Dear friends,
It dawned on me today, not for the first time, that for every beautiful story of heroism and survival I can tell the world about an immigrant or a refugee I know personally, there is an ugly story of crime and harm out there. I wish that were not so, but it is.
If there was a way to stack up our stories (like I do with the winning cards in a game with my grandchildren when I’m too lazy to count them) and place them next to the negative ones, I am convinced I’d win. But what good is a story battle?
At first, I thought this was yet another fight I am privileged to, if I wanted, sidestep. It’s not about me anyway, is it? But the story battles are everywhere.
Sometimes, I’m even caught in the crosshairs. For every Karen I know—I’m thinking of one in particular, pictured below, back in 2014 when she agreed to be my Number One Refuge Volunteer—who is kind and thoughtful and blends her life and resources with and for others with no thought to ethnicity, skin color, background, etc., there is another “Karen” who looks like me in the news who is just the opposite: angry, scared, vocal, and suspicious. And caught on camera.
So, as Frey Teklu says often when she’s about to say something important, “What am I saying?” I am saying that telling dueling stories might not be the most effective way to advocate for our refugee friends against the welcome-naysayers. It is, however, a very effective way to remind us that we are all part of the story. So I’ll keep telling the good stories.
Let’s welcome just because. Let’s be so focused and hardworking at it that we don’t have energy left over to fight. Let’s remember our stories are beautiful, even if they aren’t as compelling as we think they are to those who have made up their minds that the protagonists in our stories are dangerous. Let’s know better, and be content to actually live the stories more than we tell them.
The thing is, living stories of real welcome is just plain hard. Just when I think I’m not affected by how hard it is, I awake with a jaw ache.
But the people in our stories and the people in all the other stories are worth it. Let’s welcome them all whenever and however we can!
And here’s the paradox I must end these thoughts with: If I dwell too long on how right I am to have this perspective, the tenor of my stories–and I myself–become arrogant and deeply wrong.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
From Mary Oliver’s “Mysteries, Yes”
With so much gratitude to you,
Kitti
