Thread by @bakerkylej

1/ Something I wrote-bled today, translated into storm form as lighting illuminated NYC tonight: “The birds are chirping outside in the burning world and i am bleeding”
-Kyle J. Baker SJ

2/ This should not be so hard. This should not be so hard.

3/ It should not be so hard for us to:
-say that we see and hear those who have been
marginalized
victimized
abused
crucified.

4/ -say that we are sorry for anything that we have done to contribute directly or indirectly to these acts of
ostracization
dehumanization
violence
crucifixion;

5/ to admit that at times we may not have known but that’s not an excuse and we should have and at other times deep down we may have and could have said something or done something,

6/and that at others we shouldn’t have said things and done things, and that sorrow and anger and confusion and shame and guilt and fear are all present here.

7/ -commit to being better humans - learning-growing-CHANGING-humbling-empowering humans.

8/ -release, and act in a way that acknowledges we don’t need to be in control of the narrative or the organization or the government or the culture or the world or the etc etc etc.

9/-imagine and live life in a way that genuinely lifts the people around us up, even if that means putting down some of what we have learned to have and hold and hoard.

10/ -be decent to ourselves.

11/ -be decent to each other.

12/ These apply to all of us, and it should not be so hard but for some nefarious reason(s) it is. It is hard for us to say these things; and I (perhaps naively) think there is a swell of people who at least want to believe and say and enact these things;

13/ but if something is said or alluded to or assumed because so and so seems like a nice enough person and surely doesn’t think that way or do such and such a thing the actualization gets lost in the terms “us” and “we”.

14/ Particularly...in no particular order other than the way in which my privilege is uncomfortably formed into lines that become letters that combine into words on paper sitting at this desk on this day...

15/ particularly because I am a white, male, USAmerican, straight, Catholic, vowed member of a religious order, supported by family and friends that tell and show me they love me, healthy, educated, human

16/ who has some accounts and knows some people that sometimes read what I have to write and fingers to type and tell me I should do it more because they don't know it scares me and now you do because I wrote it here...

17/ it seems important, particularly important, to ask your permission and if you shall not grant it read no further but if you do:

18/ Today let me acknowledge that privilege and bowing my head before you allow me to saypray what I speakwrite, these words, even if it as read as contrived or reactionary or hypocritical or other words that invoke fear in me that I know spring forth from darkness itself

19/ and seeks to keep me|us divided just as those words just were and in this cycle of despair and if perhaps you too will discern and determine and write or speak or pray or all of the things whatever it is that you want to say then we shall enter into this endeavor together,

20/ but in this moment please allow me to say:

21/
- I see and hear you, and I am trying to remove the scales from my eyes and plugs from my ears and move out of the little high gravity comfort zones so that I can do so more and I am trying to live a life of seeing and listening and WORKS OF MERCY

22/ and even though I am not good at it yet I will keep trying. Please keep showing and speaking and teaching me.

23/ - I am sorry. I am so sorry for ways in which my actions and words or their absence hurt and contributed to environments and cultures and jokes and house parties and innuendos and etc etc that weren’t safe and where hurt could occur.

24/- I am committed to being part of and building up communities that listen and lift and empower and amplify and teach and learn and mourn and celebrate and inspire and struggle...Lord knows there is going to be struggle...and who do the work!

25/ I will invite and gather and accept invitation and be gathered,

26/ I will shut up more and I will speak up when you ask me to or when I must (and I’ll try to learn to differentiate that from just anytime I can),

27/ I will stand in and I will sit in and I will point finger and voice at injustices and lay down to block pathways that lead to anything other than real peace

28/ (accepting that sometimes the trail is tough before that peace is reached but believing that Love yes with a capital L is the trailblazer that precedes) or better yet tear them up with a pick axe and build new ones that go different places.

29/ I don’t need to or want to use my privilege as a free pass to gain or to maintain control or status quo or story or spin, or to build up the way I live on the backs and through the blood of the ways others live forced to live.

30/ I won’t just shuffle papers and close closets and stifle voices and avert my eyes or make excuses and if I do somebody better tell me because I am asking you right now. You, please tell me. That’s right I said you!

31/ This ain’t political or ecclesial or philosophical or anythingelseical and it’s not jenga or fantasy football or whatever the name of that thing that emits flashing lights and takes money that people are into playing now,

32/ it is just what’s bleeding out of my fingertips today into my notebook and then will be typed onto the corporate algorithm platforms which every day try to say, “this is who you will read and watch and see and believe and friend and like and buy.”

33/ I log in and I scroll and I click too but sometimes I try to separate and observe and be still and that is when the blood comes.

34/ Bird: “Chirp.”