On June 3, 2021, Michelle Norris wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post, “Germany faced its horrible past. Can we do the same?” In it, she says,

“Amnesia gets in the way of atonement in America. But amnesia is actually too benign a word because it sounds as though people just forgot about the horrors of slavery, forgot about people who were forced to work in the fields literally until their death, forgot that between 50,000 and 85,000 Africans died during their forced migration to this country in the way one forgets where they placed their car keys or their passport.

“We’ve been through more than a willful forgetting; we’ve had instead an assiduous effort to rewrite history. We’ve built monuments to traitors and raised large sums of money to place the names of generals who fought against their own country all over highways and civic buildings. We’ve allowed turncoats to become heroes…. On a personal level, this false narrative about America is another act of cruelty, even a kind of larceny.”

Forces greater than ourselves rewrite history, but when we are confronted with new information or a new perspective on old narratives, how do we respond? Do we feel guilt of shame? Do we justify or blame? Do we ignore or shut down? Being part of a learning and growing community, a Unitarian Universalist community pledging to seek the truth as well as to seek justice, requires that we do none of those things.

Instead, may we approach new information and new perspectives with curiosity, willing to open to what the new can tell us about achieving liberation and equity for all, including ourselves. May we share our feelings with strength and a willingness to grow beyond defensiveness. May we resist naming discomfort as oppression. May we accept that the journey to truth and liberation is a winding road of learning and unlearning. May you make this journey with me and with each other without fear, as you remember, today, and every day, that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.

 

Blessings, Rev. Rita