Response to FB Conversation on Racism

    I've wrestled with racism in my community and in myself starting when I was very young. I tried with varying degrees of success to preserve my belief in equality before God, while navigating the culture of my segregated neighborhood in 1970's Chicago suberbs and later my integrated, primarily black school and community in rural SC in the 80's, where I clearly had rights over my friends bc I was white (whether I wanted them or not).
    I have lived a privileged life, gaining education and opportunity by virtue of my Mom being an educator. Now I am in the SW where the Latino culture abounds around me and racism and oppression weave intricately through a culture that is foreign to me. Still I again am in the privileged class. I know the prejudice that I seek to overcome in the world hovers insidiously within my own experience and attitudes and assumptions.
    I easily embrace people in my community and locale because I love culture and diversity and the manifold image of God, but I have never grasped a larger role in the conversation. I'm glad for my people who do and pray for them and for change in myself, the world of Jesus-followers, and this broken world in which we have been called to be ministers of reconciliation. I know that I am coming from a less-active role, but remember my friends that the grace of Jesus is our weapon and he is a humble servant who loved us as his enemy and leads us gently out of our sins.

Emanuel Over Dimentia

We sang the hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" at the Village tonight. I for some reason have this associated with my mom. I remember wrestling with some of the lyrics after Mom was in the Alzheimer's Unit. "Thy compassions they fail not. They are new every morning." How could this be true for Mom as this darkness consumes her bright mind? Then one day when I was with her, she closed her eyes, which could no longer process vision as I know it. She said in her awed voice, "Isn't it beautiful!" How limited is my understanding of the Emanuel-ness of Jesus! The One sent to be God-with-us. Happy Resurrection Day.