Justice for All

Psalm 91 has been hanging all over me this month, popping up on my windshield from multiple directions. It feels as if it might just be the 9-1-1 call our souls need. Hear these powerful truths being spoken over you:

“He will call upon me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.” (v.15-16)

Your voice is heard. God hears you.
You are not alone. God is with you in times of trouble and when terror presses in hard.
You will get through this and are worthy of the good that is to come. God will deliver you and honor you.
Your dreams of living life with hope, going home at night to your family, breathing, are not in vain. God will satisfy you and save you.

We need every human being of every beautiful color to know the truths found above.

For me, a white girl who writes and speaks for a living and shares responsibility for messaging that impacts thousands of people every week within my organization, I’ve become convinced of the importance of lifting others’ voices up who need to be heard. For this reason, I’ve been really quiet in my little slice of online this month and seeking to listen, learn, and elevate others in my day-to-day. There is work to be done regarding race that we’ll each need to be a part of for a long time to come. Meanwhile, I want to share my story and experiences with racism here, but only in an effort to point to the stories, honor, and worth of my black brothers and sisters who deserve immensely more.

Let me just say right upfront, I’m beyond grateful for my gracious black friends.

Diversity is the pattern of beauty for the tapestry of humanity.

As a college student, I was a diversity peer educator. I loved diversity. And I was lucky enough to have traveled regularly with my family growing up, so a passion for other people and cultures was at the very heart of who I am. So, after satisfying a healthy case of wanderlust and traveling around awhile from my home base in St. Louis, I moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

Within what seemed like just hours of arriving as a new resident, I had a door slammed in my face by a black woman. Really?! Me? But I loved diversity. Should I have explained myself to her? She apparently wasn’t interested. There was hatred and pain behind that door. I could feel it. And personally, that moment made me angry. I wondered, why can’t the South just get past all of this? I mean, hadn’t the rest of the world already moved on? So there I was, officially a part of the racial tension that was the storyline of this soulful city.

Fortunately, the heartbeat of the church in Memphis was (and is) one of racial reconciliation. After all, we’re all on even ground at the foot of the cross and with equal, immense value in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. Over the 12 years that we lived in Memphis, Jon and I were part of a multiracial church and had black pastors teaching and speaking into our lives. At one point, one of our pastors challenged us: if you look under your kitchen table and all the feet match, you have some work to do. He said all of us needed to intentionally pursue relationships with others who were different than us, and to cross dividing lines for the sake of the gospel. He was absolutely right. We did have some work to do, and while we still have work to do in this space, that piece of advice was something that left an important mark on our lives.

Naivety is served.

We soon invited an amazing, young black family from our church over for dinner. We wanted to let our kids play and to get to know one another better. Jon came home that afternoon and asked me, “So, what are we having for dinner tonight?” The look on his face as I answered was one of shock and awe. I was completely confused. I had found a new recipe and was making oven-friend chicken with greek yogurt. They were a healthy couple, so I just knew they’d love it. And since it was summertime, I’d also made homemade coleslaw and sliced up a fresh watermelon.

You’re probably reading between the lines right now, but I was not. What on earth could be wrong with this amazing meal? I had NO IDEA that these foods were stereotypical African American foods. Seriously, no idea. Oh my gosh, how mortifying. Unfortunately it was too late to change the menu, as they’d be arriving in just a few minutes. Naivety was served.

Jon and Derek probably had a good laugh together after Jon apologized profusely for my meal choice. I’m happy to say we’re still on good terms, and those friends of ours are today pastoring a multiracial church in Chicago. We’re still fans and cheering them on from the Lou!

There can be pain in intimacy.

Not long after this, a disciple friend and I went on a mission trip to Honduras. We were the only white members of the team, and one day we were all piled in the back of a big van, heading to our next location. While riding, we talked through one of the activities we’d planned to do with the children. A familiar one to the vacation bible school crowd, we’d be storying through the gospel using colored beads and pipe cleaner bracelets. As the kids picked up each bead, one color at a time, we’d share a part of the gospel narrative and they would string them onto their bracelets. The activity started with the black bead, which stood for sin.

One of our team members asked, “Why does the black bead always have to be the bad one?” Now, before you start explaining about how there’s the contrast of darkness and light pictured all throughout scripture, there is an underlying truth here that’s really important. How would this activity make children with dark skin feel about their color, self-identity, and worth? Was it possible there could be important and sad unintended consequences to this?

That was honestly just the beginning, and the conversation deepened from there. In one of the greatest moments of intimacy I’ve ever experienced, our friends opened up to us in the back of that van about the many harsh realities and painful experiences they’d had living life as a person of color. It was painful to hear. And I’m forever grateful for that conversation.

I think we all need to have many more conversations just like this one.

Who’s driving?

Jon recently reminded me of a related story while we were talking about the racial and civil unrest in the world. Around the same time as this back-of-the-van experience, Jon was going every week into a high-security state prison with a group of guys to minister to the men there. And every week, as they got in the truck and the sun tucked itself behind the horizon, Jon was elected designated driver. Why? Because he was the only white guy in the group. And it was rural Tennessee. At night.

I really had never thought about why he drove each week. Again, given today’s headlines, I don’t think there’s any mystery behind why this had to be so. But how sad. No one should ever have to fear being pulled over by a police officer, or driving at night, or driving while black, or being black. Not ever.

And then…Ferguson?

These moments wrote themselves on the tablets of our hearts. Then, after 12 years of living in Memphis, our family moved back to my hometown of St. Louis. Within weeks, Ferguson happened.

What?! Oh no, seriously? In this city too? Wait a second, I had grown up in St. Louis. I loved diversity, you’ll remember. Surely racial tension wasn’t boiling under the surface here too, right? I was dead wrong. And I think we are all awake to this issue now. Injustice and racial divide is in this city, too. It’s in every city. And there is work for each one of us to do.

Check your feet.

So back to that challenge our pastor gave us all those years ago: check the feet under your kitchen table. If they all match, you need to intentionally pursue relationships with people who are different than you - by race and any other dividing line. So do we.

This is a Kingdom issue. Justice and freedom are very close to God’s heart. And it must be close to ours too.

Break our hearts for what breaks yours, O God! Move our hearts with compassion to action on behalf of those who are oppressed, marginalized, and minimized. Lead us to be your hands and feet as we ought to be.

“Learn to do right. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow.” Isaiah 1:17

As for me and my family, we’ll keep pursuing diversity. We’ll keep reading and watching, talking and praying. We’ll continue doing some marches and bringing our voices, bodies, signs, and courage to the table. We’ll do what we know to do to stand up for what it right and good and to make a difference in any small way we can. And when we know how to do even better, we’ll do better.

If you’re new to this whole space of race, I want to share some of the resources I’m leaning into, though undoubtedly there are many, many more worthy of all of our attention. But please join me in this and let’s each do this work. Let’s learn one thing this week, listen to one thing next week, and have one courageous conversation, and then another. Let’s be stretched. And if you’re white, like me, be sure to give yourself grace when you feel things like anger, fear, and pain. We’re just catching up to what has been a harsh reality for people of color for far too long.

Friend, we need grace in all of this. It’s okay to not be okay, and it’s okay to not have all the right words to say, all the right foods to serve on your table, or any easy fixes for the pain we’re all feeling right now. We’re in for a marathon of change if justice for all will ever become a reality, so take care of yourself.

God, Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.