There’s been a lot going on back home in the States lately. A lot of it was real close to home for me. For the last 3ish years I’ve been living in South West Louisiana with my parents. This is where my mom grew up and most of her family still lives there. So all the shootings in Baton Rouge and then Dallas felt very close even though I’m currently in Southern Romania.
You might think that being over seas, so far from home, and busy with things that have nothing to do with the US would make it easier to pretend these things aren’t happening.
You would be wrong.
If there’s one thing this trip has taught me so far, it’s that you can’t run from pain. You can’t hide from suffering. It will always follow you. And ignoring only helps for so long.
When I heard the news about what happened in Baton Rouge I was shocked. We have good wifi where we’re staying this month so I, and all my squadmates, had the opportunity to watch the video just as quickly as all of you back home. But I decided not to watch it. I was actually in the middle of reading my Bible and thought, I wish they would be a little more quiet. (So super spiritual!)
God rebuked me.
Here was pain right in front of me and I was choosing not to care. I was choosing to ignore it.
“Why don’t you care about my people?” I heard God ask me.
I was immediately offended by this question. Of course I care! But what good is caring if there’s nothing I can do to help?
Then I started to defend myself. It’s not like I’m racist, or have anything to do with people who would ever act this way… I was raised to see all people the same no matter their color, culture, language, status, etc… What does the racism issue in the US have to do with me?
Again God rebuked me.
Strangely, I thought of New Orleans and a museum I have visited in the French Quarter several times. This Museum tells the history of New Orleans (and much of Louisiana) from the beginning. It tells of the Natives who lived there before the Europeans arrived and then continues on until current day. At the heart of this history is slavery.
Louisiana is a beautiful state full of rich, diverse culture. I am proud (as most are) to be a part of it’s heritage. But the truth is, it was built on slavery. The slave trade made us rich and enabled the plantations to expand quickly with cheap labor. The African slaves brought with them much of what is still our culture in Louisiana today.
In this museum are remnants of the slave trade. A trading block that people used to stand on as they were sold to the highest bidder, a terrible iron collar with bells attached so they could keep track of slaves in the fields even when they were out of sight. These are horrible things to imagine being real. It’s difficult for me to even see these, much less put them into writing now. I thank God that slavery is illegal and these are not an every day reality any more but I also realize that the remnants of this heritage still affect our culture today.
(Disclaimer: I am not trying to single out Louisiana, it is simply where I live and I can only write about what I know. I know we have done a lot to change the original culture of racism but I believe we still have a long rode ahead.)
I would like to say these things never happened. But to cheapen the things that have been suffered by pretending it never happened is wrong.
More painful still, my ancestors were an active part of this culture of slavery. When you go back far enough, there are stories in my family tree. And while I don’t carry any guilt for sins committed before I was born, I believe it is important to live in awareness of the culture that has been passed down to us. My parents, and their parents, worked hard to change the cultures of their families and to shield us from the culture of racism we were all born into. But parents can only do so much when that culture surrounds us every where we go.
I have never considered myself to be racist in any way. Racism makes me sick. I find it painful even to watch movies about it. But I would be lying if I said I never have a thought, or fall into categorizing, generalizing based on appearance. I would be lying if I said the terrible things I hear spoken around me don’t sometimes pop up in my thoughts unwelcome. I try never to let these thoughts REMAIN in my mind but the fact that they pop up at all is proof to how powerful surrounding culture truly is.
Worse than all that, how many times have I turned a blind eye? How many times have I not let myself care? How many times have I ignored suffering, or even disqualified it as being imagined to make myself feel better? How many times have I said, “not my problem” and walked away?
These are the things I repented of that morning. I repented for any scrap of racism or other form of hatred in my heart. I repented for not choosing to stand up for brotherly love. I repented for not taking personal responsibility for the state of my own country.
In choosing to ignore the pain and suffering around us we are choosing to ignore several very important things about who God has called His people to be. Jesus told Peter, “if you love me, feed my sheep.” (John 21:17) True love for Jesus is shown through love for those around us (1 John 4:20, John 13:35). Not simple feelings of well wishes from a distance, but love in action. 1 John 3:18 says, “let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
Finally, God’s word calls us to mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15). Our brothers and sisters are mourning. I don’t have to agree with a person to join them in mourning a loss of life. I may not know how to “fix” things. I may not have any answers at all. But I can sit beside those who mourn and join my voice with their’s as we cry out to Jesus. Our country is in pain. So today I mourn.
This blog is dedicated to my good friend Denise Henderson. Her strong belief in justice and standing up for those without a voice helped me to see the areas where I have been blind and/or silent for too long. I am so grateful for her love, forgiveness, and friendship in my life!
