"...we have never been the problem but the solution..."
“Virginity is completely identified with sex,” she said, “what a person has not experienced. It’s that closed-off, puritanical kind of thing.” But Sister Helen’s practice of celibacy taught her that the Virgin archetype was something more radical. “It is the single-heartedness that is the integrity in one’s being,” she said, and then quoted Jean Shinoda Bolen, the Jungian author: “She does what she does, because what she does is true.”
It is a state available to everyone, she writes, even politicians. “Although in the United States, the brokering of money and power in politics sets the ‘purity bar’ pretty high.”
Sister Helen Prejean, probably best known for inspiring "Dead Man Walking", was interviewed in the Times and this particular insight caught my attention.
I spent most of this week co-facilitating my denomination's Sankofa Journey. I've walked around Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham many times, but this was the first time I noticed this sign. After posting it on Twitter a friend commented that these words should be inscribed on every pulpit.
I've posted a few more photos from the trip on Instagram.
This particular Sankofa trip was made up of pastors which was a first for me. One of the themes that quickly became visible was the tension between the experiences of the white pastors (and, to a lesser - or, maybe just different - extent the Latino/a and Asian American pastors) and the African American pastors was the question of how boldly to lead their congregations in the area of racial justice and reconciliation. For most of the Black pastors, the question was easily answered: We lead in equal proportion to the suffering that is inflicted by racism. But for the others the answer was more complicated. While some were ready to speak and lead bluntly and directly, others wondered about the effectiveness of alienating the majority of a congregation without making much of a difference.
One pastor wondered about the possibility of being fired - which she seemed OK with - knowing that the next pastor who would likely follow her wouldn't share the same theological convictions about reconciliation and justice. My co-facilitator offered a helpful lens on this question: Don't let the things you can't say today be the same things you can't say five years from now. This strikes me as a helpful way to think about leading change over the long-term which, if we're being honest, is the only way to think about change among those who've long accustomed ourselves to the atrocities of racial supremacy.
The bloody freedom struggles of the civil rights movement laid the foundation for every other modern rights struggle. This nation’s white founders set up a decidedly undemocratic Constitution that excluded women, Native Americans and black people, and did not provide the vote or equality for most Americans. But the laws born out of black resistance guarantee the franchise for all and ban discrimination based not just on race but on gender, nationality, religion and ability. It was the civil rights movement that led to the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which upended the racist immigration quota system intended to keep this country white. Because of black Americans, black and brown immigrants from across the globe are able to come to the United States and live in a country in which legal discrimination is no longer allowed.
Nikole Hannah Jones has written an important essay to introduce The 1619 Project for the Times. In it she re-frames the history of the USA to show how Black citizens have always embodied this nation's ideals. "What if America understood, finally, in this 400th year, that we have never been the problem but the solution?" You can pick up a hard copy in the Sunday edition tomorrow.