I’ve chased around the sun 71 times now, and it has taken me just about as long to learn things about life that could have made it easier for me.
One such lesson is waiting.
Waiting for the thing to happen. Waiting for the flight to land. Waiting for the class to end. Waiting for the tomatoes to ripen. (And here in Western Washington quite often that is a very, very long wait.)
But what I’ve learned that in most cases, there is nothing I can do to make it happen faster. Bread dough is going to take some time to before it rises. Onions are going to take time (and attention) before they caramelize. Education is going to take time to be meaningful, despite shortcuts and AI regurgitation.
And seeing change in people will take time, sometimes far more time than we have patience for.
I’ve yet to see people who’ve been listening to voices advocating for justice make an immediate volte-face when their whole lives have been built upon both ignorance and denial. I know in my case it took about 50 years of awareness before the light switched on.
For those who shared with me their stories that ignored or situations that I denied or cruelties and injustices I explained away or minimized, it was a long time for them to wait.
And for that, I’m sorry. But I also don’t know that it could have happened any faster than it did.
Sure, I wish the cruelties I inflicted through my indifference and denial and gainsaying hadn’t happened, and I will spend the rest of my life doing whatever I can to repair the wounds that resulted from my behaviors. And I will owe that debt beyond whatever life remains for me.
Still, it took time for me to listen and parse and assimilate what I was being told by people who had enough interest in me to attempt to reach me. I can apologize but I can’t erase what I did.
So that leads me to a few conclusions for myself and for others, and it explains why I try to be direct and abrupt and even unfriendly at times.
What worked for me was that people who cared for me and also who cared for themselves spoke directly to my words and my behaviors. Not evading the feelings of resentment and anger because my reactions were not theirs to control. But speaking directly, clearly, and immediately. “What you just said was racist because…” or “What you just said was sexist because…”
Hard to take, to be honest, and for decades I was able to avoid responding by avoiding the acts of thinking about and thinking through what I was told.
At the end of five decades of denial, finally the camel’s back was broken on my indifference, and the result was immediate in the sense that the long, long period of indifference and cruelty snapped catastrophically.
I had that moment where I said to myself “if I continue to think along these lines, I will have to abandon everything I once thought as settled truth.” And in that same moment I also realized I had already done that.
What people saw was an immediate difference in choices and language and interests, so it seemed to be immediate.
But it wasn’t. It was 50+ years of considering and thinking and contemplating until—the moment was right for repentance.
So when I speak, clearly, directly, and abruptly, it is not rudeness nor is it cruelty. I learned in my long sabbatical from kindness that what made the most effect upon my soul were the words from people who didn’t evade speaking the truth, even when I did not react well.
I used words for a living, and I learned how to use words to effectively communicate and persuasively make an argument.
That means that I am comfortable talking about things that can make people like me uncomfortable. With five decades of experience inside the culture of white Evangelical America, I know the tropes and language and memes and unchallenged assumptions, and I am not distracted when they are thrown at me as some kind of trump card. I knew they were simply arguments made for the sake of control and keeping people inside the boundaries, and I see both the trope and the meaning for the argument. I don’t bite the bait; instead, I throw it back and call it out as nonsense.
And I do so all the while knowing that listening will take time, thinking will take time, and repentance will take time.
Some will argue that we don’t have time to waste in waiting, and I get that. We are in perilous times right now with an insane dotard in charge of this country supported by the vast majority of white Evangelical Americans, who are one of the largest voting blocs. And yes, we need to raise the alarm and provoke people to resist.
I get that!
But I also know that changing minds in the meantime will take concerted efforts to speak up and respond even when it seems hopeless.
It takes too long, perhaps, but for the sake of the souls who are captured by hatred and bigotry and fear, it will simply take as much time as necessary to bring about repentance.
So we speak and act as if it’s important, yes, but also knowing that it is not a knockout win that we seek but the opening of eyes and hearts and minds.
We will not be successful in all things. “Rust never sleeps,” they say, and there are always corrosive influences upon the human soul and human society.
Still, we speak, and still, we wait.
