Day 65
deconstruction
There’s a movement among young religious people today, where, as they try to grapple with and maybe either exit or re-enter the faith practices they were raised with, they are choosing to de-construct what they were taught. There are lots of reasons for this, but I’m not as interested in those as I am in the act itself.
These last two weeks there has been a lot of talk about disruption and change. I am so excited to see the energy, even the angry energy, that has taken hold and is demanding a shift. It has inspired me to extend the deconstruction of my religion and faith to the deconstruction of my whiteness and privilege.
The beautiful thing about the word “deconstruction” is that it contains in it the word destruction and construction. So, for me, I think deconstructing is not just destroying, but also constructing something new. Lately I feel like I’ve left a space where I was carefully removing, brick by brick, the things that were keeping me from engaging my faith, my community, my country, etc. and now I’m in a phase where I’m swinging a sledgehammer.
I am realizing there are whole walls that need to come down.
This is scary, exposing, upsetting, etc. I just keep thinking though, that I truly want to be a person who is open, loving and protective of all humanity and not just the parts of humanity that I’m comfortable with (and I want to be clear here that I am not just sometimes uncomfortable around people of other races, religions and backgrounds, but I am often uncomfortable around people who are extremely poor, or in a tremendous amount of pain, or mentally ill, or terminally ill, or expressing rage or hate.) If I want this, I think I have to take most of my life down to the studs.
I am hopeful that once I am done with the sledgehammer and have taken out the trash, I will find a community that I can work with to construct a better shelter for us all.
