Blog Archives - trish hermanson

Fear (Not?)

8/25/2017

Instead of relaxing in the rhythm of the elliptical machine at the rec center, I’m tightening up from scenes flashing on the TVs ahead of me. On one suspended monitor, white supremacists and neo Nazis clash with anti-protesters. On another, carnage in Barcelona and saber rattling between the U.S. and North Korea. Back to the first TV: the U.S. opioid epidemic; police violence; health care insurance in tatters. Has the world gone mad?
     I plug in my music to drown out the news, and the lyrics from a century-old song seep through my mind:
     “This is my Father's world.
     O let me ne'er forget
     That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
     God is the ruler yet.”
     What a reminder - the Supreme Commander of all history, who has the power to blot out the sun and bring it back, will some day cause justice to roll like a river.
     My breathing slows. I step down from the elliptical. My influence in this crazy planet is minuscule. But I’m not powerless. My neighbor has this huge landscape project. Our family can help with that, and it will make her world better.
Maybe that's enough for today.

Me Racist?

8/18/2017

I knew I could easily point my finger at swaggering neo Nazi/white supremacists for being racist. But what about me, a nice white American? Do I unknowingly give off an air of racial superiority that insults minorities?
So I asked two African American friends about the racial pain they’ve endured, hoping to learn from them. They revealed the trauma of how some people, who wouldn’t call themselves racist, wound them.
     It’s usually unintended little barbs, one said, like someone declaring, “You talk so eloquently, you sound like you’re white.” Or slapping him on the back and announcing, “You’re a good black guy.” Or believing it’s okay to banter with a racial joke. Or thinking it’s a compliment to tell him, “I’d be honored if you dated my daughter.”
     Sometimes it’s uglier. “You minorities ought to get your act together.” Or at an organization where my other friend is a member, the president tries to energize members by claiming, “We wouldn’t be so reserved if we weren’t all white.” (My friend winces. “It’s like he’s saying blacks act like apes. It’s rude.”)
     I swallowed slowly. “So how can we, who are white, do better?”
     They were silent, then spoke with carefully chosen words. And trained by habit to be gracious, they didn’t reveal any of my cultural sins. One encouraged me to listen, listen, listen. The other suggested that opening up more safe conversations like this would be good “to better understand what a big deal the pieces of each other’s lives are.”
  Our time ended. I thanked them and left, breathless and busted. And I wondered, when others ignite my hotspots, will I be as generous as they are? And when I point a finger and call out evil as evil - as I should - will I remember that three fingers are pointing back at me?

(Image above is a detail from Michelangelo's Last Judgment)

How I Traded Lives

8/11/2017

In the parking lot of the market I bend over and pick up a note that’s folded in half. A shopping list, perhaps dropped on the way into the store, on stationery with a birdhouse and flowers. Must be a woman’s, I think. Only two food items on it: melon and avacado (misspelled). Must be for a social event. But next on the list - a brace, six pins, four long screws. Someone’s hurt! Something’s broken!
     I can’t help whoever is hurt. Or use the pins and four long screws for who knows what. But I can buy the food items on the list. So call me crazy (Duane does), but I buy a canary melon for $2.66 and four avocados for $1.92.
     At home, I cut into the melon and avocados, then raise a spoon in a toast to someone I don’t know. I briefly trade lives through a stranger’s shopping list. And I wonder whether my life is all that different from this unknown person. Sometimes, I’ve tasted sweet treats. Other times, I’ve needed to be patched together with braces and pins and screws.
  That’s how life comes - the good and the bad on the same shopping list.

Got More Misery?

8/4/2017

Even though I blogged last week about the pain of resentment, I’m still wrestling with how hard forgiveness is. A reader wrote me he’s in the middle of forgiving a friend of 53 years. “I’ll overlook a lot to keep a relationship going,” he says. “Grudges weigh too much, and I don’t need any extra weight.”
Nor do I. Yet I let grudges weigh me down. I may take a first step toward forgiveness by choosing to pardon, what Denver counselor Dr. Michael Ballard calls the “decisional” phase of forgiving. But what trips me up is the huge backpack of emotions I lug around. How can I unload them? When I don’t, I fall into a tar pit of misery, hurting myself way more than the original offense committed against me.
What helps me to unload the bricks in my backpack is to remind myself that my creator God could have turned his back on me when I turned my back on him. But he didn’t. In the same way, I shouldn’t turn my back on others, but extend forgiveness. This may not restore trust and friendship, but it’s a start.
How do you unload your backpack of tough emotions so they don’t weigh you down?