Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

UU Collective

Home
New Visions
Heartbroken in America

Heartbroken in America

Last updated on: December 18, 2014 at 11:49 am by David Breeden

Heartbroken in America 2014-12-18T11:49:37-07:00 David Breeden

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This week my guest blogger is Jim Foti, the assistant minister at the congregation I serve. He delivered a version of this reflection over the weekend.

We hold in our hearts the United States, as our country continues to fail to extend to all the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We are a nation that still has not healed from our original wounds of conquest, genocide, and slavery. We are a nation also still wounded and grieving from the attacks of 2001, when we lost not an imaginary innocence, but rather a significant portion of an already compromised moral compass. We have turned much of that very real grief and fear into anger and misdirected violence, at catastrophic cost to the world and to ourselves.

Our country continues to fail to see all people as part of humanity, instead relying on the brutal and inaccurate shorthands of skin color, religion, language, nationality, and gender to devalue and deprive, and it continues to uphold systems that further concentrate power and wealth. The Latino and Latina farm workers enduring forms of neo-slavery, the African-Americans still living the legacies of segregation and now facing massively unequal incarceration and a loss of voting access, the victims of a staggering program of US-sponsored torture — all these groups and many more have in common that they are not white, not Euro-American, not in power.

We grieve for a country where these things are possible, where torture is supported by a majority of the population. We grieve a country where violence is still viewed as a redemptive force in the face of incalculable evidence to the contrary. We grieve for a country where so much fear persists between tens of millions of citizens and those charged with protecting them.

We grieve for a country where greed is mistaken for freedom, and where that greed fuels the wars, the tribalism, and climate change, where that greed fuels the neo-slavery, the mass incarceration, and the expansion of poverty. We have become a country where even torturers are rewarded as millionaires.

We grieve these parts of our country, yet our country also has given so many gifts to so many people — a country that has allowed the blossoming of countless religious traditions, a country that has given millions upon millions better lives, a country rich in beauty and bounty and human flourishing and potential as yet unrealized.

May we find a way forward, a way forward from this heartbreak — a heartbreak whose existence proves that all humanity within and among us is not lost.

We know that we will never live in a world with no violence, but we could live in a country with less violence — there are people and places that can show us the way.

We can, should, and must be a country that does not torture.

We can be a country without enormous, greed-fueled disparities in how African-Americans live. And we can be a country without enormous, violence-fueled disparities in how African-Americans die. When life and liberty are not secure, the pursuit of happiness becomes a dream that explodes.

We are a country of mass distraction, a country where the comfortable can decide not to look or see or do anything. But our country must look and see and listen, and acknowledge its realities.

That is where our work has begun, by looking, by seeing, by bringing reason and reality into the public square and onto the streets. By embodying love and making it visible. By listening with humility to those whose lives are different from our own. By finding ways to move from sympathy to solidarity. By knowing when to follow.

Hope is a choice, an action, a way of being. May our compassion, our generosity, our voices, and our deeds be gifts to our country and our world — gifts to a human race so wounded and so in need. May it be so.

Previous Post

December 16, 2014

Don't Let the Light Go Out

Next Post

December 23, 2014 Healing in the darkness...

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category #9/11 Abortion Class community conflict Digital Life Diversity Divorce Environmental issues Evangelism Faith Development Foregiveness Garden glbt Gratitude Grief Healing health care Holidays Hospitality Interfaith LGBT Issues Military Service Mortality Orlando Parenting Peace Politics Power Prayer Racism Relationships Religion Scripture Senior citizens Sermons simplicity Social Justice Spirituality Sports Sustainability Uncategorized Unitarian Universalist Values Women's Issues World Community Worship

Select a Month August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who told Saul, "To obey is better than sacrifice"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

David Samuel Eli Nathan