Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84Plough Quarterly • Summer   But things change when you allow the expe- rience of your neighbors to shape you, instead of the other way around. We started to see how things that were fraught with complications for many of our neighbors were easy for us: obtaining fair housing, experiencing limited interactions with the police (who were always respectful to us), having access to fair-wage jobs, and enjoying a much lower propensity to be caught (and charged) for minor civil infractions. For a while, we were unable to comprehend what we were seeing and expe- riencing as bystanders in a divided America. Eventually, the weight of the truth started to settle on our shoulders, calling a grief that we never knew was in us, a form of lament that threated to overwhelm us if we let it. And one day, it did. The day our neighbor came over and watched my husband and me pour our spirits out was a day that forever changed me. Grieved and imprisoned by our own wounds, the persistent lies we were fed and had nurtured, the histories that we swallowed whole, the sins as old as time, we pleaded with him to help us understand. There was a black boy who died, and the person who killed him was let go. Our neighbor stayed for coffee and let us talk, and then he said: “You have the luxury of being surprised. Nobody else around here is.” In his astounding kindness my neighbor stayed and talked with us, patient and sorrowful, his wea- riness more harrowing to my soul than I could begin to understand. That one sentence–You have the luxury of being surprised–will stay with me the rest of my life, a testament to privilege I no longer want. My choice of neighborhoods is just the start of me trying to scale the large mountains of alienation that are inside of me. I feel like I see the wounds of Christ bright red in front of me, but I am still not able to feel them. That people prefer themselves and all others like them is not a surprise to any of us, but I am consistently taken aback at how often we refuse to acknowledge that our systems (politi- cal and religious) might have the same kind of problem. Being the minority where I work and live and play has opened my eyes to the way the systems are intrinsically for me. This never bothered me until I realized what the converse of that equation is: those systems are actively against others. That realization alone is enough to stop me. The words sin and repentance and judgment are infused with new meaning. True repentance, I was always taught, involves turning away from myself and turning toward God. Now, it has meant turning toward the ones who are being shut out. It is this: moving in, listening, reading books. Putting myself in a position to be wrong, to be silent, to be chastised, to be extended forgiveness, to withhold judgment, to invite understanding. I thought the cost would be steep, but it has turned out to be the opposite. You have the luxury of being sur- prised. And surprised I have been–how I have seen and heard and felt the Spirit convict me, how I am starting to understand how unwell I have been all this time. And the flip side is this: as it turns out, I am exactly the kind of person Jesus came for. He can only heal us once we figure out that we can’t be of any use at all. Photograph by Sean M. O’Grady, New Orleans Shotgun Double D. L. Mayfield and her husband work with refugee communities in Portland, Oregon. This article is taken from Mayfield’s new book Assimilate or Go Home: Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering Faith (HarperOne, August 2016).