Unplugging Our Ears

Theo has started plugging his ears when we try to talk to him about something troubling he has done, for instance, squishing his little brother despite Luca's uproarious protests. When we ask him to stop, he can't look at us, often turns his back, and puts both hands over his ears. It's annoying, and in a more heated moment, sometimes it's downright maddening.

At the same time, I get it. Who among us likes being held accountable, enjoys being called out on our wrongdoing? It's really uncomfortable at best, shaming at worst. Often we already know we've done something wrong, and have begun the self-recriminations, so it just feels like piling on. And when someone lets us know our words or actions have really hurt them, that's just plain painful.

I think about a recent exchange in the car with Michael when he shared that something I did really upset him. After a wave of defensiveness, trying to justify my hurtful behavior, I went deathly silent, kept looking out the windows, or at my phone. I wanted to take off my seat belt, throw myself out of the vehicle and run away.

I also distinctly remember a moment in my youth that felt particularly painful. We junior high youth were at Lake Junaluska for Summer camp. I don't remember the exact nature of my infraction, but it probably had something to do with leaving someone out, a hurtful behavior I as an insecure middle schooler was apparently quite good at. My youth director came and found me, sat me down, described what I had done, and how it had made another girl feel. And then he looked me in the eyes and said, "Kimberly, would Jesus be happy with you?" Those words cut to the quick of my adolescent, Jesus-loving heart, and I felt my whole body burn with shame.

I also know what it feels like to be on the other side of that exchange. A few years ago, I wrote a letter to a friend expressing how her critical remarks made me feel, and that the compounded hurt was getting in the way of our relationship. I knew she did not mean harm, and I tried to assure her of my love and gratitude for all the ways she expressed her love for me. Knowing these things can be sensitive, I thought a letter might be an easier way to receive the truth of how I was feeling, before talking about it.

It did not go well. My friend responded that it was the most painful thing that had ever happened to her, she couldn't talk about it, and it ended up feeling like the wounds between us compounded, rather than healed as I had hoped.

Why is it so difficult to hear when we've said or done something wrong, when we've hurt someone? I mean, we humans are all a mixed bag of light and dark, kindness and malice, grace and greed. Put us together in relationship, and we're bound to bump into each other, rub the wrong way, and outright hurt each other. Put us in a group, community, or nation, the hurt and neglect compounds. Even with the best of intentions, we all say or do or neglect to do things that wound others. So why all the denial and defensiveness, averting of eyes and plugging of ears, going awkwardly silent, like we might just die if we have to admit wrongdoing or say, I'm sorry?

I take some comfort remembering that we humans seemed to have struggled with this from the get go. Think of old Adam and Eve, hiding themselves in the garden, then passing the blame when God called them out for eating the forbidden fruit. Think of Cain, questioned about his brother Abel, and pleading ignorance, snarking, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Think of the whole prophetic tradition, these men and women called by God to speak truth when we as a whole community have gone off the rails, often to people who have no desire to hear.

One of my favorite words I learned in seminary was scotosis.  

SCOTOSIS: a deliberate darkening of the mind; intellectual blindness. Not a simple ignorance, but a willful closing of the eyes, mind, heart to what IS, pretending to not see or know what we really see and know.

It seems that from small wrongs to massive injustices, we humans really have trouble seeing and hearing the truth. We get awkward and defensive. We make excuses for ourselves. We blame someone else. We say in so many words, "not my brother, mother, school, neighborhood, problem." Basically we shut our eyes, cover our ears, constrict our hearts. Because to take in the pain, to see and hear the truth of our wrongdoing, would mean taking responsibility. And that would require us to change - change our minds, expand our hearts, transform our ways.

As much as Pat's question undid me, I do believe it was and is an important question to ask. Is God happy with us? When God walks in this garden, does she enjoy what she sees? When Christ moves among us, is he pleased with the way we're treating one another, caring for the most vulnerable among us, tending to the Earth? Is this the fullness of what the Creator had in mind for the world?

My Racism Recovery Group co-leader brought this powerful quote of James Baldwin to my attention: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." Maybe it's time to face the truth, to let the hurt we've caused break our hearts. Perhaps burning with guilt and shame is not an altogether bad thing.

The guilt of our personal and collective wrongdoing weighs heavy upon us. Can you imagine being liberated from that awful weight, freed to live in new life-giving ways, invited to join God in creating more just and loving community where we can all thrive?

I believe that is possible. But we have to unplug our ears.