Be brave, brave, brave
In the past week I have been part of many conversations, as I’m sure you can imagine. The election of Donald Trump, for a second time—knowing this time exactly who he is, what he has done, and what he has promised to do—has been upsetting in so many ways. As the “token Canadian” I feel very inadequate to speak to the experience of Americans right now. The right-wing conservatism that is spreading around the northern hemisphere with its misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and, frankly, death, is certainly affecting me and mine in Canada, too. But we haven’t had our reckoning. Yet.
As I have listened, I’ve noticed that the overwhelming experience people describe has not been anger. It has been fear. On the day after the election I was on a call with our community, and each person took a turn weeping and expressing their fears for their own safety and the safety of those they love. Because people will die from violence and lack of medical care. Children will be orphaned. Our planet will continue to suffer and burn even worse than it is today. Those who fight for human rights will be imprisoned, lose jobs, and be killed.
In his book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, tells the story of when he met Rosa Parks. He was invited by his friend Johnnie Carr, one of the key architects of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, to listen in on a conversation with her dear old friend, Rosa Parks. Both women were giants of the civil rights movement, and he listened to them talk and laugh for a long afternoon. Finally Ms. Parks asked Bryan about his work. He recited his many projects under the Equal Justice Initiative: stopping the death penalty, freeing the wrongly convicted, ending unfair sentencing and racial bias in criminal justice, improving legal defense for the poor, helping people who are mentally ill, ensuring young offenders are not tried as adults, ending poverty, educating about racism, and confronting the abuse of power.
Ms. Parks leaned back, smiling. “Ooooh, honey, all that’s going to make you tired, tired, tired.” We all laughed. I looked down, a little embarrassed. Then Ms. Carr leaned forward and put her finger in my face and talked to me just like my grandmother used to talk to me. She said, “That’s why you’ve got to be brave, brave, brave.”*
As a cis-gendered white, bisexual woman, I’ve faced my share of prejudice, but nothing like what is to come. And it will be so much worse for people far more marginalized than I am. There is time for fear, grief, rage, and, we must remember, a time, many times, to be “brave, brave, brave.”
Living when and where I do, I rarely need to preach about being persecuted. If anything, I have to remind myself and my neighbours that we are not being persecuted, just disagreed with. So I tend to ignore these last lines of the Beatitudes in Matthew,
Blessed are those who work for peace,
they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted
because of their struggle for justice:
the kindom of heaven is theirs.
“You are fortunate when others insult you and persecute you, and utter every kind of slander against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward in heaven is great; they persecuted the prophets before you in the very same way.
“You are the salt of the earth.” (Matthew 5:9-13 The Inclusive Bible)
A reward in heaven, frankly, doesn’t mean much to me in the face of so much suffering in my present. That being said, I am grateful that Jesus places me and us in the line of the persecuted prophets, and that by being “blessed,” God’s solidarity with us is assured. It also helps to notice that Jesus is talking to a crowd, a community. Together, we struggle for justice, work for peace, and, together, we are blessed.
When Jesus continues with the statement about being salt, I hear Ms. Carr telling Bryan, “You’ve got to be brave, brave, brave.” The whole point of salt is to last a very long time. The call of justice requires us to do the same. To survive, to last, to sustain.
As we continue to process, wherever we are across the world, and together as a community, it might help to ask ourselves, “When did I last feel brave?” “What or who makes me feel braver?” That will be our salt. I always find my courage when I am working with others, especially as part of a movement. Let’s do it together. We can start by collecting our salt.
*Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (p. 293). Random House Publishing Group. 2014.
