I haven’t found time to do my self-imposed monthly blog post.
Life is busy and there is much to process in our world.
I wish to speak reason and wisdom into the chaos.
But focus seems illusive.
Thank goodness...
A picture is worth a thousand words; right?
This one speaks for me in this moment, even if not the right season.
I don’t remember my exact reaction, but when I first began hearing the phrase Black Lives Matter, I’m quite sure that I felt immediate assent and tenderness about the declaration, highly sensitive person that I am. However that same sensitivity may have also triggered an instinctive response like “Of course, they do. All lives matter.”
Later, when I began hearing push-back about that reaction, I was confused and tried to understand some of the nuance. As I pondered the hope behind the Black Lives Matter movement, I quickly began to realize that it was much more complex than I imagined. As far as I can tell, there is no intended implication in that phrase about “other lives not mattering” - but only about Black lives who so often have NOT mattered to the rest of us.
Slowly I began to comprehend that the phrase “ALL lives matter” feels diminishing to Black people because it can seem as if the speaker wants to continue to ignore Black lives - particularly if the retort “ALL lives matter” is spit out angrily - or sarcastically. It can become an ugly competition about which lives matter the most.
Eventually, I came upon a rather absurd scenario that somehow helped me.
Suppose my house catches afire and is soon burning out of control. Fire fighters arrive quickly to put out the fire… until one of my neighbors marches into the street to block their progress - shouting “ALL homes matter” - and demanding that the firemen spray the roofs of every single house on the street instead of focusing on mine that is already engulfed in flame. Not only would it seem like my neighbor did not care about my situation, but he might well be responsible for further damage. I had to think about that for a minute.
This is a ridiculous example; right?
But…
I have gradually come to understand that this movement is about an entire group of people who have lived realities that imply they don’t really matter to white folks.
Finally here is a slogan and a movement that says otherwise.
Finally they might have a chance to be treated fairly.
I wish to be their advocate and ally. But maybe first I need to understand the implications of what that might mean. Therefore I must keep asking questions and try to understand what life is like living in their shoes.
…
All my life I heard in Sunday School about the Samaritans.
About how they were looked down on by the Jews.
It was simply a fact in their culture.
Maybe a bit like our history - when Blacks could not drink from the same water fountains as the whites.
We learned how religious leaders of that time were often asking Jesus questions to try to trip him up, to back him into a corner, and to get him in trouble. On one of those occasions someone asked the question, “And who is my neighbor?” - maybe with a bit of arrogance.
In response to the question, Jesus told a story and in the process made a Samaritan the hero of the story - a tactic that most likely pissed off the Scribes & Pharisees even more.
But maybe, just maybe… his words got through to some of the listening crowd as they maybe realized how terribly Samaritans had been treated.
Maybe a sweet Jewish Bubbe broke away from the crowd and walked over to Jesus.
Maybe she straightened up to her full height as she tearfully declared: Samaritan Lives Matter.
Maybe Jesus interrupted her and retorted, “Of course, they do. All lives matter!” After all, he had been preaching the message of love for everybody; right?
No?
That’s not how the story goes?
No.
It is good for me to remind myself - again - what Jesus was doing.
Jesus knew very well that Samaritans were looked down upon. He was already doing something about it. … he had elevated the Samaritan to hero status. The example for religious leaders and everyone else. He was being an advocate for people who didn’t seem to matter. Let that be a lesson to me!
… Jesus demonstrated that Samaritan Lives Matter - because society often treated them as if they didn’t. Hence the need for repeated reminders that indeed they do.
(Excerpted from my book, Beyond These Walls, pp. 106-107)
…
So many sides
So many angles
So many perspectives
So much to understand
So many ways to hurt each other
But so many opportunities to invest in each other
To care enough to really listen
To put myself in another’s shoes
And so I continue to listen and to learn.
I continue to admit my mistakes.
Because yes, all lives matter.
And because such things are not simple.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865,
which is when enslaved Black people in Texas were told
that slavery had been abolished.
…
By the time enslaved people in Galveston, Texas,
were told by Union Major General Gordon Granger
that they were free on June 19, 1865,
they were some of the last enslaved people to be informed.
It had been two months since the Civil War ended.
-Excerpted from dictionary.com
...
This week I’ve been bumping into things that remind me that for far too long in our country, Black lives have not mattered. It is way past the time for that fact to be turned around.
My heart breaks about things that I do not understand, nor have even a smidge of control. I cannot begin to comprehend all the factors that come together in the killing of a person of color - just because of that color. I cannot imagine the fear that must be just below the surface for them. I barely understand what Juneteenth is about, but I try to learn a little bit more each year.
...
Of course, these issues are not simple nor are they limited to skin color. I also fail to understand how we can send astronauts to live on the ISS, but we can’t figure out how to keep children safe in school. Thinking about the conditions in Ukraine and Gaza just make me shudder.
What can we do?
How should we feel?
What should we think?
Though my attempts feel terribly small, I have at least begun taking steps - to listen, to read, to recognize the huge gaps in my understanding and to start filling some of those gaps with learning and compassion and respect.
Four years ago my daughter penned these lines about starting to celebrate Juneteenth. Her words are helping me.
This story took place on June 4, 1996.
...
[We] were gathered in a living room when we heard a siren approaching on the highway and then sudden silence. That was strange. What does it mean? It was so unusual that we stepped outside to get a better look. The ambulance had turned down the almost-deserted dead-end dirt road - which explained why the siren was no longer needed. But why would they be going down there?
We watched the ambulance disappear at the end of the gravel road and wondered which neighbors might be affected by this emergency. Hardly anyone lived on that road.
We heard ourselves talking about what it means to "love my neighbor as myself." We remembered how a mutual friend liked to stir up that topic to make us all think. You know how if you are coming home and see smoke billowing from your neighborhood...? The panic and the fear... and then the relief when you discover it's not your house. Whew! But wait; it's my neighbor's house... Hmmm... This it tricky. Worth pondering.
...
... we would discover that the neighbor with the emergency was my own dear dad who had been planting beans in the huge field at the end of that dead-end road. And now he was gone. Suddenly.
As I was saying, sirens can be triggering for me...
...
* The above excerpt is from my book, Beyond these Walls - Book by Book, which features wisdom from several authors and books that impacted me on my unexpected journey from being embedded in church culture most of my life until suddenly being launched outside the walls of organized religion.
Lightly pinging the metal roof
Distant thunder
Raining harder
Heavy now
Drumming the metal roof just inches above our heads
Steady
Thunder moves closer
Eventually
A torrential downpour
Cozy in here
Intense storm
Long storm
Thunder rumbling, crackling, rolling
Above us
Around us
Crackling here, then over there
Rumbling overhead and rolling across the sky
Suddenly quiet
A bird calls furiously outside the window
Storm pulls away
Thunder rumbles softly in the distance
Then none
Peace
Quiet
* Originally written in 2012... as experienced from the loft of this cabin...
