Not Really the End of Innocence

My writing took a turn not too long ago.

I enjoy slices of life that inspire and teach. While I don’t see that changing any time soon, there’s an urgency – maybe even a calling – to point my focus and virtual pen in a different direction in this historical moment.

In the past several weeks I’ve been digging deeper, looking at my own silence and complicity (they naturally go hand-in-hand) around the current political, social, economic and racial state of affairs here at home.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing my level best to facilitate useful conversations with other men I’m in community with, particularly around anti-racism, which my small community and I are learning together…

Turning outward from a whole mess of inner work, I’ve witnessed a blizzard of raging, childlike denials of things that, from what I can see, are very, very real…

Particularly vivid examples from the past week include:

• An Ohio state representative shouting at his constituents “STOP GETTING TESTED!!” on Facebook, because not getting tested is surely what makes pandemics go away…

• A couple in Martinez, CA, painting over a Black Lives Matter street mural because “not in my town!” and if we cover the yellow lettering, that conclusively proves there’s no such thing as systemic racism…

• And the usual off-the-rails subway conductor, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, bloviating against Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost her legs when her helicopter was shot down in combat. In one of his signature tirades, Carlson stated that people such as Senator Duckworth “actually hate America,” because only people who watch and agree with him can ever be true patriots and lovers of their country…

Alrighty, then.

(Sidebar: I know Rupert Murdoch’s Fox sends Carlson home with a fat paycheck for kindling and stoking the flames of divisiveness and fear every show – but I do wonder what Carlson puts in his coffee each morning to keep his conspiratorial imagination lit up…)

All of these examples – and so many more – come together to form a strange, whack-a-mole moving landscape of denial and obfuscation.

Watching it is like seeing gangs of whiny children melting down in the face of a desperately uncertain future, having suddenly discovered they will no longer enjoy the comforting presence of the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus or the Great Pumpkin – because they never really existed in the first place.

The ultimate expression of privilege is living in a bubble that allows you to not see and pay attention to the pain, suffering – and needs – of those in the world outside…

Or right next door.

Running right along-side, perhaps heading for a privilege photo-finish, is enabling behavior that widens the gap of separation and amps up the intensity of willful blindness, transforming it into denial. It turns previously translucent windows – through which one could at least see blurry shadows that might lead to recognition and empathy – completely opaque.

It kills curiosity…

And empathy dies when curiosity dies.

One of my favorite stories is that of the Buddha’s Chariot rides.

I’ll give you the (shorter, far-less-complete-than-even-the) Cliff-Notes version:

Siddhartha Gautama’s father didn’t want him to know that many things outside the palace walls were not the stuff of courtly luxury and ease…

Nonetheless, in his late twenties, Prince Siddhartha went on a series of chariot rides…

On those rides the Prince saw death, poverty and sickness for the first time…

He also saw a holy man…

Because his chariot rides got him out from behind the palace walls and he was finally able to see the suffering, pain, death – and holiness – that had always been there anyway (even though his dad went out of his way to enable him seeing only the luxury of the palace) Siddhartha found a path to enlightenment, becoming a Buddha.

The end.

Well, except for that whole epilogue that includes the actual path to enlightenment and, of course, the spread and impact of the Buddha’s teachings on the world…

Here’s the thing – there was little chance of growth – or the possibility of responsibility – had the Prince remained behind the palace walls…

Arguably Dad, with his distorted good intentions, did Siddhartha no favors by shielding him from the world’s suffering.

With that, how are painting over a permitted mural, shouting at people not to get tested for a potentially deadly virus – or telling people not to listen to a Purple-Heart decorated veteran and senator all that different from trying to keep a prince walled off from reality in a cushy, privileged palace?

As far as I can tell, they really aren’t…

They all represent building, maintaining or reinforcing forms of walls between people and/or potentially useful – and life-saving – information and knowledge.

Right now, we’re seeing a whole lot of push-back from corners uncomfortable with –even terrified by – the change that’s upon us and its inherent growth pains…

And as a culture that’s attached to and characterized by its own oft distorted feel-good youthful (adolescent, actually) attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, we do not do well with discomfort.

As I’ve written about a number of times in the past couple of months, not looking at the uncomfortable stuff – inclusive of our individual roles, unconscious biases and the uglier, bloodier aspects of our own national and regional histories – doesn’t diminish it or make it go away.

Just as denial of gravity won’t stop a dropped jar from falling and shattering on a hard floor, angrily painting over a mural, not getting tested or pretending a decorated soldier and public servant “hates” the country they lost their legs serving will not make any of the issues at hand magically vanish.

Denial will, however, prolong and sharpen the very pain one is attempting to avoid.

Does willingness to look and acknowledge hold the promise of instant healing and redemption…?

Of course not. That only happens in fairy tales and Hollywood…

This is not really the end of our innocence. It’s too late for that…

And as James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

Healing hurts sometimes…

But the temporary ache and itch of wounds knitting together sure beats the alternative…