Some Early and Raw Thoughts on Being Present in Times of Transformation

The world is in the process of a transformation unlike any I have seen in my 49 years of life. Make no mistake: every since the first great transformation--the big bang that birthed us all--we can trace a pattern of significant transformation always involving chaos and suffering.

It is difficult to be present in the midst of that transformation. It is tempting to watch it unfold and feel completely helpless--which can lead to longing for things to "get back to normal." 

What is normal? 

Inequalities in our healthcare system? Hospitals, nurses, and doctors unable to care for their patients because they don't have the supplies they need? 

Police officers walking away with no consequences, again and again, after killing black men? Police forces expected to act as social workers, therapists, animal control specialists, investigators, and so many more roles with only two years of training and very little oversight or support--while other organizations that could play some of these roles are underfunded and understaffed? 

An economy based on consumption and competition rather than mobilization for the common good? In the midst of a pandemic when local stores are closed, we can order packages of things we want (and don't need) over the internet without considering how they are getting to us, and without recognizing that this is possible only because corporations and the government failed to mobilize resources for the common good--and citizens refused to sacrifice. (Side note: yes, there have been packages on our front stoop during the pandemic. I'm just as guilty of supporting this system as many other middle class people).

A K-12 education system focused on test scores? A higher education system more concerned about free speech than justice? 

A food system built on the backs of the most vulnerable at the expense of our enviroment? 

A social media system that allows for misinformation to spread, again and again? 

Children in cages? Families risking their lives to cross a border into a country where they know they will be persecuted--just hopefully not as much as they were before?

Church people meeting weekly to re-commit to self-protection and the status quo and personal salvation, whatever that means, rather than care for the common good?

I don't want to go back to normal. 

Sure, it would be great to have a work meeting without a child on my lap. It would be great to go back to helping with homework rather than organizing an entire day of learning while also trying to work full-time from home. It would be great not to feel scared each time my spouse, who is a nurse, leaves for work, or comes home late. It would be great to be able to hold my eldest daughter, whom I haven't seen since March. I would love to go to a restaurant and get my hair cut, to give a warm hug to people at church during the passing of the peace. I would love to go back to teaching and meeting with people in person at work. I would love to be able to have definitive answers to questions like "Why is the news always bad?" and "When do we get to go back to school?" and "Why can't I go to the grocery store with you?" and "Why did so-and-so's mom lose her job?" 

I was in Ohio visiting my family when COVID-19 became serious enough to draw the public's attention. I'd gone with my eldest daughter to see my aunt, 96, who was starting to decline--she's one of my ultimate heroes. Her daughter, who had cared for her lovingly for years, has been dealing with a debilitating and unknown illness. Everyone warned me that she was bedridden and it might be difficult to see how much she'd changed in such a short time. For some reason, I knew I had to go--and even as COVID-19 began to hit the news, we decided as a family to go ahead with the trip. My spouse had taken time off to be with our other kids, and I was feeling homesick--missing my family. 

While there, the day after my extended family had gathered at the hotel pool where my daughter and I were staying, Ohio shut down. We feared we wouldn't be able to get home (though we did). Toward the end of our trip, after moving and important conversations with my aunt and cousin and some jovial get togethers with my relatives, word came that Minnesota was shutting down, too--and I would be responsible for teaching my class online and rethinking all of our campus-community partnerships for the rest of the semester, and possibly beyond. I dropped my daughter off at the group home where she lives not realizing I would not be able to see her for several months (or, perhaps, not wanting to admit this to myself). I don't know when I will see my extended family again, or if I'll see my aunt and cousin again.

On the way home from the airport, we pulled over so my daughter could weep in my arms. It would be weeks before I would feel the grief we were holding during that surreal week. She talked of how much my aunt and cousin loved her. She talked of how she didn't want to get laid off, to be stuck at the group home. By then, we realized that we would need to quarantine for awhile because we'd been out of state, but not that we would be apart for several months.

That grief is real, and important to acknowledge. But, even while we grieve a way of life that (for those of us with privilege) was comfortable and simpler in many ways than it is now, we have to recognize that it was comfortable because of our privilege. We didn't have to confront all that is broken every day.

And so, what can we do?

There are lots of things we can do in the midst of a pandemic, depending on how we are called to respond: share accurate health information and do what we can to minimize the spread of COVID-19; support frontline medical personnel we know and ask what we can do for them; pay attention to how the pandemic is affecting others and reach out to help as best we can (I am so grateful to all those who have reached out to my daughter via phone and mail during this time); pay attention to the inequalities the pandemic is revealing and do our part over time to alleviate those; support local businesses that have sustained deep losses.

There is much we can do, too, to respond to the murder of George Floyd and the 400 years of oppression that his murder has brought to light in a new way, depending on how we are called to respond: protest; participate in community efforts to restore neighborhoods, food and medical systems, and local businesses; engage in difficult conversations with family and friends; explain what's happening to children in a way that will empower them to work for change; donate to causes that matter most right now; amplify black voices; take time to heal.

We can also be present with those who are processing the pandemic and the death of George Floyd differently than we are. This should not be the work of people of color, but of white allies who have the capacity to engage right now. In the past three months--but especially this week--I've had what I hope have felt like respectful conversations with several people with whom I disagree about foundational issues, like how serious the pandemic is, whether or not our government is responding appropriately, and whether or not it is OK to burn and loot buildings (and which buildings) when peaceful protests aren't working. I've also, plenty of times, avoided those conversations out of weariness or fear of loss. 

We can respond to challenging words that people of color have shared with us about our role at this time--and work hard to receive those words with grace and humility. I've been challenged to stop justifying my actions because "people aren't ready" or "people aren't receptive" and to speak out against racism all the time, regardless of the risk. I know I have a lot of work to do on myself. We all do.

Floyd's death has forced our family to reckon in a way we never have before with what it means to be white, Latinx, and Native--all the identities members of my interracial family hold. As white parents, we've realized, a bit belatedly, how necessary and difficult these conversations are, especially given that our children are adoptive/foster children who have different levels of understanding and connection to their own identities. 

Each of us in my family are in a different place in terms of how we understand our role and calling in times like these, as well as what we understand about race and social justice. Our ages range from 1 (OK, the one year old doesn't know what's happening, but he is certainly feeling our stress) to 49, and our abilities to process and understand information vary, too. 

There have been violent outbursts, quiet moments of gentle disagreement, careful challenges to internalized racism and colorblindness, hard questions with no answers. I have come to realize that for those of us who are parents, regardless of our own or our children's identities, whether they are birth, foster, or adopted children, and how long we have the privilege of raising them, being in these conversations is not only part of the work we're meant to do, but maybe the most important work. 

We didn't get to this place of systemic racism by accident. We got here because too many white people were silent for too long. We need to make sure we hold sacred the life of George Floyd and the movement that has been re-ignited in its wake with care as we talk to our children and others--and keep that conversation open throughout their lives, not just right now.

But here's the thing: action is only lifegiving and sustainable if we attend to that which is in us that connects us deeply and inextricably to both George Floyd, the black man brutally killed, and Derek Chauvin, the white officer who kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes and 40 seconds while he begged for his life and called for his mother. That connecting force--call in Spirit, God, the stardust of which we are all made, whatever--is real. And holy. And, at times, terrifying. 

We have to be willing to weep, as my daughter did, and to rage, as my son did, after we explained the news in age-appropriate ways. We have to be willing to feel our feelings, regardless of who we are and what this giant transformation means for us.

We can't imagine ourselves kneeling on a man for 8 minutes and 40 seconds. If we're white/privileged, we can't imagine lying under someone's knee for that long. And yet, we can't deny that we are all bound together, because every living being in the universe is.

That connectedness does not mean that our differences are erased. It means that we can look carefully at our own hearts and know where we need to heal and grow. It means we can have empathy and compassion for those who are suffering, and even, in time, for those who inflict suffering (though I'm certainly nowhere near that point yet).

I work in a profession focused on "doing"--educating young people and helping them become informed, thoughtful citizens and working on campus-community partnerships that can make a real difference in communities while also enhancing students' education. A group of professionals across our five campuses had met several times already to talk about the University's response to COVID-19. At the most recent meeting, we shifted our conversation to focus on what we could do to "help" and "educate" in the wake of a senseless murder of a black man in our state.  

Much had already been happening. The university has been on the cutting edge of medical research. Our small campus has worked to ensure that the Spanish-speaking community receives critical COVID-19-related updates and provided online tutoring during distance learning. A community medical center affiliated with the university was helping vulnerable communities whose access to medical supplies, medications, and food had been jeopardized by the unrest after Floyd's death. Law students, working with their professors, are representing protesters pro bono. Several units across the university's five campuses are partnering to sponsor ongoing dialogue about systemic racism. And I could go on. 

In the midst of folks reporting what they had been doing or what identified needs we might be able to address, a black man in the meeting sent breaking news over the chat: Chauvin's charges had been enhanced to 2nd degree murder, and the other three officers who played a role in Floyd's death had also been charged with aiding and abetting. This was one of the protesters' top demands, and after nearly a week of protests, and hundreds (or more) black families who have not had justice after a senseless murder, it was happening.  Many of us gasped in disbelief. Some people (it's hard to tell how many on Zoom when there are three screens of participants in tiny boxes) wept.

And then, black people in the meeting began to speak. They urged us to slow down and be present in the moment. Of course, efforts for systemic change--and immediate response--are important, they said, but, as one bluntly reminded us, "We just watched a man die, and we are leaving no space for mourning here. We need to pause and take time to reflect and heal." 

This doesn't put those of us who are white off the hook, or mean we shouldn't be outraged and working for systemic change (as well as working hard on our own racism, which all of us carry within us if we are white). While yes, we're all healing from the trauma of seeing a black man die, if we're not black ourselves, we are only experiencing a fraction of the trauma black people are experiencing. 

But all of us would do well to pause a moment, and breathe. Be present with our grief--all of it--because all of our lives have been radically changed by COVID-19 and (hopefully) by George Floyd's death and the movement his death activated. 

If we do not feel real, raw grief because a man died while begging for his mother and his life, we can't move forward.

If we don't feel real, raw awe because a people have risen up to fight for their lives, even though doing so is risky, we can't move forward.

If we don't feel real, raw shame, fear, helplessness, rage--and allow ourselves to sit with those feelings and figure out what they have to teach us--we can't move forward.

I haven't done a good job of this. Much of my time throughout the last three months, and especially this last week, has been spent scouring news sources and social media to try to discern what is happening--and mobilizing as quickly as possible to use my privilege and position at my work to try to enact real change. It's important to be aware. But it's also important to take time to be fully present. 

My fear is that if we don't take the time to be present with all that is happening and with our own hearts and souls, we'll burn out, and life will go back to normal. 

We'll forget how the pandemic clarified all of our inequalities--a food system built on unsafe workplaces; a healthcare system built on the backs of front line workers who don't have what they need to treat patients and is not serving people of color well; an economy that is focused solely on what can be bought and sold to keep things as normal as possible than on how to use private resources for the public good when doing so is critical and life-saving. 

We'll forget what it felt like to watch the Twin Cities burning the day George Floyd died--the deep rage and pain on the streets that night, as well as the inspiring protests around the country in the days that followed. For a week, we felt rage and grief and empathy for the horrific and ongoing oppression of black people and a resolve to learn more and do more about systemic racism.  

Let us not forget George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and all the other black people across time and space who have been murdered.

Let us not forget the more than 100,000 Americans who have died (and continue to die) during this pandemic, a disproportionate number of them people of color.

Let us also not forget that contemplation and action--being present with our own feelings and internal work as well as with the societal change that so desperately needs to happen--is the only way we will ever create a just society. We need a society that truly honors the way we are all connected through that first big bang, that amazing unfurling, that happened 13.7 billion years ago. Reflection, healing, working on ourselves, and working on our society are not short-term calls, but lifelong calls. Let us all heed those calls for as long as we live, and not just right now, and teach our children to do the same.