our culture of blame

Last week my kids had a long Fall Break, and we had saved in order to go the beach with my sister’s family. We came into Saturday exhausted, needing rest and the stillness that comes when days are shared with people easy to love. Bikes strapped on our Suburban, we jumped on the road to head south from Nashville. Smooth sailing, we drove toward the week of rest we felt we deserved.

Until we stopped sailing all together, and basically parked on the interstate.

My phone—full of angrily texting friends—confirmed that traffic was horrible the whole way. Worse than ever before. Ridiculous. Unbelievable and maybe even unsurvivable. We thought their passion was a little much until we realized the mess lasted hundreds of miles. Visions of our perfect vacation vanished as we faced the seemingly real possibility that we would never get to the beach.

We went through the 5 stages of traffic grief:

Denial: Oh, this cannot be that bad. Traffic will pick up soon. We will still get there for dinner.

Anger: WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HELL IS HAPPENING?? Who are all these people and why on earth are they on MY interstate on a Saturday?

Bargaining: There has to be another way. Pull up Google maps. Pull up Waze. Ask Siri. CB a trucker. There has to be a new route to the location we go to all the time and know all the ways to…

Depression: This is the worst trip of my life. Why are we even going? Nothing can make this worth it.

Acceptance: The kids seem to be handling this better than we are. At least we aren’t using a AAA Triptik! We will get there, and we do have options. We should have realized that we aren’t the only people going south for Fall Break.

As we progressed through these stages, I decided it was everyone else’s fault that we were prevented from getting what we wanted. I blamed the other cars, the state of Alabama, the police, the road workers and any parent taking their child to the beach (myself excluded). We belonged on this road, and they did not. We had earned a vacation, and they had not. Our needs were more authentic than their needs.

This delusional and un-self-aware rant offered me a small sense of self-righteous comfort until I remembered our large and heavy-laden bike rack.

To everyone around us, we were the obnoxious folks who were congesting the states of Alabama and Florida. We had no right to be there, but were visiting tourists ruining the day of every local who saw our bike tires spinning. We were not victims of the problem. We were the problem. Our family and our car added the increased volume that now clogged the interstate. I could blame others all I wanted, but my bike rack served as a giant neon arrow, telling every other annoyed driver that it was our fault. 

We are hard wired to instinctively choose our side, to defend ourselves, to view our efforts sympathetically. These instincts keep us safe and defend our ground, but they also blind us to our faults. If unchecked, our need to advocate for ourselves leads us to blame or even attack others, seeing them as the problem, while we are innocent victims. When we are blind to our metaphorical bike racks, we cannot see the connections we share with others who are in the same boat. We cannot grieve together or work collaboratively if we spend our energy blaming others instead of recognizing the ways we have contributed to the breakdown of society.

Rather than blaming others for what a trainwreck our world/country/city/neighborhood has become, it is productive and helpful to examine our own behaviors and habits for how we contribute to the dysfunction we loathe. If I feel stuck in a world of selfish interests and ignorant ranting, I should take a look at my own words and actions before blaming “those people.”

 Most faith traditions create rituals around the need to confess our own shortcomings as we try to atone for our contribution to the blocking of shared flourishing. In Islam, the idea of ‘tawbah’ teaches adherents to repent of mistakes and to return to God. In the Judaic Torah, Yahweh instructs God’s people to repent of their sins by making sacrificial atonement. Indeed, we are in the midst of Judaism’s High Holy Days, which culminate with the ‘ten days of repentance’, a time set aside for the faithful to consider their actions and then seek forgiveness from anyone they have wronged. On Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, the ten days of reflection, confession and repentance are completed with the atonement as God forgives and accepts a person for the year ahead.

Jesus modeled this need to acknowledge the way our choices can hurt ourselves and others when he included confession in the prayer that taught his followers to pray. As a person who tries to embody the teaching of Jesus, I have to remind myself that the kind forgiveness of God invites me to take full responsibility for all the hurt I cause. When I refuse to do so, like so many of my peers, I cause problems while blaming others for the damage. If people of faith would make humble confession their starting point for each day (instead of self-righteous accusation), our society would come together on a foundation of compassionate inclusion. We would understand how our frustrations or fears connect us, tapping into the abundance found when success is shared instead of hoarded. 

The globe’s leading religions remind us that we are all capable of hurting others. (It is also helpful to note that we can cause trouble for ourselves and others without even recognizing our participation. Stuck in traffic, blaming everyone around me, I would not admit that I contribute to the problem.) The rituals embedded deeply in each of these religions remind us that unless we curate a habituated practice of reflection and confession, we will deny the impact of our actions. If we do not learn to admit the ways we contribute to our shared suffering, we will continue to stay in our misery, blaming everyone around us for our pain even as we withdraw from communities who share in our suffering.

Perhaps the world religions are on to something, and we should learn to acknowledge our own bike racks. Rather than assuming our actions are noble as we accuse others of slowing our success, we might strengthen a commitment to those around us by seeing our position for what it is: Like so many folks, we are exhausted, in need, and capable of blaming others for our discomfort even as we cause discomfort for others.

a prayer for the people

A few months ago I was asked to do the Prayers of the People at my church, and I’m publishing them here, with a few tweaks. I am not often explicit about my faith in these essays, although my understanding of God’s movement toward us with sacrifice, redemption and hope informs all aspects of my engagement with the world. If you are not a fan of Christians, I pray these words will remind you that God is poorly reflected in the people who claim God (maybe don’t blame God because we are the worst?). If you are a person determined to follow Christ, I pray you will remember the way of Christ asks us to sacrifice our privilege, not to hoard it. In any case, these prayers remind me that my love for others is greatly enhanced by prayer. If you find yourself frequently rolling your eyes at humanity, consider beginning a practice of prayer (Perhaps this one can get you started).

Lord, you are the Creator of Life, the Sustainer of our communities, the One through whom we move and live and have our being. You are powerful and strong, and you are gentle and good. You are the God who shows us that strength takes us into vulnerability, for you did not grasp your power, but divested yourself of it by becoming a person. You are the God who shows us that independence serves the community, for you did not establish your kingdom alone, but you allowed a handful of friends to walk with you, imitating you and bearing witness to the salvation and restoration you brought them. I praise you for being a God who puts power aside, who invites us to approach you, who asks us to live lives that bear witness to your name. You are such a good God, and we praise you.

 Lord, our world has learned to accept a status quo of war and fear. I pray that your kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. I pray that you would change the hearts of leaders who sow hatred instead of love, and fear instead of peace. We pray for the people of Syria, for those who live in the Korean peninsula and along the Israeli/Palestinian border, for those who fear kidnappings and violence. We pray for people who live in poverty across the world, who are oppressed by the greed of others. We pray that you would draw close to those with nothing, that you would teach those of us with global power to use our power to value the lives of others.

Lord, I pray for our nation as we struggle with gun violence and fear. I pray that you would whisper into our hearts your common refrain, “Do not fear,” that you would teach us to replace fear with trust, so that all communities know they are valuable to their elected officials and their police forces. I pray for the brave men and women who faithfully work to keep all of us safe. I pray that you would give those who serve in the Congress, Senate, White House, and Supreme Court a deep conviction that they have been given authority in order to serve all the people, including those with little. That our leaders would be like you, resisting power in order to become a servant. I pray for those on the Eastern seaboard who are fleeing the wind and rain of Hurricane Florence. Protect them and plant their feet and families on solid ground.

 Lord, I pray for Nashville as we elect leaders and vote on our priorities. I pray that we could rally to care for each other the way we rallied to cheer on the Preds. We are blessed Lord by wealth and belonging, and it is so easy to forget those who live below the poverty line or who are marginalized by their race, nationality or gender. Lord, I pray that our local leaders in city hall, churches, neighborhoods and schools would begin to embody your command that we love others like ourselves. Teach us what it means to advocate for others, so that we would speak out for kids who are hungry, for families who are displaced by gentrification, for people who are treated as drains on society.  Help us be imitators of you as we learn to build bigger tables with more seats around them. Help us learn to be inclusive in our schools and neighborhoods, so that every person is welcomed with your dignifying, eternal claim: that we all belong to you.

 Lord I pray for churches all across Nashville who are teaching their people what it means to love others in the name of Jesus. For Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church, who is bringing resources and jobs to young people in North Nashville. For Tabernacle of Glory, who is teaching people in the 12th South area how to talk about our history and present tensions with race as we honor the image of God in every person.  I pray for Strong Tower Bible Church, who is partnering with Salama Urban Ministries to bring resources to poor families in South Nashville. These partnerships imitate your partnership with our church, as you have called us to be people who honor the name of Christ by remembering and caring about all the communities of Nashville. I pray that you would continue to teach us how to serve our neighbors, that our name would remind people that you are a God who binds up the broken hearted and comforts those who hurt.

 As we enter a time of corporate confession, Lord I confess that I am often selfish. We have built lives and communities of privilege, so that we don’t have to see brokenhearted people who struggle to make ends meet. Forgive us for forgetting about them. Forgive us for not believing a problem exists because it is not our problem. Forgive us for protecting a status quo that treats us well while oppressing people around us. Forgive us for believing the lie that there is an us and a them. Forgive us for getting defensive when we see the pain and marginalization of people different than us, and teach us to find compassion instead. Forgive us for being peacekeepers, who like things as they are, instead of peacemakers, who are willing to sacrifice our resources so that others can experience the dignity of jobs, affordable housing, engaging schools, and dependable healthcare. Forgive us for loving our surplus, for loving ourselves more than our neighbors.

 You created all that there is, God, and you show your love for us by asking us to create beauty along with you. You are eternal, constantly renewing, and you show us your love by reminding us that we are also eternal beings, called to find sustainable ways to live, to keep talking and sharing, and to keep finding ways to live well with those around us. As your good friend and disciple John said, if we love you we ought to live and walk the way you did. Expose us, invite us, break us, transform us. Amen.