Happy Emancipation Day. I hope I can grow my heart in understanding of what Juneteenth means to Black America, to my family who has been oppressed under unfair trade agreements, unjust resource extraction, slavery, segregationist (racist) policies like mid-1900s Jim Crow and property red-lining policies that continued the systematic isolation, wealth extraction, and future-opportunity-limiting practices of colonial (white) America, and that continues today with the unresolved echoes of these policies and mindsets, with privatization of prison systems and police being used as a buffer between the rich and white and poor
(the poor, who are disproportionately Black and Brown, because of said racist policies and the natural ways of perceiving that white people learn and share over time based on how the world around them is (racially) structured, a structure that lay people didn’t critically build, but have bought at face value—though, mind you, the structure has always been meticulously designed—a structure that we still to this day and beyond owe it to our family to critically view, to opproach with an open mind about how it might be working for all of us—
(as in: Is it working for you? How is working for you? How is it not working for you? What might an alternate way for it to work look like—so that it might work for you?)
And to understand that we have our experience, that is what we know in our bones—but we must use our heart to bridge our misunderstandings, to reach out and ask, or, when we (white America/those with the majority of power) are being reached out to (as is the case today, evidence by mass demonstrations that are now global—the literal crying, groaning of the world for justice and a new revelation of peace)—when we are being reached out to, we owe it to our family to listen, to honor the voice of experience that we have no hope of knowing unless we chose to listen with an open heart, and to let that connection move us into reconciliation. Reconciliation demands humility of the strong, and inherently promises that the weak will be made strong. This is God at work—through us, as us.
The world is crying out. If you are white, I ask you to listen with an open heart—to step away from the politics and to approach not in teams but one on one to discover what in the blazes is going on that would drive someone—focus, find someone...—to step out into the streets and lift up their voice. That action is the language of the unheard (Thank you, Dr. King). Maybe you feel no compulsion to get into the streets—but clearly some many people do, enough to stay in those streets for weeks on end. We owe it to our family to find out why. The news can’t reconcile our family. The President can’t reconcile our family. The pastor can’t reconcile our family (though our leaders can help equip us.) This is heart to heart work, were we must step up to each other, to open our hearts together and engage with enough faith through our lack of understanding so that God can move in the space between. There is the love, there is the magic. This can not wait—our family depends on all of us.
If you are Black, Brown, Native, Unheard, Unseen—I love you. I wish we could overcome today the deafening chasm of pride and fear and all manner of divisive evidences of the grip of souls to control their reality. I have enough of a battle in the daily micro-stuff of my soul where I want control—It often results for me in prolonged inaction for fear of “doing it wrong” or being judged... How much more difficult is our collective resignation from the need to control?
The good news is that this is the cause of Love, of God’s Heart, of the very dawn and fundamental vibe of the Universe: to reconcile us together: away from our need for control to lovingly accepting, honoring our own hearts, each other’s hearts—the invitation of Grace is infinite, this Love is eternal. We all must lean in, and we will get there.
#blacklivesmatter #BLM #Love
