Tired.

Facebook wanted to know what's on my mind.

At the moment I'm just sitting here being verbally abused by a 25 yo son who has no genetic ability to reason and refuses to do the things he needs to do to be safe and well (you know, like not go outside in a thunderstorm during a severe heat warning).

Lately, though, I'm feeling an exhaustion like no other exhaustion I've ever felt, and not the good kind.

I'm not sharing this for sympathy. It's nothing new. Tired's been piling up for years. It's the daily life we have.

        But here's the thing.

If you think you "know" what other people's experiences are, like white folks knowing black folks' experiences, or single folks knowing parent-with-children folks' experiences, or urban folks knowing rural folks' experiences, or neurotypical parents knowing what it's like to be a special needs parent, or doctors and nurses caring for Covid patients when you're not even a medical professional, or ..... then you aren't really paying attention.

If your m.o. is to evaluate and judge people whose experiences are vastly different than your own based primarily on your own experiences, then you have a lot of growing up to do. If you think that you "know" something about someone's situation but you've never walked a mile in their shoes, let alone taken a stride nearby, then your privilege is definitely showing.

You may dismiss or mock me and my white male privilege for being tired, and I get it. Really I do. Plenty of people have told me to "get some rest," "take care of yourself," or just "suck it up." But before you do, maybe you could come lace on my shoes.

If your experience or ideas require you to invalidate another's, your understanding is wrong. And if your primary way of moving around in the world is with disdain and dismissiveness toward people and movements and principles that you don't even understand, your memes aren't worth the bytes they're lighting up.

 As for me, I am tired.

Tired.

    ... of Covid-19. Tired of people dying.

        ... of threats. Tired of self-righteous saviors.

            ... of incompetent leaders. Tired of politics.

                ... of self-interest. Tired of broken systems that refuse to go.

        

                    ... of being angry. Tired of being scared.

                           ... of my Christian faith being used as a weapon.

                                ... of patronizing do-gooders.

Tired of being tired.

And yet, my exhaustion pales next to how tired those whose very lives are always at risk must be. I can only imagine, and learn, and show compassion, because I will never know. I can contribute to what changes I can, and refuse to leave those who are weary to just make it on their own.

I may be exhausted, but there's still work to do. It will be easier if we do it together, especially in these days with physical distancing and unclear futures.

What's REALLY on my mind, Facebook? All these things, and more.

But right now I'm too tired to write another word.

It Has Been Far Too Long

JUNETEENTH

It has been far too long

since our soul's been at rest,

since we had peace built on the truth that our God makes us one.

Long the days since we've known

that our lives are entwined,

joined by our breath, fused in our blood, oh, yes, it's been far too long.

There's a pain to share

and a sorrow to carry;

a trust to build

and a love to grow.

How long? How long? How long?

It has been far too long for us all.

~~~~~~~~~~

It has been far too long

since the dignity held deep in our hearts for one another

loosed unafraid;

when our courage would match

the injustice we see,

changing our world, dreaming a dream, oh, yes, it's been far too long.

There's a pain to share

and a sorrow to carry;

a trust to build

and a love to grow.

Too long. Too long. Too long.

It has been far too long...

It has been far too long...

It has been far too long for us all.

Rattle the bones

On Sunday our family attended the 150th anniversary celebration worship service of the Second Baptist Church in Elgin, IL. This prominent African-American congregation was started in 1866 by a group of 125 slaves who escaped from Alabama and arrived in Elgin in a boxcar. It's a necessary story; read it here.

Our mostly white congregation, the Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren, and Second Baptist have been sharing the fourth Sunday of January for over 15 years, exchanging choirs and pastors in a cross-town effort at understanding and solidarity. It's not much, but it's a little bit of something that means I already felt mostly at home walking into their sanctuary.

The service was magnificent, a rich celebration of the history of a people and a church, a strong and hopeful declaration of significance in today's world, and an anticipatory expression of a future of faith and civic leadership.


One moment that washed over me and stirred the deepest parts of my soul was a powerful dance presentation by Divine Movement,  a group of young women of the church. Their dance recounted the pain of the slave experience with a tangible rhythm of suppression, suffering, and dehumanization. It ended with a forceful declaration of liberation, healing, and the strength of human dignity. It moved with faith and freedom.

I, a middle-aged white male who has enjoyed every privilege that my birth has afforded me, really have no idea what that dance meant to most people in that room. As I watched, the young women communicated in no uncertain terms the depth of their African-American experience, and those around me in the congregation responded with knowing.


The part of the dance routine that told the story of slave bondage, however, disturbed my soul. My body felt the wrenching of the restraints, the beatings, and the struggle. Or at least I felt what might have been some small sample of that experience. I began to feel the oppressive power, and the will to resist. My body was uncomfortable. Tears were present. My soul was straining to access this narrative even while it was begging to escape it.

So many emotions accompanied those moments, and have lingered with me in the early days of this week. I know they will eventually dissipate for me, and I will be left to conjure them through memory. And this need to recall is one key aspect of what I, a person of privilege, have learned from this experience: For me, the dance imposed itself into my emotions and thoughts, challenging my experience and bringing to light my complicity. It made me uncomfortable. It caused me to think and feel things that I have not thought of or felt before. It challenged, at least in a small way, who I am and what I know to be true in the world. But it is not part of me.

For those young women dancers and the African-American faith community of Second Baptist, however, that dance released some of the deepest parts of their soul and experience as humans. It was more than a reflection on history; it was the lifeflow, the heartbeat of a people, a rare and raw moment in which the flood of this dehumanizing scourge of slavery was released for everyone who was in that room to feel, and claim, and wrestle with. Perhaps the connection is strong because the horrifying narrative continues to be written today.

The statistics are awful for non-dominant culture folks in our country. Mass incarceration, murder by authorities, institutional patterns of exclusion, prejudice, and fear still limit the life possibilities of too many non-white people, and African-Americans in particular. We are racist and perpetuate structured racism.

I know these realities intellectually. I've heard the hard stories of my African-American sisters and brothers. I've looked at the data. I've visited museums and historical sites. I've done some work along the way to be a better steward of my privilege. And I continue to do these things.

But in that dance, in that dance, that dance.......

There are really no words to describe it. I don't get it. I never will.

But I could feel it. It was full of power. It was raw. It heated the marrow and rattled the bones. It was fully human and fully divine. It was heartbreaking and hopeful. It was long in suffering and strong in overcoming. It was resigned to humanity's failed condition and insistent on God's sovereign plan.

There is no room for bigotry, hatred, superiority, racial divisiveness, fear, and murderous ways in Jesus-land. What I felt challenges me to examine my own privilege yet again and to put into action more things that make for justice and healing. I need to do my part. You need to do yours. Together we need to do ours.

Sitting in the sanctuary of Second Baptist Church on that 150th Anniversary Celebration day was a blessing. I am humbly grateful that I could be present, and that I was a part of the congregation which received such powerful truth through Divine Movement.

May the Holy Spirit rattle these middle-aged white male bones some more, and inspire all of us to dance our way to a world of justice and peace.

Perceived enemies

"When things get bad, you create a perceived enemy, 

especially when there is already resounding endorsement from all quarters. 

The myth grows greater than the reality. 

All human beings do it -- personally and politically." 

 from The Music Room by Namita Devidayal, p 106

Things must be bad. We have created so many enemies.

Not only have we created enemies, but we have turned our perception into a palpable vitriol, expressions of suspicion and hatred that rub across our skin like sandpaper and work their way into our soul like grains of sand. But those grains of sand do not turn to pearls. They become festering wounds, infected sores within ourselves, and between us. They become symptomatic of the harsh landscape of which we are a part.

To combat those sores, to fight the pain, to overthrow the "enemy," we turn to the powers we hold and unleash them.


When my wife was being treated for her severely infected gall bladder, the doctors pushed large amounts of strong antibiotics into her system. Through i.v.s and pills, they sought to overwhelm the infection with a violent force that would drive it out of her body, or kill it off. The problem is, however, that like in chemotherapy, the aggressive fight against infection can also damage the good cells and actually compromise the immune system. That is indiscriminate power.

We see such power unleashed every day in our world. Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Michael Smith, Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, and Brent Thompson.

Where have we gone so wrong? I wish I knew. I am tired of hearing that my black brothers are being gunned down. I am tired of hearing that police officers are being picked off while they serve to protect. I am tired of Chicago celebrating that we had "fewer" murders and "less" gun-related violence on this 4th of July weekend. I am tired of the toll of wars and bearing the weight, small as it is for me personally, of the rumor of wars.





But this movement in which a myth grows greater than the reality...... This movement is one I understand. It happens in my head, so it's not hard to imagine that it happens in much larger ways in the world. I am a worrier, so things often become realities in my thoughts even though they are far less (or far more) substantial in concrete life.





We perpetuate and feed these myths, but why? I wish I knew.

Actually, what I really wish I knew was how to stop them.

I wish I knew how to stop the myth that there are no structural barriers to racial equality.

I wish I knew how to stop the myth that to advance the cause of justice for one person or group of people is necessarily to dismiss, demean or devalue another.

I wish I knew how to stop the myth that power exercised by blunt force will produce sustainable peace.

I wish I knew how to stop the myth that everyone should be able to do "it" on their own, to realize that great American dream, to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

I wish I knew how to stop the myth that white people are superior to people with darker skin tones.

I wish......

          .........so many things.....

But wishing, no matter how bright the star, will not get me, will not get us, anywhere.

I wasn't a fan of the show "Myth Busters" the way many people were, but I do appreciate the effort to take things that are commonly thought to be true and actually test them. I am, however, a big fan of snopes,com and wish more social media users would take 30 seconds to check their stories before perpetuating them.

In fact, it's a simple place to start when we want to move beyond wishing. Start by asking questions.

Ask things like "is this factually true?" "How is it that I consider my sources trustworthy?" "What is an alternate point of view?" "What is the energy behind this point of view?" "What am I afraid of?" "What am I hoping for?" "What would the other in this situation say? Better yet, what do you say, victim, perpetrator, bystander?"

Ask things like "I wonder what it feels like to be _______ (in that position, or those shoes)?" "How am I feeling, and where did those feeling come from?" "Could I be wrong?" "What does it mean if I'm right?" "What more can/must I learn?" "What is my power, and how can I utilize it responsibly?"

By asking questions we challenge the endorsement of an unreality pointing toward the necessity of an enemy.

The myth we're living with these days is that things are getting bad, that enemies are lurking around every corner. Maybe instead of jumping on the bandwagon we might ask some questions and consider the inquiry of others.

Gus and me - photo by Samuel Sarpiya

Today I visited an amazing outreach in Rockford, IL. You can read about it here. The mobile lab was parked half a block behind a house in which there was a shooting last night. One of the kids in the lab saw it happen. And yet there he was today, working and playing games on the computer.

What is the myth? What is the reality? What are the questions?

For those of us who are Christians, getting beyond the myth has a definite God element to it. The reality we seek to uncover beneath the myths we have fostered has particular characteristics. They include things like compassion, reconciliation, justice, love, joy, sacrifice, and service.

What are the myths? What are the questions?

God, help us to see a different reality,

Personally. Politically.