“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, afraid, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.”
Moving through locked doors, opening them for people’s greater consciousness, was much of Jesus’ mission as a peacemaker. He was opposed in his mission by his murderers, warmakers. Warmakers lack greater consciousness and lack peace because they are closed to other people judged as enemies and draw up plans to murder them, as they murdered Jesus. When enough human beings have been murdered, a surrender is conceded. Surrender concessions rarely enhance consciousness. War after war we unconsciously honor the soldier victor and the soldier loser and the soldier unknown. We can, instead, live as peacemakers. We can regain consciousness, be knowledgeable of the murder of Christs of our time. We can move through the locked doors of military secrets, classified documents, missing police body camera footage. We can start to deal with the violence being done to our community and thus end it. We need the guidance of peacemakers. Peacemaking is the mission of mediators and arbitrators. Mediators help people who are at a seeming locked door, move through it. The mediation process helps enhance consciousness about a conflict by generating alternatives. The process is successful when participants gain enough knowledge as to agree upon one of those alternative options. If mediation is unsuccessful – no alternative has been agreed upon – arbitration begins. Arbitration brings a settlement by the participants turning over the decision making to a knowledgeable third party. An additional peacemaking process that is fully social, is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The people who suffered, or their survivors, know that fighting and hurting and murdering were never needed and that agreeing and yielding and healing were always open doors available to the warmakers. During a Commission, the survivors tell of their ‘hands and sides pierced’ and so much worse. They seek public accountability that broadens the consciousness of warmakers and tells the truth of their wars as the survivors attempt to forgive. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions have been successful in numerous nations. A successful Commission is still ongoing in Canada where over 150,000 Indigenous children have had cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual war waged against them. The same war was waged in the U.S. The U.S. needs Truth and Reconciliation Commissions for the violence done here. In a 1980 Congressional Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Japanese Americans, succeeded in an apology, reparations, and education initiatives. A 2004, Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission lacked the needed maturity, and thus survivors of loved ones murdered while protesting the KKK, received no changes. People from Indigenous and Black communities in the U.S. have endured centuries of violence. The wounds to their ‘hands and side’ and psyche and families need to be felt. Public accountability using mediation, arbitration, truth and reconciliation are needed to enhance public consciousness of the pain still inflicted by warmakers still waging war. What is not needed is state legislatures waging war on our consciousness about such violence. A process of ignorance is underway, sometimes called “Patriotic Education.” 111 new bills in 33 states are diminishing consciousness and waging a war on education through book bans, curriculum suppression, and teacher firings. Some Patriots want “our children brought up on gentle doses of racism through their books” (Nancy Larrick study). They include law professor Daniel Subotnik who says we “must find a gentler way of promoting inclusion.” They fear truth and favor remaining ignorant behind locked doors, afraid themselves and afraid children will ‘feel the wounds to our hands and side.’ Let them. Let our children be conscious of hard truths so as to create challenging reconciliations.
“we are the adjective twin, of ‘gentle’ blame of ‘gentle’ wounding of ‘gentle’ continued ‘colonization’… We were born (and are constantly re-born) from the culturally ‘unconscious’ womb of (even ‘progressive’) white privilege… And heed this warning: We do NOT like mirrors, because clear mirrors tell… truths that inconveniently bring to consciousness… these kinds of truth that make my brother and I really… uncomfortable, because we don’t resonate with mirrors, with reflection – ’cause rather than truthfully being “set free” we like to be comfortable in our privilege… Don’t blame us, though, (and… DO silence the wailing sirens of inconvenient awakening) because we are the adjective twin, and the ‘progressive’ harm we cause is ever so ‘gentle.’” (The Adjective Twin: A Poem of Pain – Moji Agha)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, guide us in Truth and Reconciliation
Question: Of the groups to which I belong, what is the consciousness we evade in the mirror?
April 16, 2023 Gospel John 20:19-31 Second Sunday of Easter