See, now is the acceptable time

There is an exercise on the vast menu of self-help techniques that has always appealed to my appreciation of parallel universes (see two blogs back). In it, you tell the story of your life in two ways: once emphasizing all the bad, hurtful, traumatic things that have happened to you; and again focusing on the positive. It's a great exercise in switching lenses--seeing the world accurately, yet in two completely different ways.

It has prompted me to tell you two stories about the world as it exists now. One is about a public event that represents one side of a common narrative. The other is personal and turns this narrative on its head. It also made me hopeful.

The first story is one you are all familiar with. In it, Muslims are religious fanatics with a medieval mindset that is utterly alien to us here in the West (events in the Middle East notwithstanding). Sure, there might be a few "progressive" voices, but those are mere shills for the "true" faith that is just waiting to take over the world. As witnessed in the recent Congressional hearings on Muslim "extremism" in the United States, there is a deep, yawning fear, suspicion and ignorance infecting so many people in this country and driving us-vs-them wedges that will take years, if not generations to overcome. It makes me despair because of what I know (and know I don't know) about the vast reality that is Islam, and the unwillingness to engage any form of self-reflection about the role of Christianity in the lives of those stirring up all this trouble.

The second story turns this first narrative on its head. It is about a Palestinian-American family I got to know slightly while I was in Abu Dhabi. I taught and was the adviser of the youngest son during my first year at the school, and coached the daughter in softball both years. The mom was a frequent substitute in the 6th grade, and we would chat casually whenever she was around. The children were well-adjusted and happy, and the mom was one of those people with peaceful, gentle vibe about her, despite her urbane sophistication. (She was one of the sharpest dressers on campus.) Anyway. Fast-forward to this week. K told me of a conversation our mutual friend Madame L had with the mom, who has been hired as a part-time Arabic teacher. Apparently Mrs. S. told Madame L I was the best teacher her son ever had (Z, the son, is ridiculously adorable in that corny-fool kind of middle school boy way)--then she recounted to Madame L a conversation she had with Z about my martial status sometime last year when I was still on campus. Her goofy, cheesy, 100% Arab-Muslim-Middle-East-expat son said, "Oh, mom, you know Ms. R is gay. Everyone knows that." To which his 100% Arab-Muslim mother shrugged, and one year later was singing my praises to Madame L. The daughter friended me on Facebook months ago.

Now, I did NOT know that "everyone" at my school in Abu Dhabi, including the more clueless (though very sweet) examples of middle-school boyhood, knew I was gay. Sheesh. But after I got over my surprise at that, I was heartened to the core. Because, though I don't believe in Muslim extremism or any such nonsense, I most certainly did not acknowledge the other side of the reality coin. The one that said the kind of love, openness and appreciation I know is possible from liberal Christians is also possible from liberal Muslims. I should not have doubted, yet I did. I stayed in the closet for two years and actively worried about how people would respond if they knew. The most positive--and logical--outcome never crossed my mind. It didn't occur to me that both things could be true.

At times (like now) when the world seems to be going absolutely insane, when leaders gun down their citizens in the desert, even as others destroy the rights of workers to speak for themselves by navigating barren, souless loopholes--and our Earth makes destructive ideology look like the conceit it is with trembling ground and walls of water--that it helps (a little) to think of how big reality really is. That it can contain all the grief, anger, suspicion and still have room for the other side of the story: growth, renewal, acceptance.

And there's no better season to get down into the nitty-gritty of darkness and dawn than Lent. One of the ways we have learned to deal with tsunamis, literal and figurative, through the centuries is by building rituals around the inevitable. Lent is about hunkering down in the last days of winter (when, historically, food was scarcest anyway) and giving some serious thought to suffering, sacrifice, death--right as the world is about to spring to life with all its attendant metaphors (the story of the resurrection being one of the most powerful).

Ash Wednesday was this Wednesday, and I went to get my ashes for the first time in many, many years. I'm also observing Lent intentionally for the first time in a long time (no meat, including seafood until April 24...). There was a time when I found Lent necessary but tiresome (it does make Easter, my favorite liturgical holiday, all the more joyful, but--ugh--not a single hymn in a major key for weeks). Then there came a time when I felt I living in a sort of perpetual Lent, followed, thankfully, by a time almost completely suspended from the rituals of our common life, in the desert (again, both literal and figurative), doing what people do in the desert: taking a deep breath, getting a grip, forming a plan, resting.

Now I'm back and ready to jump into Lent in a way I've never been before. Maybe it's because working in education in these dark budgetary days lends itself to contemplation of scarcity and sacrifice. Maybe because the darkness seems deeper than it has in a long time. Or maybe it's because I'm finally in a place where I know it won't last forever.