Reflection: From denial to acceptance
Text: Matthew 25:31-46
Five months ago, my family and I moved to our new home. My partner and I absolutely love it. The south facing house welcomes the sunlight making the home bright and warm. Looking out through the window, I can see trees, birds, squirrels, deer, walkers, joggers, or cyclists taking their part in the forest community. After so many years of moving and wandering, we found our dream home. At least, that is true for Ha Na and me. The boys, however, did not show much interest or appreciation about the new home as their parents did. They whined or grumbled – “why did we have to move?” They tried to find faults in the new house – “The light switch makes a weird noise. The door won’t close properly.” They were sentimental about the old house – “Do you remember the storage room in the basement? It was so cozy in there – a perfect place to hide. There’s no place like that in this new house that YOU chose.” At first, I could not understand the points they were trying to make. ‘How come they don’t like it here. Can’t they see what I see?’ it was around Thanksgiving that I got to understand the emotions they were going through. My boys were grieving their losses – the loss of their friends, schools, and neighbourhood. The protests, and complaints were their coping mechanisms for an emotional illness: homesickness. One day, when we were talking about our Thanksgiving dinner, my 9-year-old son, Jah-bi remembered the famous Thanksgiving luncheon at his previous school. He burst into tears. “I miss my school and friends! They were the best!” Jah-bi was courageously expressing his grief in front of his family, and the truth was heard. I acknowledged the pain and thanked him for sharing his feeling.
How do you express your grief? Grief is a normal and natural reaction to any type of loss – the loss of a loved one, pet, job, physical or mental ability, separation, moving, or immigration, just to name a few. Because losing is part of life, grief must be part of life as well. The problem is that we do not always recognize our grief as grief, or we do not accept it as part of our lives. Grief can take many forms. Just like my boys used various ways of dealing with their sense of loss, we may have different reactions to our own grief: anger, blame, guilt, bitterness, numbness, indifference, denial, homesickness, or anxiety. When the pain of loss is too much to bear, we choose to remain on the surface of grief. By failing to honour our pain, we fail to embrace all that we are. We become hard on ourselves and consequently hard on those around us as well. No matter how much we pretend to be okay, the grief will find its way to get our attention. Grief can get our attention by kicking us in the backside! Like an ambush.
I am particularly concerned about a culture of denial we live in. Recent outbreaks in our province claimed many lives and put our health care system in the corner. I suspect that underneath the denial there is unwillingness to accept the tragedy. People deny not only the danger of the deadly virus but also the uncomfortable changes, the personal sacrifices, that come with the lockdown. Some people believe that they can put their individual rights before other peoples’ safety by not adhering to the public health guidelines such as wearing a mask. That is a form of denial – denying that somebody other than themselves is real, that the virus is real. We are seeing that the culture of denial is as dangerous as the virus, if not more.
I watched a short documentary film about the outgoing president in the United States, narrated by Julianne Moore. He did not fall from the sky; he was socially constructed right from the beginning. With the unimaginable wealth, granted by his father, he constantly abused his power for his personal gain. The culture of denial was at the heart of his life and career at so many different levels – from the illicit admission to the school, dodging the draft to avoid the military service, the housing discrimination against black tenants to the denial of human rights and of the climate change. The widespread culture of denial gives people a false sense of security. In order for communities to be healed, we must move from denial to acceptance. Like the very first step in the twelve steps of recovery program, we must admit that we were powerless over a false sense of security; we must admit that our lives had become unmanageable. The culture of denial not only makes lives of individuals unmanageable but also destroys families, communities, congregations, and the well-being of society. That is what the passage we heard today is warning us.
At first, it seems that the parable supports separations between sheep and goats, left and right, us and them, blessed and accursed, the rewarded and the punished. Looking deeply, however, I see Christ’s radical calling to acceptance – to recognize ourselves in others, especially in those who are most vulnerable in our society. At some point in our lives we were hungry and someone gave us food, we were thirsty and someone gave us something to drink, we were strangers and somebody welcomed us, and we were sick and we were taken care of. So, to deny the presence of the hungry, the thirsty, the captive, the sick, or strangers in our midst is to deny our very selves. We deny those because we are afraid to embrace our own vulnerability. We can only accept others as we accept ourselves. We can only embrace the pain of others as we embrace our own. We can only be gentle with those around us as we are gentil with ourselves.
I have a daily ritual with Jah-bi. Every day around 3:20 pm the school bus drops him off near our house. Walking along with him I usually ask him how the day went and what the best part was for him. Jah-bi shares as much or as little as he likes. One day, I didn’t even bother asking him. We were just walking alongside each other without saying anything. And he began to tell me how much he enjoyed his new school. “I am making new friends every day. They have this cool tire swing…. And I have more friends now than when I was at the other school.” I noticed a spring in his steps. I celebrated his new friendship while remembering his gift of tears.