The Rev Kate Kooyman helps Josh unpack “The Call to See,” chapter one of Reparations.
This call, this invitation to reparations is a discipline of seeing. Chapters one and two of our book this summer are intensive opportunities for us to see the white supremacy that pervades America, the church, and even our own families, homes, and careers. With the honesty and clarity of a spiritual director, Kwon and Thompson describe the difficulty of seeing: “seeing racism in this was has been an ongoing struggle. In truth, seeing clearly almost always is a struggle.”
Seeing is a struggle. Since the beginning we have chosen to hide from God, from each other, and from ourselves. Only with the merciful help of the Holy Spirit will we be able to come out of hiding and to open our spiritual eyes and ears to honestly know the troubles we are in and then to ask the Spirit to heal and reassemble the fragments of our lives.
Kwon and Thompson go on to write: “Embracing these truths requires a profound transformation of one’s identity, history, and aspirations. With this transformation comes an inescapable sense of disorientation and an enduring form of grief.” However, this is not a foreboding, heavy, losing ourselves in darkness for Christians, people of the light, because of the hope of the Gospel. We see the darkness in and through the light of Christ. This is an invitation to engage the sanctifying love of Jesus with more determined joy than ever before.
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Reparations Group Discussion Guide:
To learn more about our formation schools...
The School of Prayer:theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-prayer
The School of Contemplative Listening: theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-con…e-listening-1
Rev Kate Kooyman
