Friends in Christ:
Like many of you, I watched the election returns last night closely, and while the results were not what I had personally been hoping and working for, I recognize that there may be a wide variety of reactions and responses to the outcomes. I’ve seen some requests to quickly put aside the incredibly painful and divisive rhetoric of recent months and come together to heal so that we might move forward as a united people, but I’m not there.
I firmly believe that healing needs to occur, but not in a shallow or facile way that calls us to move quickly into a posture of harmony and unity. In order for true healing to occur, we must begin with honesty. Honesty about the impact of this long and brutal political season; honesty about how we are experiencing fear and frustration and hope and uncertainty; honesty about how we don’t yet know what healing even looks like.
One of the most transformational books I have read recently is My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Menakem. He uses the framework of trauma therapy to provide readers with the tools we need to work through the various traumas we all experience, particularly in relation to racism. He writes, “Events don’t just happen. We experience them in our bodies—which means we need to metabolize them in our bodies as well. Talking with someone you trust about your experience can help you complete this metabolic process.” (p. 177)
So, while you may be looking for some brilliant insights that make sense of it all and help us find the courage to move forward, all I have is a simple suggestion to listen. Listen to your body, and where the feelings you have land; pay attention to what they feel like, neither ignoring them nor letting them take over. Listen to your neighbor, your partner, your child; hold space for one another to express whatever you need to express. And then, when and if you are ready, listen to folks who might be experiencing these events differently from you. Listen, be curious, and be kind, to yourself and to one another, and then join me in prayer that, someday, we might begin to inch our way into the healing that this broken world so desperately needs, together.
In Christ,
Bishop Paul Erickson
