Call and Response
I went to a Lenten service for ceasefire that was led in front of the White House today. First there was a Catholic Mass and then an ecumenical service.
I sometimes participate in religious rituals outside of my own, as a way of honoring our shared and diverse experience of being.
This is the first time I have gone to a Christian service on Ash Wednesday. No ashes for me. I was willing to, however, to participate in the invitation to participate in a call and response. The speaker listed the heinous atrocities that our tax dollars are funding, and the response was the acknowledgment that “I have blood on my hands.”
I’m still complicit even if I am letting those with power know that I do not agree, although that is better than being silent. One of the religious speakers suggested that repentance does not mean regret. It means acknowledgement and a change of behavior.
Last week, when I said to a colleague, “see you Tuesday,” she replied, “where are you going?” It was as if simply to enjoy where I live or rest or quietly take care of house and garden was not within the range of possibility. Is it that I am somehow not worthy if I have not planned to do something I could talk about when I returned to the office? Or is it that pervasive societal sense that happiness lies only in finding new and more experience?
