Witness

Most of what I write is glorified hand-wringing. I can admit it. I know it won’t accomplish anything and I still do it. It’s a habit now, I guess.

Thing is, I don’t have much in my own life to wring my hands over. A new school year has just started and it promises to be pleasantly full. I’m excited for all of my classes, excited that I get to be a TA, excited for the church where I’m interning, excited that I get to keep working in the library, excited that I get to continue to get paid to hang out with an adorably chubby infant three days a week, and excited that I can still pop into a planetarium or an observatory from time to time. The two big weights on my heart from last year are gone and the indentions they left are filling back out. Old complaints have been answered in wonderfully affirming ways. I have stretches of time where I sit trying to remember what I forgot to worry about before realizing that most of those worries are gone. 

My Hebrew Bible professor last year taught us that the Bible has writings that are both witness and counterwitness, stories that clearly show us a God of love and stories that challenge our understanding of God. Life is full of moments of witness and counterwitness, full of times that feel like blessings and times that feel like abandonment. I spend so much time empathizing with the counter that I don’t think I’ve realized how lovely it is to live in the witness. 

Of course, we live in a world in which all things were created good and now demonstrably contains things that are not and so we all live in the counterwitness, whether we see it or not. We participate in the counterwitness, whether we see it or not. And I think we have to see it. I think we have to remember it. I think in this time of connection, those of us with plenty must witness those in need and not turn away, no matter how great the need or how real and seemingly indomitable the distance between us. 

There is a famine in Somalia. Witness. 

There is a cholera outbreak in Yemen. Witness. 

We Americans are fighting the longest war in our history. Witness. 

Storms worsen as the climate changes. Witness. 

Still more important than our witness, however, is our action and in most instances, the time for action has already come, though I pray it has not gone. The time to stand against white supremacy is always. The time to stand against racism in all forms is always. The time to speak out against the laws and the systems the entrench these problems is always. The time to change how we consume our resources could have been decades ago, but it is also now. The time to change how we use our military might has probably been from the founding of the country, but it is also now. 

The time to love our neighbors is always and is now. The time to embody that love is always and is now. The time to encourage another to that love is always and is now. 

I’ll be looking for the ways I can act. I hope you’ll join me.