Where we go from here

In her 1981 keynote address "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" at the National Women's Studies Association Conference, writer Audre Lorde made a helpful distinction between anger and hatred. She said, "This hatred and our anger are very different. Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is a grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change."

Anger, she proposes, leads to dialogue with others that creates life-giving change. It has a place within democracy. Hatred, on the other hand, causes death and destruction born from an unwillingness to work with others. It does not have a place within a democratic nation.

I couldn't quite name the sense of deep hurt, betrayal and mourning I feel about the events at our nation's Capitol on Jan. 6 until I read the words of John Paul Lederach, senior fellow at Humanity United and professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, in "The Pause," The On Being Project's weekly email.

He wrote, "I have noticed that across a wide and deeply divided political spectrum, most everyone seeks to speak for and protect the Constitution, almost as if our shared document is a victim. I would offer that the deeper casualty lies with the loss of our basic social contract. We note its disappearance when toxic social dynamics spill into the mainstream of our collective life: dehumanization replaces basic respect; blame supplants responsibility; and violence is justified over dialogue."

The horror and grief I feel at the actions of a president entrusted with leading who seeks to serve himself at others' expense and at my fellow Americans who, in some combination, allowed their anger and fear to be manipulated as well as freely chose hatred, is because of the breach of the agreed-upon ideal of democracy, yes. But even more so, it is because of the breach of a deeper, more fundamental contract we are all supposed to share: the upholding of each other's dignity. The recognition of our common humanity and the desire to see each other, to work for each other, to ensure the rights of each other in love. Love goes beyond liking or agreeing with someone; it calls us, despite differences, to will and seek the good of the other.

In The New Republic article "All the Rage: What a literature that embraces a female anger can achieve," Rebecca Solnit references Jonathan Schell's book on the power of nonviolence, "The Unconquerable Word," "which makes the case that even state violence is ultimately weakness, since, as Hannah Arendt wrote, 'Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent.'"

What Arendt writes is true: people who aren't afraid, people who know who they are and know they have a place, don't use violence. We see this in Jesus' example: when arrested -- even unjustly -- he did not fight; he condemned the action of his friend Peter who tried to use violence to defend him. Instead, Jesus became silent and surrendered himself out of love. He had not come to be served, but to serve.

The events of Jan. 6 are horrifying, too, perhaps, because they ask us to look at ourselves. As a nation and as an individual, they no longer allow us to turn away from the ugly truths we have normalized so we don't have to see them: our complicity with systemic racial and socioeconomic injustices, the anger and fear people from all groups share about not having a place, our woundedness. If the events of this summer's Black Lives Matter movement and the events of Jan. 6 at the Capitol have been the questions, we move forward now in creation of the answers. Where do we go from here? Who might we be for each other? How might we be with each other?

The Rev. Edie Bird reminded me recently of Joseph's words to his brothers who betrayed him when he chose, years later in his own position of power, to save their lives and "be reconciled with all of them:" "What you intended against me for evil, God intended for good."

I pray the violence that asks us to turn and face the temporary truth that we as a nation suffer from sin, separation and hatred will also turn us to the ultimate truth God brings good out of everything. Not in an idealistic, nice, tame sort of way, but in a way that is messy and gritty and hard, that demands everything of ourself when we ask for the courage to do all that is required of us: act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. May our labors of real love bring about the change that is going to come.

A writing prompt for students from the website noredink.com helped me reflect upon the Jan. 6 events at the Capitol. I hope this prompt helps you to gain understanding, too.

"Using the Right Language: On Jan. 6, journalists covering the events at the US Capitol had to decide what language would best capture what was unfolding. Some of the words they chose included 'protest,' 'riot,' 'attack,' 'insurrection,' 'coup' and 'domestic terrorism.' Look up and read the definitions of these words. Which word(s) would you use to describe what happened? What evidence would you give to prove that the word is appropriate for what happened?"