Day 39
enemy
One of the primary teachings of the faith and religion I was raised in is to “love your enemies.” I am forty-five now, and until this morning, I always, without exception, thought about this teaching in one way: I am the one who is called to love the enemy, and the enemy is someone else.
This morning I started reading a book called Native, by a Potawatomi woman. Just a few chapters into the book, I had a thought like a cold slap in the face: I am the enemy. I am not just, or even most significantly, the one called to love the enemy, but I am the enemy that so many others are struggling against.
Epiphanies are powerful realizations that align us with what is. They move us, abruptly, from certain ways of thinking and being that we have developed to avoid or cope with our darkness, into ways of thinking and being that do not deny, or simply survive our darkness, but allow us to acknowledge it so that we can transform.
This morning my epiphany leads to this:
I acknowledge that I have inherited the riches and the power of the conquerors. I am the daughter of colonists and people who twisted the most sacred teachings of my faith to justify acts of terror. My ancestors have taken advantage of their privilege to create opportunities for their children, for me. I personally have used more resources than were necessary and chosen to be a consumer rather than create a sustainable life that respects the limits of this planet. Because of my ancestry and my choices, it is not unjust to call me an enemy of this earth and so many of the creatures that inhabit it.
But at my center is a deep and dark irony that the faith which has made me the enemy of so many, is also the faith that inspires and empowers me to work toward justice, reconciliation and wholeness.
I am the enemy, but I am the enemy that seeks refuge in the love of those who have been damaged by the choices and actions of me and of my ancestors. I am the enemy that has been humbled by the suffering of those who are struggling to be heard and seen, and most of all by the suffering of this earth, which I love so dearly. I am the enemy who sees that fear leads only to more violence, and so I will not be afraid. I will reconcile myself to the truth of who I am and what I have done, and I will surrender so that I might be transformed into a person who heals and lives in peace.
I am the enemy who requires the love of this earth and of those whom I have hurt, in order to be reconciled. I am the enemy who will learn to listen first, before I bring answers, even when they are accompanied by my best intentions. I am the enemy who will practice peace, who will practice stillness…until I am like a pond that swallows stones.
For stillness and humility give birth to creativity, and creativity and intention give birth to movement, and from a movement born of stillness, humility, creativity and intention comes that mysterious and divine action that reconciles all things. Beneath this grief and guilt, I have but one deep and abiding desire: to know the incomprehensible peace and to share it with all living things.
