“Hate feeds no one’s children.” ~ Unknown
prayers
I’ve been praying for a lot of things lately. The pandemic’s end, our front line workers from hospital to grocery, my parents and their health, our governor who was hanged in effigy, and the utterly pitiful state of our country. Things were growing increasingly tense before the 2016 presidential election thanks to fires stoked by foreign agitators who have gotten away with it because a congress of turtles keep hiding in their shells. Things have progressively gotten worse since the election. Gone straight to hell in a hand basket, to use a phrase. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and all of us in the middle just keep getting played like fiddles by all those agitators who stand to profit from our division.
The last few months have felt the absolute worst, and not because of the pandemic isolation, but because of the rise in armed white men storming state capitals because they need haircuts while cops kill unarmed black men in the streets. As someone rightly said, “The racism in America isn’t new. It’s just finally being filmed for everyone to see.” That is truth. Death after death after death replayed until finally an unarmed black man with a cop’s knee in his neck called for his mother with his last breaths: How anyone could not be moved by that is beyond me. Racism is so much a part of our American fabric that we sometimes don’t even notice it no matter how many times it plays on YouTube. But not this time. Plenty of people have been moved to protest, and most of those protests would have been peaceful had outside agitators not stirred the hornet’s nest – yet again with the agitators! It doesn’t take much to rile folks who are hurting, and fear is a dangerous, dangerous flame. Those agitators know that and the weak have fallen for their tricks. Race is hard to talk about as a white person. For example, I can go just about anywhere in this country without worry, and if I do worry, it’s because of my gender, not my color. If I was a white man I wouldn’t worry at all. People of color don’t feel that way. Ask them. An innocent walk down the street can get a black man killed…just for being black. That is horrific and it happens all the time in America. It’s not right. It’s not the American ideal my parents fought for and it’s definitely not the America I want.
I’d like everyone to get along. Peace, love, harmony, everybody’s kids play together, we all go to a big cookout together, sit in pews or bow in temples singing Kumbaya. That’s what I want and I believe, no, I know that’s what Jesus wanted. That’s what the Buddha wanted. That’s what Mohammad wanted. All major religious mystics wanted the same thing: Peace, love, and harmony among people. It might not be realistic, but hey, nothing great was ever thought to be realistic. Jesus said, “Love everyone.” He didn’t then say, “Everyone except….blacks or gays or immigrants or poor people.” No. He said love everyone. Period. It’s dogma that gets in the way of the message so a lot of people don’t want peace, love, and harmony. Well, they do, but only if it’s convenient. They don’t really want it for the black family across the street or the brown family in the city or the immigrant family in New York if it means getting their hands dirty or being uncomfortable in confronting their own misconceptions. Getting along and accepting those who are different is hard work. Jesus never say it would be easy. In fact, look what happened to him. The government killed him for standing up for the poorest of the poor, the “other.”
In every horrible thing that shows up on the news these last years there’s a white man with a gun or a bible or both. I heard an incredibly moving sermon from my pastor Mark Davies at First Presbyterian Church on Sunday in which he said what I’ve been thinking for years “I’m exhausted by people hijacking Christianity.” He added, I’m paraphrasing here: “I’m exhausted by the hate. I’m exhausted by the racism. I’m just exhausted by the totally unchristian behavior from people who claim to be Christian.” I’m also exhausted by it all. So in my exhaustion I light my incense. I say my prayers. I ask for guidance on how to talk about race with my friends and family who are willing to talk about it like adults (there are plenty who can’t, I’m afraid). I ask for peace and solace for the grief stricken everywhere. I ask for clarity and hope; for change and faith; for Christ-like believers to love their fellow man without judgement. And I ask that I might be guided on my journey of faith with an open heart and open mind so that I don’t fall into the same trap as those white men with guns and bibles who think they’re Christ-like. Lord knows I’m not perfect and I can use guidance now in these strange, dark times. Help me fight the good fight.
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