“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem” says the prophet Isaiah in chapter 40. The phrase, ‘speak tenderly’ has been coming to me regularly these last few weeks. I log onto facebook and I feel jarred and strangely defensive after reading so much aggression. Even posts that are meant to be for a greater good seem to have a twinge of attack layered in subtly or downright overtly. There’s an overall sentiment, if I’m not angry, I must be delusional/apathetic/or evil. I drive through town and someone whips around me practically blowing black smoke in my face because the speed limit wasn’t fast enough for them, I guess. There is a tension brewing and I get it, we’re stressed, 2020 is crisis after crisis, but we are only going to spin deeper into this cycle of aggression if we continue to fuel the fire, continue to point fingers. I was listening to Brene Brown recently and she brought up how our brains are not wired to handle the violence we see and hear on a regular basis through the various media- it literally puts us in fight or flight mode- even though it’s not necessarily an actual current threat to ourselves.
This last weekend I went through my hometown. The house that I spent my whole childhood in was recently sold to strangers. We drove by slowly and I watched as men were tearing up the roof, presumably to make it better, but all I wanted to do was yell out, “please, be gentle.” Later that day we went to the cemetery where many of my ancestors and relatives are buried, including my mom. The cemetery showed signs of a long, hot summer. As I gently pulled away some weeds and dusted the dirt off my mom’s tombstone with my hand, I wished I had been here earlier this year to carefully tend to this sacred spot where my mom’s body lie. I think back to the times when my babies were newborns- how I would so tenderly pass them to someone else to carry and I would hope with all my heart they would understand how precious this little life was that they were holding. I think back to when I taught Kindergarten, how I would see that same pleading in the eyes of the parents on the first day of school. Their eyes told me- please watch out for this child, please know you’re holding a piece of my very own heart in your classroom. I then imagine God, with that same pleading hope, handing me my babies, my friends, the earth, whispering to me, please, please understand how precious these gifts are, please be gentle with them, tender with them, treat them with the same reverence you treat your precious ones.
I have been often sucked into anger and frustration this year. I’ll admit I’ve even, at least temporarily, been angry at particular scapegoats, particular populations that I decided were the culprit of my anger, especially when it comes to politics. Some are called to righteous anger, however, maybe right now a lot more of us are called to tender compassion. If we can remember that whether it is our God giving us this earth or a parent giving us their (maybe grown up) child, somewhere there is a voice whispering, “speak tenderly.”
This was beautiful, thank you for sharing. Xx00