What America Needs Right Now is More Rabbits.
This is How We Heal
One of the many blessings of living in Tennessee is that my children get a monthly book in the mail from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a service which further cements her place in the human hall of fame. One of the more recent books is a lovely story by Cori Doerrfeld called, The Rabbit Listened.
The story is about a young child named Taylor who builds an amazing structure of blocks, only to have it destroyed by a calamitous encounter with birds. When things come crashing down, the distraught Taylor is left to figure out how to cope.
A chicken came to talk…but Taylor didn’t want to talk. A bear came to roar… but Taylor didn’t want to do that either. A snake came and hissed that they should knock down someone else’s tower, but Taylor said no. One by one the animals came; the hyena laughed and the ostrich hid its head, but none of these things seemed to comfort Taylor, and so, again one by one, they left.
Eventually a rabbit comes and snuggles close. It doesn’t try to fix everything. It doesn’t try to handle the problem. It simply listens, and above all it stays. Eventually Taylor does talk. She does shout, and laugh, and cry, and the Rabbit listens through it all. When Taylor is ready, she decides to re-build another amazing tower, and the Rabbit is right by her side.
This is what true friends do when the world begins to crumble.
Once again, calamity strikes our country. The death George Floyd in police custody has left many a bit like Taylor- shocked, distressed, and looking for a way both to mourn and to cope. My heart is heavy, and while I wish I could say I am a Taylor, the fact is I am not. I don’t know this pain the same way my black countrymen and women do. While I grieve with them, my role today is as one of the animals in the story. This is true for many of us.
There are a lot of bears out there roaring and a lot of ostriches hiding their heads. We have way too many snakes destroying other structures in vengeance and retaliation. We have people who want to talk about it and people who want to fix it, but I think what the Taylors of the world need right now are rabbits. They need us to let them hurt and they need us to listen. They need us to stay by them while they grieve and demonstrate that they are important. Because black lives do matter. Everyone should be able to breathe.
Maybe in the end we can all find a way to move towards healing. We can rebuild. And it will be amazing.
Photo- Logan Weaver on Unsplash
Originally published at https://facingmonsters.com on June 2, 2020.
