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Accountability (II)
Posted by Wallace+
"I can only say that segregation is wrong today, it was wrong yesterday. Segregation was never right. But it is one of the most lamentable frailties of mankind that when one's wrong is most grievous, his self-justification is most passionate, perhaps in the pitiful hope that the fervor of his self-defense will somehow prove him right. But this doesn't make it so. And he doesn't fool himself."
Richard Poff spoke these words, in the summer of 1971, as he looked back, with apparent regret, on his anti-civil-rights voting record in Congress, where he represented Virginia's Sixth District. Poff died last month and this passage appeared in his New York Times obituary of July 1.
Back in 1971, Poff was hoping for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination, thus the sincerity of his statement could be questioned. Regardless, there was and still is wisdom in his words, insight into the human heart, and the human condition, insight which, if indeed we are at all awake to our own frailties, we will recognize from our own lived experience.
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Yes, accountability is essential to any healthy human community, be it a nation, a congregation, or a family. Compassionate and mutual accountability. But, of course, for accountability to go anywhere, anywhere at all; for accountability to bear fruit, there must be a receptivity, an openness to receiving new and uncomfortable truth about ourselves.
May it be. May it be so, dear God, in our hearts, and in our own lives. For our own sake, and for the sake of those around us.
Tags: accountability, compassion, new york times, richard poff, word from grace street
