As I walked the tree lined avenue I was reminded of the approach to Mt. Vernon, Monticello, or even Montpellier, the majestic homes of my country’s founders.
As I approached the end I could hear the birds chirping what seemed to be a song of spring, a song of joy, a song of resurrection; and indeed, the tree lined avenue ends with signs of all of those things.
Off to the left, across the bridge, behind tall shrubs and trees stood the opposite. What stood there is a permanent reminder of the scourge of humanity on creation, for there stands a building constructed to be efficient and practical. To the right was the mortuary, where bodies of the dead were brought to be burned. To the left, was the unused gas chamber, and in the middle, connecting to all spaces is the crematorium, the room in which prisoners were hung in front of the very oven that would consume their bodies.
Thousands entered this space, and none came out. Yet when we exit, for we get to do so, we are once again greeted by the signs of spring, a song of joy, and the symbols of hope for the future. It is no accident that the memorials constructed there are the axis on which we turn from the tree lined avenue to the place of death and back again.
Those words were written by me as I waited for my students to finish their time at Dachau concentration camp.
In his first letter John says, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” Speaking the truth about our shared history is the only way to move forward as a people and it is a way we show each other our love for all. When we deny the events of the past we are denying the existence of the people who endured those events and we increase the chances of them taking new shape in the present, which is not the kind of resurrection we or God desires. I am not going to get into the many, many ways the world and even our nation is on the verge of what led to the creation of a place like Dachau, but what I do want to touch on is the importance of not compartmentalizing our lives. We should not have a home life and a work like; a public life and private life; a spiritual life and a secular life, we should simply live.
The greatest acts of love are inclusion and forgiveness. Inclusion because there is nothing more painful than the experience of looking on from the outside. Forgiveness because when people are excluded whether intentional or not, they will not be able to move forward until they have released the pain of their experience. It is through the act of asking for forgiveness that a stronger community is built.
The German people have not only faced their past, but their leaders have also formally asked for forgiveness for the atrocities committed by their country, and they continue to publicly acknowledge their mistakes. They have made public Holocaust denial illegal; they have made the physical and electronic distribution of materials supporting Nazis propaganda illegal and they have authorized heavy fines against internet platforms found to not promptly report and remove hate speech, terror threats and child exploitation. All of this likely sounds quite zealous to us in the light of our First Amendment beliefs but let’s take a moment to explore the intent behind the first amendment and how it relates to our faith. When the first amendment was written it was assumed that our society would continue to adhere to a code of deference where we allowed the people we knew were better educated to make the decisions. We of course no longer defer to our so called betters, and with the addition of the internet to our sharing of information our ability to trust those in power has eroded to the point of disillusion and fear. Here’s the thing, places like Dachau came about because the people of Germany stopped trusting their government and the good intentions of the people in power. The Nazi party did not gain power through a coup, though they tried, it gained power by slowly preying on the insecurities of the German people and once it gained their trust they began to implement policies designed to exclude anyone and everyone that disagreed with their viewpoint. Insecurities take root when we feel threatened or feel like we have lost control of our lives.
Exclusion is the opposite of love; God has not asked us to love only the people we agree with or the people who live their lives the way we like. God has asked us to love all people and doing so means that we must include all in our community, loving all equally, which doesn’t mean we must accept all behavior, we are still allowed to develop societal norms. Any behavior that harms another is not based on love and requires an act of repentance and forgiveness; but before we get to far ahead of ourselves lets also remember that the denial of forgiveness to those who ask for it is just as horrible as those who committed the original act because denying them that forgiveness means that we are now causing harm and with time the wounds may fester and lead to more blatant acts of harm. I am not saying that granting forgiveness is easy, nor am I attempting to lessen the pain caused by the perpetrators of harm; what I am attempting to say is that without forgiveness there can be no inclusion and without inclusion we will never experience resurrection. As I walked the tree lined ruins of Dachau and approached the places of remembrance I was reminded of the grand estates of our nation’s founders, but I was also reminded of all the moments in our nation’s history that we sought to exclude and our lack of acknowledgement of those times. We claim to be a Christian nation who welcomes immigrants, but that has never once been true and until we accept that and then seek reconciliation with the many people we have wronged we will never be able to move forward together.
My experience at Dachau taught me that inclusion and forgiveness are both acts of love and lead to resurrection. Love comes from truth and action, not from denial and fear and it requires the complete integration of all aspects of ourselves, our secular and spiritual lives must become intertwined to the point that we can no longer discern a difference because there should not be a difference and our resistance to expressing our faith in all aspects of our lives is one of the many things we must repent for, so as when we are invited to reflect on the things that separate us from God and from one another, don’t forget that exclusion of anyone is a sin and for that we must ask forgiveness.
Learning by Fire! 