Clergy from left, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Deacon  Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired, Associate Priest Lynn Finnegan and Pastor Deb Church. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com

By The Rev. Mary Ann Hill
Rector
Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church

Every year members of several local churches gather for a Lenten soup supper and learning opportunities. This year I was fortunate to be able to offer a workshop on “Reconciliation in a Culture of Conflict.”

My interest in this topic stems from the polarization happening around the world, and also because of my family’s history. My ancestors on my father’s side came here in the early 1700s.

My mother is from Germany and arrived here in 1964, after she met and married my father who was stationed there with the U.S. Army. The history of both sides of my family came together as a result of World War II.

On my father’s side, one uncle was in both the invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded two bronze stars. On my mother’s side, there was never any talk of medals, just of the uncle who didn’t return from the eastern front, the years my grandfather spent as a p.o.w., and the fire bombing of Würzburg, my mother’s city.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I found out that someone was awarded a medal on my German side. Every year, on his mother’s birthday, Hitler awarded “the Mother’s Cross” to women who had large families. I never saw this medal, because my great-grandmother refused to accept it. In fact, one day she told everyone on a crowded city bus that “Mr. Hitler can keep his _____ Mother’s Cross.” That angry outburst resulted in months of “visits” by the Gestapo, and threats of being sent to a concentration camp.

I didn’t know what the “Mother’s Cross” looked like until I saw a photograph in a Holocaust museum last year. When I did, I was appalled. It was a typical Latin cross (long upright with a shorter cross-beam), emblazoned with a starburst and overlaid with a swastika. Like the KKK, the Nazis transformed the cross of Christ for their own evil purposes. As a Christian and a priest, the thought of that literally makes me ill.

This past week, someone painted a swastika on the rock in White Rock. Unfortunately, a few people have tried to brush it off as simply an ancient religious symbol. That is, at best, dangerously naive and tone-deaf. For so many people, that symbol is a deeply painful reminder of unspeakable suffering and the deaths of tens of millions of people. Whatever its origins, since the middle of the twentieth century, the swastika has been a symbol of the worst evil that the human heart can muster.

We are living in a complicated and divided world. Sadly, that’s nothing new. Humans are capable of great evil, but we are also capable of great good. We have a choice. As members of this community, we can choose the better path. We can be present and actively listening to one another. We can engage those who differ from us with intentionality, good will, and patience. We can agree to disagree well.

There are many things in this world over which we have no control. How we treat our neighbors, how we react, the behaviors we model – these are things that can make a real difference in our community and in the wider world. We can reimagine a better future, and it can start today.

Editor’s note: ‘All Shall Be Well’ is a column written by local women clergy including ELCA Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div., retired (czoebidd@gmail.com); Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church (pastornicole@bethluth.com); Associate Priest Lynn Finnegan, The Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith, Santa Fe (rev.lynn@holyfaithchurchsf.org); Pastor Deb Church, White Rock Presbyterian Church (pastor@wrpchurch.com) and The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, Rector, Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church (momaryannhill@gmail.com).