Lost your wallet? Most times it is not the few dollars we had in our wallets. It is the loss of our identity – social security card, driver’s license, etc. A pain in the neck to say the least. We quickly find out how many times we are asked for some form of photo ID. It is even worse in cases when we are asked to produce our original birth certificate or a certified copy.
Then there is a loss of precious memories! After almost every major disaster – hurricane, tornado, fire, etc. – TV shows gut-wrenching images. Images of a devastated woman holding the partially destroyed photograph of a happier time. Or maybe it was the charred picture frame of Mom and Dad on their wedding day. “It’s all I have!”. “It’s all gone!”
Proof of who we are and the joys and sorrows of our lives. Something very precious is gone.
Unrecognized losses
I have rarely thought of the unrecognized losses of so many refugees around the world. Most times fleeing for their safety or hastily deported from the land they grew up in with little than the clothes on their backs. They have forever lost record of who they are or where they came from… or those left behind. No treasured pictures.
Then there is ancestory.com. People seem to hunger to know more about their roots. Stories abound of discovering ancestors who were heroes or villains. “Who knew my Uncle was a judge in Italy?”
This hunger to know our roots goes back to biblical times. We even have a detailed genealogy of Jesus. True, our minds tend to go numb each time this genealogy is read. We miss the significance that it is complete with unlikely and unsavory ancestors, hardly what we would expect of the Messiah.
Seeking our heritage
I now have a new understanding of the importance of Black History Month. I knew of it and respected what I thought it stood for. But in light of thinking of the loss of my irreplaceable documents and memories I have come to a deeper appreciation of the longing behind it… the longing to recognize the trouble I have seen or joys that I did not know were mine to celebrate.
More mindul, I can appreciate the need to celebrate and grieve. Each year I see displays or essays about, for me, formerly unknown inventions of African Americans and their contributions to the arts. I also learn more about the incredible sufferings of a people whose only sin was having a different color skin.
I only recently learned of the Tulsa Oklahoma black business district that was so prosperous it was dubbed “the Negro Wall Street”. “For two days beginning May 31, 1921, the mob set fire to hundreds of black-owned businesses and homes in Greenwood. More than 300 black people were killed. More than 10,000 black people were left homeless, and 40 blocks were left smoldering. Survivors recounted black bodies loaded on trains and dumped off bridges into the Arkansas River and, most frequently, tossed into mass graves.”
I have also become aware of Black History month as my history. Each year I learn that it is African Americans who were responsible for everyday things like refrigerated trucks, three-signal traffic lights, central heating furnaces, mailboxes or even “sanitary belts”. The history of computing and space exploration is filled with their names.
All these things are the contributions and sufferings of my brothers and sisters.
Do you ever think of Black History as your history?
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
Father, you have a tremendous gift for tapping into a nerve that affects me in ways I never appreciated before. The thought of the refugees leaving everything behind, sometimes, even their own native language, raised issues within my own mind and heart about upheavals that have occurred in my own life and the lives of family members. While our losses pale in comparison, I can use that experience as a gateway into recognizing in a small way their anguish, sorrow, emptiness and frustration, to mention only a few.
As you noted, this past month has been replete with examples of people who created or developed products or services that enrich each of our lives every day. But, I tend to look back on all discoveries as “our” discoveries with little recognition that the color of the person doing so was significant. I’ll confess that I was equally blind (or perhaps “oblivious” is more accurate) to the contributions celebrated this month during Women’s History Month. We all have come a long way.
It is uncomfortable, in some ways because we have reached a certain age or in other ways despite our age and experience, to upset our way of thinking about what has gone before. Uncomfortable, thankfully, is not impossible. This is a poor example, but I used to become so outrageously jealous of folks who won the big lottery drawings. I couldn’t understand why it affected me so. Then, one day (and it was only in the past 10 years or so), I realized that it was healthier for me to be glad for their good fortune. It opened my eyes to a much more pleasant experience. Each day brings new opportunities to appreciate the accomplishments of others.
Thanks for reminding me to cherish the memories of those who have gone before us, whether or not we still have pictures or other memorabilia to recall them. I also need to appreciate those around me now who are struggling with (but blossoming into) what God wanted them to be. We’re all still on that journey until it’s our turn to get off.
Peace.
I wish I knew more about my history. My family never talked about it. I wish I knew why my Mom actually hated Black people so much, feared them, and disowned me in her will because I worked with them on the North Side of St. Louis. Not knowing is a deadly thing. Ignorance that isn’t curable is a lonely thing.
Father, I agree that Black History is part of my history because I come from Chicago, because Black people are so much part of Chicago, and its history is my history. And I don’t know it for real.
I know that the first runaway slave who became a priest had support from an Irish priest and a German priest. He had to be sent to Rome to go to study because the U.S. would not teach a Black person in 1850, or 60 or pretty much until the Civil Rights movement. But Gus Tolten did become a priest and was sent back to Chicago to start St. Monica’s parish and Church. He was both patient and prayerful. He is Venerable Gus Tolten today. I pray to him a lot and for his Sanctification as the first Saint of the South Side of Chicago! I take pride in that reality. (He died of a heat stroke at age 43 in Chicago.) Yup! Black History is part of my history, proudly.)
The following link provides a deeper explanation of my reference to the significance of Jesus’ genealogy…
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202101/genealogy-can-connect-us-to-gods-larger-plan/