blessed and ashamed

Sometimes I read a novel, a fictional creative work, that rattles me more than reality, and that makes me feel ashamed. Why must I follow eight fictional characters long enough to care for them, to know them, and be concerned for them before I can wake up and be terrified, outraged, heartbroken for living people truly caught in that world that seemed so surreal?

Today, I lounged in my cool house, whined about pollen,  played with my dogs, goofed around with my brother, and read a book. In the book, teen missionaries—each caught in their own disillusionment—barely survive a riot in an Indonesian village only to struggle through the wilderness to eventual safety. The disconnect still shakes me; how I can sit on a comfortable bed in my suburban home and type on a laptop I didn’t need about violence that is not stuck in fiction.

How easy it is to forget. I’m sure I will do it well, probably before this day ends. My life has been privileged. Any hardship I might have imagined into my life is laughable, a blessing in itself when I consider how so much of the rest of the world, within the borders of this country and beyond it, live each day of their lives. Sometimes I feel ashamed rather than grateful. Ashamed to have been born white, American, middle class, to loving parents with a genuine faith. Ashamed rather than blessed that I am free to leave my house with my hair and face uncovered, that I am free to learn and read, free to worship without fear, free to step from my house into a peaceful spring breeze. Instead of feeling blessed, I feel ashamed that I was not on one of those planes on September 11th or humming along to elevator music in the North Tower. Ashamed that I have unwittingly avoided the earthquake in Haiti, the violence in the Middle East, the massacre surrounding Uganda.

Certainly feeling guilt or shame is not a rational or even productive emotion. However, I think it’s closer to the mark than feeling “blessed.” If I can look upon the great tragedies in the world and feel only gratitude than I am spared, how motivated will I be to act, to abandon the refuge for which I am so thankful? No, no. Feeling blessed and thankful, though good, is not enough, is not much at all. Grateful is a start, and only a start.

If my only reaction to Good Friday is to feel “blessed that it wasn’t me” or “thankful for such a gift,” I have taken only the smallest step in the right direction. Certainly nothing I do, even with the most righteous of intentions, can allow me to “deserve” this gift. But that fact alone shouldn’t be enough to let me be content to live out my blessed life without concern for anyone else. Gratitude is a step, a spark that should spread into a consuming fire.

It is unmistakably easy to be moved to tears and trembling when one considers reality outside our American, or even Western, white picket fence. Or even consider the ugly truth of tragedy within it. It is much more difficult to swallow the lump in your throat, straighten your back, set your jaw, and do something.

I don’t know what I can do, or for whom, or even where to start. But I won’t let myself be content to feel blessed with my pleasant life when so many are denied it, and nor will I get stuck in the mire of shame and guilt of those blessings. Instead, I hope to walk the line between them, thankful for my blessings but ashamed to do nothing for those without them.

celebrate

When you get off the Interstate, turn on to the frontage road and pull into the church. It won’t look like a church; it’s just a warehouse, renovated into a small gathering place. The room will be dark; candles light the nondescript stage. The pastor will whisper, will pray with his eyes open. He won’t smile. The band will play; they’re wearing black shirts with their jeans. Not many people will sing along. It doesn’t feel like a day to sing.

Amongst the gathered, you can find her. She won’t stand out. She’s not overly pretty or thin. She dresses down. She’ll sit with her mother, and she’ll sing even though she doesn’t like the songs, even though she would rather cry than sing.

You won’t be able to sit next to her; her mother sits on one side, her former youth minister on the other.  She sits in the middle of people with as many problems and concerns as she. They’ll sing at first, but then they will stop. It seems too dark in the room, but they know the words anyway.

Slide into the seat behind her; you can watch her hold her head high when the pastor leads in prayer. Lean around and you could see her eyes are open. From behind, you can see her shoulders lift as she takes breaths between measures. You can see her shoulders tremble only slightly as she controls her emotion. Today is Friday. Sunday is Easter.

She won’t cry during the service; she’ll be too distracted by her worries to be much moved by the songs or by the solemn taking of bread and cup. Instead, you may notice that her tears are nearly drawn out by the friendly pats on her arm, supportive hugs about her shoulders, and knowing gazes that meet her eyes. She manages to hold them in as she is known to do. She will shake hands with the pastor, bid her fond farewells, and even when she is alone in her car with dusk closing in, she will only allow a few tears and no audible cries for the confusion, the fear, the anger, the worry. She will ride the whole way home in silence; her silent prayers fill the car like smoke, filling every crevice.

You will see right away that her life, like the earth after six days, is good. Not without strife and the occasional tragedy, but good nonetheless. You will wonder what has upset her; you are unsure if she would answer if you asked.

You will wonder what to do for her, this girl. Does she need you to listen to her? Certainly not. She will tell you what she will when she decides to. Does she need your sympathy or worry? No, no; she dreads that and has little need of it anyway. She is resilient; those over whom she broods are less so.

You will be curious. Morbidly fascinated. You will want to ask her first, what it is, and second, what you can do. What you should know before you do that is that this girl is not just a girl with stress in her life, with fear and addiction to the future, with unexpected problems. This girl is not just a girl. She is everyone. She is one teary set of eyes among a million others. She is everyone. She is you.

She wants what everyone wants. She wants what you want.

Her eyes are brown. You noticed. You remember. Good.