St. George and the Compartments
In some ways, the Summer of 2020 now seems like ages ago, especially for those of us who have no daily reminders of how painful it was to watch cities burn and the social fabric of a nation erupt in division. In truth, it wasn’t very long ago at all. I don’t know about you, but part of how I coped with everything that I saw and experienced during that time was through compartmentalization. I allowed myself to feel the emotion of it, but only to a degree. When it got to be too painful, I would shut it off and put it in the compartment labeled “I’ll deal with this later.” We were in the midst of a developing pandemic in which there were so few answers and more questions every day. On top of all the social and political unrest, the numbers of those who were perishing as a result of Covid was steadily climbing and no one knew what was ahead. It was an unprecedented time.
As soon as I climbed into the car to be a part of yesterday’s pilgrimage to George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, I inadvertently opened the “I’ll deal with this later” compartment. We were halfway there when the dormant pain and sadness over what happened that Summer reached the surface, and I spent the next few hours sorting through all the feelings and emotions that were too deep to take on at that time. They hadn’t gone anywhere, and they came out in quiet tears and mourning. In the midst of processing all of these things in such a sacred space, I was struck with how much of a luxury it was for me to even have the option to be there and deal with my issues. Here I was, processing my pain, in a neighborhood that I probably wouldn’t have been caught dead in before the murder of George Floyd. A little window into my white privilege opened and I felt the tone of my mourning change. The depths of what I was dealing with suddenly felt shallow and eclipsed by a deeper wound on humanity itself.
That’s what I saw at George Floyd Square. A startling wound on humanity that has been transformed into a memorial of protest, prophecy, and beauty. My own pain wasn’t diminished, but it was joined to a common pain and put into perspective. I was standing at ground zero for a movement full of people who have no other choice but to fight for their own survival because they themselves have been and continue to be compartmentalized by the society in which they live. Those compartments have labels like “Your life doesn’t matter”, “You aren’t part of the whole” and even, “You aren’t human.” There are no words that will adequately describe the atmosphere in George Floyd Square. “Holy” is a good start. “Disquieting” is another. If you get a chance, make a pilgrimage there and find your own words to deal with those things you aren’t even aware that you don’t know. No more compartments.