Enough Is Enough This week, we are exploring what it means to let go. When I envisioned this column, I thought I would write about what happens when we cling to ideas, people, objects, and resentments the way we cling to addictions. I thought I would share some stories from my work as a chaplain that showed the tragedy of letting go, and the gifts. Then George Floyd was killed and protests erupted around the country. I thought about what it means to be white in America, how we are not directly affected by the abuse, murder, slavery, incarceration, and other traumas that have beset black Americans for hundreds of…
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Black Lives and the Wise Fool
Beauty and My Back Yard Last week, I gave myself a gift. I sat in the shade of our back yard and watched. Not much happened. Insects fluttered past my face, a scrub jay pecked at an apple in the neighbor’s tree, a breeze touched my cheek, swallows sailed over houses. I heard traffic noises, the trilling of a bird, a dog barking, someone talking. With their blue flowers flared open, the borage plants attracted big honey bees and fat, black ones, their heads marked with yellow, their legs dabbed with the orange leavings of stamens. All this happened, and more. In places I couldn’t see, like the recesses of…