Laying the groundwork

And now, for Part 2! (if you're not up to speed on part 1, it can be found here and I recommend that you wait at least a day after reading it to reflect before you come back to this post)

So, for the most part, the entirety of this followup was drafted a couple weeks ago, just after the first one. The lectionary that Sunday held perfect inspiration and grounding. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get time to sit down and write this up until now owing to life happening.  So, Yay! My sister is married!! And also yay, things have calmed down enough for me to get back to writing.

Part 1 intentionally left off with some hard issues to face and some (hopefully) thought provoking questions to assess. The primary metaphor was of the body, and how the church, both corporately and by individual members, tends to self-amputate.  While General Convention might go a lot smoother if the group was more homogeneous, I know it would not be healthier or stronger as a church.  The problem of truncating the voices of those on the margins of norms is that the church misses the obvious: God put them in your midst for a reason.

In Ephesians 4, we continue with the body metaphor:

"Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body's growth and builds itself up in love."

So, if any of my comments, or those of others advocating for justice and equality within (and outside) the church happens to set you/me/us off on the defensive, the first bit of advice is quite clear: we must work to live the truth in love.

This means if someone confronts you about your privilege (if this word alone makes you mad or roll your eyes, please don't hesitate to email me or call IMMEDIATELY because we need to talk), it does not in any way mean you are some evil or mal-intentioned person.  It means that your perspective or life experience (especially based on things you can't control) may not have shown you the truth in love yet. We have blind spots. It's unavoidable. As any good driver's ed teacher will tell you, having a blind spot isn't a crime, but acting without finding a way to check it puts you at fault.

Checking a blind spot (or as I'll be calling it from here on out: privilege) means you have to find a way to gain another perspective on the situation, because wherever you currently are, it can't be seen.  It is a form of asking for help, and has to be done in love. Know that no one else is responsible for providing you with this assistance; it isn't in my job description as a disabled person to be available to others to teach them what I know whenever they demand it. I can barely keep alive sometimes (literally) so it's not something to be added to my to-do list at the beck and call of someone who is not going through the struggles.  I teach when and how I can because I feel called to it, and that information is something I try to leave behind where others can search for it on their own, and I'm far from the only one doing so.  There are dozens and dozens of resources by teachers on numerous points of privilege that are already out there for the Googling. There are books, blogs, youtube, TEDtalks, and classes on disability life, indigenous life, young adults, racism, sexism, homelessness, poverty, and so many more issues that separate us.  Your friend/coworker/neighbor/church member is not the card catalog for their life perspective; it's up to you/me/us to put in the work to educate ourselves before engaging in conversations.

In love, let us each do the hard work of growing together, of connecting to one another more fully, so that we may continue to grow into the nature of Christ. 

It's probably more marked up than
my prayer book, and it certainly
has a lot of "foundations" in it.

At this point, the metaphor made a bit of a sharp turn. As someone who pursued an education in engineering for quite a while (and have a scrap of paper with some fancy words on it as proof) the fact that the word "builds" is there always makes me happy.

When building, no matter how great you are at any other part, if you can't get the foundation of your structure correct, you're screwed. A 1-inch problem in a foundation can manage to topple an entire skyscraper, if left unchecked.  In this metaphor discussion of privilege, that means an initial inequality that effects access to the community of the church and full equality.  I'll keep this simplified by speaking to physical disability as my factor-of-choice, but know that this applies just as equally to matters of race, income, gender, age, non-English language speakers, and more.

At General Convention, if they existed in the space at all, most seating options were very utilitarian and uncomfortable. Because of the pain I experienced from the amount of walking, standing, and sitting with little to no relief, I was unable to participate in a number of events because I had to stop and find ways to care for myself so as not to have the pain get worse or into a situation that necessitated medical care, since I have no healthcare options outside my home county and no funds to afford immediate or emergency treatment. My presence, my voice, my perspective was lost from those events because of this inherent inequality, and I have no way of changing that reality for myself.  Now, I don't expect that any convention center is going to stop using stacking chairs and magically provide sofas at their events, but had anyone like me been on the task force deciding the schedule, I'd have advocated for more breaks or for maybe a set of comfort areas for those in desperate need at the venue. I might have stated that those with mobility impairments are not going to always be able to attend events that require walking blocks and blocks between locations, in the rain, in 15 minutes.  So while I couldn't fix this issue myself, I have no doubt that there exists a sufficient level of authority somewhere that this issue could be addressed.  I don't have the funds to rent some couches for an area of the house of deputies, but I'd bet I could find the money in the pockets of plenty of folks in the church across the country, if I only had a way to ask.

You see, when it comes to leveling a foundation in order to build, and it has to be level before the building can start, it isn't about bringing the low up.  That, for engineers, is a far less stable option.  They always prefer to lower those areas that are higher.  Those with privilege have to take on empathy, humility, give of their abundance in order to make things level before we can start to build.  

It is not the job of the dis-privileged to rise up, but of the powerful to bend low.  How do I know this? Because that is exactly the example God gave us in sending Jesus to us in human form.

At this point, I guess we're gonna have to get to some literal example advice in a part 3, since there's a limit to how much I can do at once here (and to how long you have to read it). So here's some questions for reflection until next time:

Have you ever encountered someone with such blind spots to what matters to you that you got frustrated?  What resources might you need to search out in order to address your own privilege?  In what context could you, and others like you, be open to listening to the experiences and needs of the marginalized?  What actions might be necessary to ensure you're able to listen? In what format can you humble yourself to better lay a foundation with others?