Change
#BlackShirtDay
Last week I went on a walk with my youngest. She is thirteen years old. We chatted for a bit as we walked and then both settled into the pace and the quiet.
However, after a time, she asked me, “What are you thinking about?” It’s a favourite question. I answered and then asked her. “What are you thinking about?”
13yr old: I’m wondering if the people who made that show, Raising Dion, are going to make another season.
Me: I really enjoyed that show. I think they will. What do you like about it?
13yr old: I like his super powers.
Me: Don’t you think Dion’s mother was so stressed out? Raising kids with super powers must be something parents have to worry about.
13yr old: I have super powers.
Me: Yes?
13yrd old: I can write stories.
Me: Yes you can!
I’m asking you and I ask myself, “Should I be worried?”
I do worry. But not because of her super powers, but because her skin is black and she is growing up on a continent where white racial preferences and powers so often resist full kinship and economic inclusion with people who are black. She lives in a place where engagements with white people can become authority encounters vacated of generosity and acceptance if the expected respect and deference is not forthcoming. She lives where things turn ugly if the cultural rules of whiteness are not accepted. These kinds of encounters can happen on the street, in a school, on the playground, online, in a restaurant, in a classroom, on a protest line, in a church, at a friend’s house, in the park, at work, in a board room, on the sidewalk, in a store, at a gas station, in an auditorium, in the legislature, on the bus, in the courtroom, on the beach, over coffee…
Will she be ready? Will she be fortified in heart with the courage required to exercise her super powers and not be overcome by evil? Will she know she is beloved?
I know super powers do not protect us from the violence of hate. But I hope if my 13yr old gives voice to her stories and that she will play a part in realizing Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. It’s his birth day, 15 January; he was born in 1929 and died in the year of my birth, 1968, assassinated while I was still in my mother’s womb. I didn’t know him, but I have been shaped by the spirit and content of his powers in speech and in leadership and in his dream.
But still, I worry.
(Here’s a shout out to Harambee Cultural Society who have encouraged us to get beyond worry and do something together. Thank you!)
Is this an apology?
My wife and I have taken to walking in the dark. It’s seems to be our only way to keep exercising as winter approaches, the daylight hours shorten, and the pandemic keeps us out of the gym.
I stopped in my tracks and laughed out loud the other night as we entered the intersection of 33rd and Ontario here in Vancouver. We both stopped to take a picture of the new banners at the corner of what used to be the community known as Little Mountain Housing.
If you don’t know about the sale of public land that had been dedicated to provided affordable housing in our city you can read about it, but you won’t learn much about the deal. Instead all that we know for sure is that there has been a long wait to realize any real gains for our city from the deal.
I’m not sure if Holburn is apologizing for the long wait; but I think they are. We should all take notice.
I was reading this very morning from Psalm 12 and the phrase in verse 5 captured me: “Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the LORD. “I will protect them from those who malign them.”
The issue remains, public lands have been sold that were dedicated to providing stability to the poor and vulnerable in our city. This land right in the heart of our municipality was set aside to provide housing stability and therefore opportunities for those who were vulnerable. I know that’s idealistic. I don’t romanticize the situation that existed there and that exists today in our city for those on the verge of homelessness. But I fear that Hoblurn’s promoted ambition to create “elevated lifestyles” is an idealism that does not include the poor.
I welcome correction.
Lasting as a Pastor
Very few of us get to pastor the same congregation for 40 years. The word “same” is misleading. For although some pastors may serve the same congregation by name and place, she or he will discover quickly the congregation is always changing. It’s getting older. It’s getting younger. Folks are moving away. Folks are moving in. It’s responsive to leadership. It’s leading you.
The congregation is always changing.
Even Moses knew his congregation was changing. Grumpy periods were a sure sign that departures were coming soon. Demands came as regularly as hungry bellies in the morning. Mutiny drove him to cry out to God. And most of the congregation wasn’t always interested in getting as close to God as he was. What mattered most to Moses wasn’t at the top of their minds.
The congregation is always changing.
Such change can be wearisome. Moses didn’t just survive on his call. (Exodus 4) He survived on the Presence of God. A tent became a meeting spot when the daily demands didn’t permit 40 day retreats. The Presence of God came to him in the pillar of cloud. And they talked as friends, face to face, presence to presence. They were friends because God came down.
The pastors are always changing.
We can descend into the selfish shadows of our of hearts or we can enter into the wild wonder of God. Sure, Moses stayed with this exodus congregation for forty years. But surely he didn’t remain the same. I believe he was marked by these humble requests in responses to God for the next forty years: teach me your ways, go with us, and show me your glory. (Exodus 33)
God met him. God taught him. God went with them. God showed him his glory.
Who can remain steady through all the years?
And so I pray: Teach me your ways. Go with us. Show me your glory.
Slow Reflection Required
For a week I’ve been processing the prophetic vision God gave Bob Ekblad. He writes about it here, “Exposing and Repenting of Racial Injustice.”
Then Timothy Dalrymple from Christianity Today writes a painful call for churches to face the painful realities of slavery and their complicity in theft. He writes,
“Two original sins have plagued this nation from its inception: the destruction of its native inhabitants and the institution of slavery. Both sprang from a failure to see an equal in the racial other. As Bishop Claude Alexander has said, racism was in the amniotic fluid out of which our nation was born. There was a virus present in the very environment that nurtured the development of our country, our culture, and our people. The virus of racism infected our church, our Constitution and laws, our attitudes and ideologies. We have never fully defeated it.”
How could anyone read that and not want to be repentant?
What is the Holy Spirit saying to the churches?
So after watching the Giglio, Cathey, Lacrea video, The Beloved Community, I’m asking myself, “Why is the church so weak?” Lord have mercy we are ASTHENEIA! How can we land in the language of “blessing” for slavery? ever. It’s awful!
Then I’m finding a whole segment of white Christians who still want to argue about personal responsibility as if America is a great moral vivarium and experiment in the exercise of individual rights. These days we’ve been invited to a funeral and all they can talk about is who’s fault is it and all they can say is stuff that basically equates to “Well everybody dies.”
And then I stumbled on the posting of a friend that was normalizing the language of extermination. Vile and wicked so it was. I walked around for an hour deeply grieved. How could this be in a brother’s heart? What cesspool did he dive in to find this stuff?
I think slow reflection is needed.
So if any video or summary of history has moved you a bit, even if it is by Phil Visher from Veggie Tales, please read a book. If you aren’t ready to read a book, at least read some testimonies of what it’s like to Breathe While Black. I’ve been moved by these.
I know you were hoping you could just go ask a co-worker. Don’t do it. Don’t ask them to be your counsellor for change. You are exhausting them.
Slow reflection is needed so read a book.
Some changes are coming quickly for some policy, but in the time that it takes you to read a book, some change could happen in you. Language expresses the heart. And we need some changes at the heart. Reading is marination of the soul.
There’s a lot of gospel work to be done.
From my own reading list:
Stamped from the Beginning. Ibram X. Kendi
How to be an AntiRacist. Ibram X. Kendi
The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. Willie Jennings.
White Fragility. Robin DiAngelo
Between The World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates
Through the years I’ve read the works of Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou
Slow reflection is needed. Read a book. You will find The Christian Imagination to be especially taxing. Reading slowly and seeking comprehension is good.
I’m forming an opinion that part of the reason we (the white-ish churches of North America) are so weak is that we have narrow emotional veins and our vision of Christian maturity is utterly malformed. Maybe a slow work through The Emotionally Healthy Church could be helpful for learning how to grieve. The lack of empathy still confounds me. But where empathy is lacking perhaps there has been unmetabolized griefs.
At the end of the day without slow reflection there is no love and no repentance.
There’s a lot of gospel work to be done. Read the Bible and read a book.
(I know, there’s a lot of podcasts to listen to as well. That’s not my realm. I’ve got one chorus in this post: Read a book.)
Update, 16 Jun3 2020. Louie Giglio has posted an apology for his “blessing” statement.