The movement of anger and cry for action can be heard in city streets across America. People are hurting tremendously as racism continues to press the nation on her neck. The begging plea of of George Floyd ignored by the white officer who had his knee pressed on his neck now powerfully chanted as the cry for help reverberates across the nation. The faith of the people in the system is broken and it is almost a default to express pain in anger, as well as in violence. Rage in people’s jaws streamed down to their hands seeking for both justice and power. As some protests turn into chaos, the security system in place has failed to gain control. It is not a new revelation that racism has poisoned many individuals and systems in America. However, the symbolic failure of the system in the case of George Floyd has birthed a movement and a counter-system that hopes to accomplish change. The results of this movement will be judged eventually. But what do we, as midwives who are called to hold a space for others, do for the time being?
In a given crisis situation chaplains attend to people who are hurting because their bio-physical, socio-relational, economic, belief, or political system has failed them. The theme of our vocation as chaplains is to “be” with those who are “hurting” and/or who are “in crisis”. No system is fool-proof. When the system fails to deliver then people get hurt. With such orientation we are reminded that we are not here to fix the broken system but to accompany those who are suffering as they navigate their way back to healing in times of chaos. Many hurting communities and individuals in America are now in disarray. As adults, the incomprehensible loss of our innocence also leads us to a misfortune of not knowing. Leaving our innocence behind we no longer know how to say ouch and how to express our ouch in a healing way. It’s has been easier to press someone on his neck or burn a building down than let our vulnerability speak. People long lost the ability to listen. Also, we have long lost the freedom to communicate through our vulnerability, therefore fearing the less traveled path that leads to healing.
This is the point where I would like to appeal to my fellow chaplains who are trained in birthing someone’s story to step up to the plate. Let us be present in the midst of the chaos and make room for emptiness. Let’s hold a a sacred passage to help our community breathe their painful stories. It is in empty spaces where people can discover the profound meaning of their own pain, feel their own tears, and identify that they are not alone. It is in emptiness that people could breathe freer and start seeing that even those across the aisle are just like them in their own respective pains. Our symbolic pager is now going off. We are being called to respond because the respiratory system of our society is failing. Let us be where people are, be courageous in facing the thick cloud of darkness, and do what we’ve been trying to do best: to be lovingly present at the edge of the suffocating unknown.
In my vulnerability I want to cry, scream, and even rage against my powerlessness over the injustice all around me. Boldly looking at my own pain and shame underneath the rage, dealing with it in therapy, or through art, or in nature, seems more of a risk and more vulnerable. Making space for someone else‘s pain, and holding it gently, is the true gift I can bring as a chaplain, – if I am courageous enough to do my own emotional process before my chaplaincy encounter. Then there can truely be the sacred and healing intimacy of holding space for another.
Christiane thank you for your authenticity and vulnerability. It’s tough to hold a space for others if we also need someone to hold a space for us. We will also try to create that space for chaplains and care providers. Let’s stay connected.
The title of your reflection grabbed me with golden threads that I could not break away from. “Chaplain, I can’t breathe!” how many times have I heard these words? how many times they have been a grabbing thread that remind me of my own desperate gasping attempts to get some air? How can I hold the space for someone, when I gasp with them? When the very real knee of injustice, inequality, and pure unadulterated racism become the new celebrated normal in the form of a wrongly called nationalism. I want to scream, I want to do something, but I am paralyzed by the weight of my own feelings. The divide seems sadly all too familiar, I’ve seen this before, I ran away from it in 2000 with 11 pieces of luggage and a heart heavy for the ones I left behind in my beloved Venezuela. My question to me now is, will I escape again? where would I go? In the meantime, I just keep on hearing the words and accepting my own incapabilities, but trusting that my unsure presence will bring some sort of hope.
Being there for someone is not enough. Only fixing it is enough. To be, and to be there powerlessly…what is the point? I’m with the symbolic people under the altar in Revelation 6 crying out, “How long?” When will enough be enough? I don’t want anybody to just be with me while I struggle to breathe under the crushing knee of oppression. I want someone who can get rid of the one kneeling on my neck. Talking pretty ain’t really helpful when someone is asphyxiating.
Thank you Ivan for sharing. Maybe you can include this topic in one of ACM chaplains support group debriefings that you are running. I would like to rally chaplains to, first, make sure we are being ministered upon as we are affected by this chaos , and second, to go back in the battlefield to be the non-anxious presence in the midst of this crisis. Let’s keep exploring how to make this happen.
we can “be” with folk in their anger, in their disillusionment, in their rage. our being there is also to be a calming presence. for lack of another word, we remind ourselves and others to breathe, slowly. and let the anger flow out of us. I am learning these days that I connect most of my anger to experiences in my formative years and needs to make peace with myself and my past.
Chaplain, I can’t breathe reminds me that there are so many things in my life that is suffocating and I have to learn to forgive to live.
Alive but I Still Can’t Breathe! Minneapolis Revisited.
On May 27, 2020, I received a cartoon which had two people in it. One was a cop, and the other was a grade school black boy both sitting next to each other at a bar. The cop turned to the little boy and asked him, “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” The little boy stared at him and said “Alive.” The officer fell silent.
That little boy’s response resonated with me in ways that I and others like him still feel now. And I am tired. Just think about it after more than 400 suffocating’ years here ‘We Still Can’t Breathe?’
No wonder they say talk without real action is cheap. So please do me a favor, go and find out what “Alive” really means to me, because I may not have the 8 minutes 49 seconds left to breathe let alone answer, should you return.