Somebody stole our banner.
Have you noticed the absence of our new “Let’s Dismantle Racism” banner with the ends of the rope swaying in the wind two weeks after it had been displayed next to our sign on the corner of College and William Streets? Sometime Friday night it disappeared and a parishioner discovered its absence early Saturday morning. And yes, we did file a police report.
This seems to me further evidence of the divisiveness of our country and our City at this point in history. Whoever stole it may have miscalculated the effect, though. The reactions of everyone who’s spoken to me have been sadness first, followed by anger that someone stole our property and tried to refute our theology. In the turn-the-other-cheek spirit of our Christianity, another banner is already on order. Several people have offered to purchase a new banner, and two of them weren’t even Trinitarians.
A friend in Blacksburg told me the rainbow flag on their Presbyterian Church has already been stolen twice. He’s got the third one ready and is trying to figure out how to hang it higher. That may be a metaphor of what we need to do: Hang it higher, from a moral point of view. This is what we believe and we will continue to both proclaim it and figure out what acting on that belief means to our parish.
Our Task Force to Dismantle Racism will meet this week for the first time. It is comprised entirely of volunteers, and if anyone else wants to join, let Jim Carlock (
[email protected]
), who has agreed to convene the group, or me (
[email protected]
) know right away. Everyone must be heard as we chart new directions at Trinity.
As Robin Barrett reminded me, the theologian Richard Rohr wrote in his meditation on Monday, July 27, these words:
When we are hurt, we want to hurt back. When we are put down, we want to put down the
opponent. This is our ego’s natural defense mechanism. We all move toward the ego, and we
even solidify it as we get older if something doesn’t expose it for the lie that it is—not because
it is bad, but because it thinks it is the whole and only thing! We change from inside—from the
power position to the position of vulnerability and solidarity, which gradually changes
eve
rything.
I believe that’s what we’re seeking at Trinity, the position of vulnerability and solidarity to change everything, and the divine guidance on a path to do that.
