Reflections

 

"I wanted you to see something about her - I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his had.  {Courage} is when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what."   Atticus to Jem in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird 

While on vacation, I re-read Harper Lee's book, To Kill a Mockingbird.  It had been awhile since I had encountered this very human story.  It really is about dealing with each other; as Atticus likes to say, "Walk around in another's shoes."  Jem and Scout growing up in a small Southern town dealing with issues of economic disparity, racism, sexism, and mental illness.  Being a community is not easy.  Or as Linus once said in a Peanuts cartoon, "I like humanity...it is people I can't stand."  Of course, great literature is timeless.  Today, we still deal with economic disparity, racism, sexism, and the stigma placed on those with mental illness.  We still deal with the myth of redemptive violence.  We still deal with each other as humans.

Part of the draw of Lee's book is that there is no neat and tidy ending.  Strings are left dangling, just as in our real life.  We move forward, one step...only to take two steps back, especially in the above social issues.  One of the realities we are still coming to terms with is that no amount of legislation or meetings or conversations are going to change everyone.  In fact, change is so frustratingly slow sometimes, it is easy to lose faith and courage.  It is also good to remember that this is a work of fiction.  The real lives of those who live pushed to the fringes because of economics, race, sexual orientation, and mental illness can be fragile...successes are few and sometimes far between.

Currently, in the place I live, the news media has fallen in love with a homeless man who is an amazing piano player.  Because of that gift, he has found work and trying to put his life together.  Because we love a good rags to riches story, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps and proof that the American dream is still there for those who try, daily we get updates on his progress.  To be sure, I want the best for this child of God.  But I also wonder about those whose skills are so hidden and so buried under the years of people telling them they were "worthless" and "good for nothings" that they stay on the fringes.  Spotlighting one story does not mean, "anyone can do it."  It only shows me how much work we have to do.

Which is exactly where I am with Lee's book.  My heart breaks by the relevance, that people are still just as nasty and demeaning to each other as we were fifty years ago in the time when the book is set. Yet, I also know that people were created with divine DNA.  This is not about our original sin, it is about our inability to fully trust and lean into God's grace in every moment.  Grace is not some formula or some insurance guarantee.  Grace is not a safe net.  Grace is.  Grace can undergo metamorphosis.  Which means, I need to stay constantly aware and awake to the traces of God's grace in my life.  It may not always come in the same exact way every day.

To be sure, there are traces of grace within Lee's book.  The slow realization Jem and Scout come to.  Their willingness to start to see each person as fully God's beloved and walk in their shoes.  And their continued growth.  The challenge for us, especially in a time of increasing polarization and politicization, is to do the same...and for that we need more than just a trace of God's grace.

May it be so for you and me.  Blessings ~