Black Lives Matter!

            We have had an incredible month.  August 6 was our sixtieth wedding anniversary and our kids produced a wonderful event at our oldest daughter’s lake house in Ohio.  We spent the whole week celebrating, enjoying family and friends in a great atmosphere.  Rosie sparkled as I have seen her do for all of these years and that I remember from the first time that I saw her.  I was reminded again that we have a remarkable family. 

            Also, our youngest daughter, Heather is moving to San Diego, California with her fiancé, where I know that they will get married in the near future.  Her happiness is something that we have hungered for and she is certainly deserving of it.  She has had a chaotic month, selling her furniture, getting her house ready and getting ready for the move.  There has been a lot going on. 

            We thank God for our family and for the love that has endured for all of these years.  We have appreciated the good wishes that have been sent our way.  We know how fortunate we are.

            Faith has been a large part of not only our marriage, but also of our family.  We have been constantly upheld by our daughters and we have watched them grow into glorious women.  I know that God has been watching over us all from the beginning, being with us through all of the difficult times and giving us strength to get to here.

             I love what St. Paul tells the Ephesians in his letter to trust in God’s power to help us in our troubles.    He speaks in frank military terms telling his followers to put on the armor of God and to know that God’s power is there to defend us from all of the assaults of the enemy.  Sometimes it sounds like those enemies are all celestial, the allies of the devil and such.  I think that Paul is more concerned about the enemies that we have around us.  Sometimes the assumptions that we make about our culture that leads to great problems.  Sometimes, we are the enemy.

            There has been an explosion of concern over the assault on black people by police in this time.  We just had the first anniversary of the killing of Michael Brown on the streets of Ferguson, MO and the policeman who killed him never indicted for it.  There was a remarkable amount of rationalization around it by the white community; the kids stealing cigars, as though that was a capital offence.  I was struck by the callousness of this nation when it came to the problems in Ferguson.  We stretched every way that we could to find blame.  It was the police, it was the black crowds, it was anything at all except our culture.

            The phrase that has come up through all of this has been Black Lives Matter!  That has been posted on signs and carried through our streets.  Strangely, it has been countered by another phrase:  All Lives Matter, which in essence sends the black lives to the back of the bus.  Of course all lives matter.  We all know that.  The cry of the black community though is to take those black lives seriously.  To pay particular attention to them while this problem persists.  To work to care that in our culture we work to take special care to insure that blackness in itself is not a crime, as it has seemed to be in so many circumstances lately.

            I am appalled at the amount of violence that we see on television every day.  A lot of this is black on black crime; desperate people with guns trying to make their way in a culture that often makes no space for them at all.  Now, we have instances of white on black killing, not only by police, but occasionally by self appointed vigilantes.  Coincidentally, we have more black people incarcerated than any nation in the world.  When I was a part time chaplain at Western Penitentiary, I saw a yard full of black inmates trying as hard as they could to make their own way in that place.  Most of the guards were white and the contrast was monumental.  It still is. 

            What we need so desperately to do is to take this problem seriously.  Not make excuses for it, not cast blame; but look at ourselves and how it is that we still segregate in this culture.  This is the enemy that we must counter with our faith.  It is necessary, maybe even essential that we find ways to bridge the gap between the races and come to some understanding of what is needed in order for us to live together as a people.  We are really not white and black; we are all a people with an enormous history.  We need to take the history seriously, look at it and come to terms with what it all means.  Inclusion is the necessary issue.  Love is what we are called to do.

            Putting on the armor of God isn’t easy.  It involves setting aside some assumptions that we carry with us.  I wasn’t born white of my own volition.  None of my black friends chose their color.  It is what we have in common in this culture.   But we have been given more than our race.  We have also been given faith that is strengthened and sustained by our God over our lives.  Faith is what got me to this place in my life.  It is also what brought Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu to our attention as magnificent representatives of humanity.  That is what I want to follow in this world.  Black lives certainly matter.  You and I need to be certain that we all know that.