We Should Be More, Starting Today

There isn't an easy way to walk back from mistakes in this day and age, and in this day and age, we have plenty of things to walk back, plenty of mistakes to examine and address.   

I always loved the phrase attributed to Saint Teresa of Avila, placing her hands on the shoulders of each sister after they'd leave the confessional, and saying, "Begin again."  It's a promise of hope, of change, and of better days to come. 

It's risky to trust, to forgive. It's much easier to nurse wounds, to point out the injuries again and again and again and again and to proclaim to the world how much we hurt and how unjust someone is or how wrong they've been.   However, I love a dear friend's statement which amounts to, "We will never regret being kind even if the other person deserves none of it."   Her philosophy is not an easy one, but I've seen her live it, and it's beautiful, luminous even.  "Begin again."  It takes humility and courage. 

"Begin again." doesn't mean be a sucker, or be a sap. It doesn't mean one glosses over old injuries or pretends they didn't happen, but one no longer is a slave to the injuries, or to the wounds.  It means one goes forward.  One tries and tries and tries again, to build up the Body of Christ, where there's been injury, even if that injury was done unto one's self.  "Begin again." 

I think as a nation, we need to "Begin again."  I used strong words yesterday, because I believe, we as a nation can do better and must if we're going to be a City on a Hill, a nation of both laws and charity, of freedom and generousity. I do not think these things are antithetical. The solution thus far implimented by this administration, does not illustrate the best thinking or doing, kindness or generosity, charity or spirit of our nation and I want better for all those affected, both by the policy, and by the implimentation.   

I want it for the same reason I don't want the University of Notre Dame to ever do stupid things.  I love the place, for all her faults, so I'd rather she didn't have faults.  I want her to be beautiful in all things, even winning at Football.   The same sort of desire for a nation that is beautiful in all things, spurs my zeal at not merely the optics, but the fundamental ethics and morals that underpin the current means of enforcing policy.  I want our nation to be something better, and I don't think this is the means by which we get there, so I want the leaders and legislators, the powerful and the influencers to get to work, and to come up with something which respects Both the rule of law AND the dignity of each person encountered.    I want our nation to be a good nation, a noble one, I want us to be and continue always to become a kinder people.

My sister shared this excellent piece The Catholic Vision of Just Immigration Reform.
and in reading it, I also found What are the new border policies? which examines the existing law and how we got here.  The nation will not get better by the mere stroke of a pen or the winning/losing of an election, or a singular law.  The nation will only get better by each of us practicing both forebearance and forgiveness.  If we are to be something other than the lesser angels of our nature in all actions, policies and procedures, we must look at what we're doing, what we're not doing, and ask each day how this day, we can "begin again," and get to work.