Voices from Jerusalem: A Path Toward Peace
In moments of conflict, it can feel impossible to know where to look for clarity or hope.At Faith Commons, we
Earlier this month my Faith Commons partner Rabbi Nancy Kasten and I had grandsons born two days apart. The thrill of new life never gets old, and the joy of grandparenting is incomparable. We have also experienced in their births the proverbial circle of life. Nancy lost her dad two years ago and I lost my mother-in-law last month. That generation carried nearly a century of knowledge and wisdom with them when they passed. Now as the oldest generation ourselves, we are tasked with passing on to our grandsons some understanding of the world they have inherited.
What do we owe them in our storytelling stewardship? Two things at least: one, an honest account of our family histories that doesn’t only tell the good stuff; and two, a broad account that includes figures too often overlooked.
In the first case, if we put ourselves and our forebears on a pedestal, thinking we honor them only if we idealize them, our grandkids will eventually suffer what psychologists call a “disillusionment crisis.” Noble character is praiseworthy, but we all have clay feet. Likewise, every family has skeletons in its closet: a crazy uncle, a rogue relative, a scoundrel sibling. But even they may have redeeming qualities that have made the family what it is. Never negate the negative altogether.
And then there are those whose contributions were quiet yet virtuous. The great-grandmother who endured an abusive marriage only to produce children resilient enough to overcome life’s obstacles. The disabled child who brought joy to her family and taught them that no one is expendable. The hard-working tradesman with only a grade-school education who put four kids through college debt-free.
Everyone has a place in the story. And all of them have been a mixed lot, just as we are. Pretending our families are perfect doesn’t protect the next generation. In the same way, telling only about the so-called “great men” of our histories dishonors the honorable women and men who lived in the shadows but wove their own thread into the family tapestry.
Our grandkids will be best prepared for life when they know the truth that both inspires virtue and warns of vice. The whole story is the best story.
Our nation is struggling with this very thing. The Trump administration wants to scrub the dirt from American history. It wants to present a sanitized view of our country’s past that omits or tones down the impact of our sins and trumpets our exceptionalism. To hear them tell our story is to believe that we have an unbroken narrative of heroism and glory that sets us apart in history and among the league of nations today.
The culture-cleanse underway right now would rob our children’s children of the dark side of our history that makes breakthroughs of the light so welcome. Poets have always been prophets and prophets poets. They tell the truth about who we are – sometimes straight and sometimes slant. If you require them to produce only paeans and never jeremiads, you don’t just get a sunny view of things, you get a distorted one. You get propaganda from those in power, rather than truth that speaks to power.
Denial of inconvenient truths is happening everywhere you look. Books are being banned from school libraries. Curriculum is being replaced or revised to play up America’s successes and mute our failures. Museums have been instructed to remove anything offensive to the ruling authorities. Artists, educators, historians, scientists, librarians, and politicians are under scrutiny for so-called unAmerican activity.
This also begs the question: who do we consider reliable curators of the American story? Those who have committed their careers to be truthtellers or those whose character is demonstrably untrustworthy and whose desire to for control over the narrative is on full display?
At the heart of this purge is the scourge of slavery that is America’s original sin – along with the racism, white supremacy, and malignant Christian theology that supported it. Rather than repenting of this historical evil and treating those who perpetuated it as flawed actors in the American drama, we are witnessing an aggressive denial of its severity and complaints that those who have benefited from it are now being unfairly victimized themselves.
Kevin Sack of the New York Times summarizes: “Mr. Trump aims to sand down — if not altogether erase — some of the more inglorious episodes of American history, particularly those involving racial and ethnic subjugation, to feed the ravenous maw of white grievance that fuels so much of today’s political discourse. This, of course, is antihistorical in every sense, a betrayal of the discipline’s most fundamental purpose: to learn from the past. If we ever aspire again to become one nation, the entirety of our past, including the enslavement of an estimated 10 million people must be acknowledged as our shared history.”
The E Pluribus Texas project from The Texas Center at Schreiner University in Kerrville reclaims the contributions of those who have often been left out of official histories. Dallas Cothrum describes the importance of telling our history more comprehensively: “Our state’s identity is defined by its diversity of peoples, experiences and perspectives. From Native nations who lived here centuries before statehood to Spanish colonists to waves of settlers, ranchers, freedmen, immigrants, roughnecks and tech innovators, Texas has never been one thing. It is many things at once, and only when we recognize that can we see the state clearly. … Some may worry that telling a more complicated story will weaken Texas pride. In reality, the opposite is true. Pride that rests only on half-truths is brittle. Pride that grows from a full and honest reckoning is resilient.”
Our religious traditions can inform us of the merit of telling our stories this way. The Hebrew and Christian scriptures do not lionize our fathers and mothers in faith. They show us ourselves in them, with all our vulnerability and potential. And these spiritual accounts include unnamed women, enslaved persons, common folk, and marginalized people of all kinds. Everyone matters. Everything counts.
Our grandchildren will develop resilience and maturity when they see themselves and their families clearly. Our country too will grow stronger, not weaker, when we understand that greatness is an aspiration yet unattained, not one that can be reclaimed.
The poet Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” We can’t do better if we don’t know better.
It’s up to all of us to make America better. And knowing the truth—the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help us God—is the foundation of any hope of betterment.
~ George Mason
Cameron Mason Vickrey talks about the disappearance of classroom libraries after Texas gave parents wide latitude to scrutinize reading material, requiring teachers to jump through hoops to defend book choices.
A prayer for our troubled times by Howard Thurman.
Truth telling through poetry.
If things are going to get better, we need to all support each other and remind each other of the work of resistance we each can do.
In moments of conflict, it can feel impossible to know where to look for clarity or hope.At Faith Commons, we
Across the country, people of faith are confronting the realities of immigration—not as an abstract issue, but as a human