Wed., 11/9 Overnight the primal scream that has been crying throughout the world
found its voice in the United
States. A significant part of the US population
that has felt unheard and ignored for a long time forced the rest of the
country to feel its pain. With seismic force, chasms that many did not know
existed, were unearthed in the cities and countrysides of America.
After an election colored by name calling, harsh judgments,
and false assumptions across the political spectrum, our country is left to
deal with a pain, fear, and frustration similar to that which has raised its head in many countries around
the globe. From African countries with no stable government to England, from
Arab Spring to Brexit, groups of people have been forcing those who hold the
reins of power to pay attention to them.
The causes underlying this cacophony are probably multiple,
but I’d guess a major one stems from the almost cataclysmic changes that have
come to us in just one lifetime - communication, immigration, manufacturing,
transportation…… As one commentator put
it, it’s as powerful a change in society as the 19
th century industrial
revolution. And who’s been hurt the most? The millions of people who have the
fewest resources to cope.
What now? During the election campaign, lines weren’t just
drawn in the sand; ditches were dug. Bridges weren’t just dismantled; they were
bombed. How does one move on from here?
How does healing and reconstruction begin? Who can lead?
This is where we come in, we, people of faith and good will.
Our call is as seismic as the one that shook our country last night. We who
believe in a power greater than a single individual - humanist, Christian, Jew,
Hindu, Muslim, Native American… - all of us are being challenged to reach out
across all divides, old or new, to learn another’s reality. Painful as it is,
we need to listen to another person’s truth, and try to understand why theirs
is different from our own. All of us are
wounded in some way. We are frail and imperfect, but each of us has the power
to heal another because we have the power to love. Listening is a form of
loving.
As a Catholic Christian, I know that the God who lives
within me lives within each person around me. I know that Jesus reached out
across society’s dividing lines and touched the good within others who had been
judged sinful or religiously unclean. I am called to imitate him, and, because
at one time or another I have experienced it, I know a word or a touch can
heal.
On this 11/9 I am reminded of another 9/11 when our
country was called to come together. Today and the days to come, we are called
to put on a new mind, a mind that realizes our individual perspective is not always shared by
others, but if we work at it, we can probably find common ground. Our forebears
who wrote the constitution had a similar challenge. They succeeded. Can we?
Then what?
Blessings on us all for the difficult journey ahead.
Sr. Colleen Winston, OSB
Divine Healer – God
of Wisdom & Wonder,
