question I think to myself, “Is my pressing question the same as it was the last time I thought about/answered this?” In some ways the idea of a pressing question feels a little intimidating to me. I know I have some big, pressing feelings, but I honestly don’t know if I’ve articulated those feelings using the same words to formulate a question. I do think my question(s) is/are becoming a little clearer to me– I think they are something like this:
- How do we acknowledge the roles of power and privilege in conversations around reconciliation?
- How do we honor agency and autonomy in reconciliation processes?
- What do healthy boundaries in the context of reconciliation look like?
- How do we encourage wise emotional labor when doing the work of reconciling/forgiving/peacemaking?
8 comments
Shelby, I love your questions around reconciliation. We white folks have so many questions to ask ourselves as we try to be safe and open enough to hear from those who have been oppressed. And to actually move forward in a way that is deeply loving and gentle. (and challenging enough to ourselves)
Shelby – THIS-Every time we talk about our pressing question I think to myself, “Is my pressing question the same as it was the last time I thought about/answered this?” Thank you for writing this! I feel like on any given day I can come up with 5 (or more) questions which are pressing and which I would urgently like to resolve so I can move onto the next pressing question. They seem to be multiplying faster than I can give the needed attention and emotional bandwidth toward.
Thank you Shelby. I especially appreciated the last questions you posed:
“What do healthy boundaries in the context of reconciliation look like?”
“How do we encourage wise emotional labor when doing the work of reconciling/forgiving/peacemaking?”
For myself, it can become disheartening listening a world of news that sometimes only feels negative. “where is the hope?” is a question i’m always asking. As far as your second question, I loved reading Osheta’s “Dear White Peacemaker” as it reminded me to recognized how everyone is beloved. Without this reminder, I am afraid I would be driven to anger or hate as a tool for reconciliation rather than empathy.
Thank you for your vulnerability and honesty here, Shelby!
I too believe Ruth’s thoughts on grappling with and being formed by our pain are powerful, important, and really challenging. There are times when I’ve experienced pain that helped to shape me, polishing away my ego, perfectionism, and dualistic thinking. And there are times when I’ve experienced pain that completely broke something inside of me.
While you acknowledge that this is an ongoing process for you, I wonder … at this point in your journey, where have you seen growth/progress/new life (whatever word you might use to describe it)?
Such a beautiful question, Steve! I see growth in my ability to be gentle with myself when I am hurting. I see an increased willingness to be authentic, messy, and incomplete… and to invite other people into that. I see so much growth around allowing all of the feelings in myself and others. I see growth in welcoming emotions as wise and neutral tutors, rather than some as good and others as bad.
That’s great, Shelby! In our becoming, I believe it’s vital that we celebrate how far we’ve come. (I’m pretty terrible at this.) Thanks be to God for the growth you’re able to recognize.
Thanks for your honest reflection Shelby! Ruth’s point about not being a stranger to pain really stuck out to me too! I wrote down that she said something like, “Grappling with pain shapes and molds us and it can be a gift in our formation.”
Boy have I found that to be true in my life. As much as I’d like to avoid pain, in hindsight I can see how it has shaped me in positive ways and how it can be used to hopefully help others. I also find that I’m drawn to people who have been through some difficult stuff and I that I can more easily trust them.
Thank you for sharing the exact quote– so powerful. I’m going to write that one down too.