The Heart Breaking

There are moments, as a parent, when your heart actually breaks.

Some kinds are the good breaking - the moment a child is born, the day one comes home with you, the first time he calls you mama. The kind of breaking that expands your heart to love more than you thought you ever could.

Then there are the other kinds. The kind of breaking that makes you sweat and scream and makes you cling harder and closer to the cross than you ever thought you'd need to. The kind that comes with loss and illness. The kind that comes when your child is wronged or hurt by another. The kind that you cannot prevent. The kind that makes it clear that you, ultimately, have no control.

There was a moment this week.

It was one I knew would happen at some point. I knew they were words he would hear. I didn't know how and when they would come and I readied myself for it the best I could.

But there is no way to truly be ready to hear your own child tell you that someone told him his skin is "ucky, ucky" and that it "looks like it has poopoo on it."

At the ripe old age of 3.5, my son now knows what it feels like to be othered because of the color of his skin. And not just othered, but othered in a negative way. Last I heard, describing someone as the color of poop was not a compliment.

And I know some people might read this and have one of the following reactions.

(1) It was a little kid. He or she didn't mean any harm.
(2) Your son might be making it up. Preschoolers aren't necessarily trustworthy.
(3) That's not prejudice, it's just a childish observation.

If you thought one or more of those things, I'm going to ask you to pause for a minute. To ask God why your first response was skepticism or dismissal.

And honestly? If your first response isn't sadness or shock or anger, I really hope that you and I can grab coffee soon. We can't hash out what's going on through facebook. Seriously, call, text or email now and let's chat.

Because here is the deal.

I sat on my son's bed with him. I asked him how his day at school was. And anyone who knows him, knows that he is exuberant. Lively. Spirited. Funny. That his normal reaction to anything that goes wrong in his day is anger and frustration.

He is almost never sad.

But this day? This day, he told me a story. THIS story. And I asked him how it made him feel. He said he didn't know. My child is not one to be without words. But his body language, friends. His shoulders were slumped. He had trouble meeting my eyes. I asked him every question I know to ask a preschooler to discern whether he is telling the truth or making up a story. (Particularly given some recent encounters with his holding the distinction between fantasy and reality fairly lightly.) He stuck to it. He used the same words every time. And he was sad. He laid on my chest and, friends, oh friends, he told me that he wants to be white so no one says that to him again.

And my heart broke into a million pieces.

As a transracial adoptive parent, I knew this would happen. I know that it's actually normal for children to want to look like their parents. I didn't panic. We will work through that part of it. Every day.

But I held him. I held him tight. I hurt with him in his pain. And I whispered words of love and beauty. I told him that this little friend was wrong. I didn't tell him that child didn't mean it. I am not going to lessen the impact of what he was feeling. I can't know the intention of why that little child said what he did. Even if I did, intention doesn't matter in this case. In this case, my son heard that he was different and that that difference is bad. That made an impact on him. And it won't be the only time hears it. Next time the words might be worse.

Please hear me loud and clear.

IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

What we teach our children from day one makes a difference. The books we read to them. The churches we go to. The ways we choose to give them language (or not) to understand that God's image resides beautifully in all backgrounds of people. When we teach them these things, we aren't teaching them to "see color" as so many people put it. Science has proven that from the tender age of six months, kids see it. It is our job as parents to help them understand it.

Why in the actual world would we leave them to make their own judgment call on this when the world around them has spent thousands of years making the wrong judgment calls on this? Why would we leave something that has the power to cause so much hurt up to a child to figure out? Why would we possibly trust them to get this right when generations of people have othered and murdered and stolen from others because they have gotten it wrong over and over and over again.

I don't know this child and I don't know his parents. I know my son's teacher and I am grateful that she was upset about this. That she was the opposite of dismissive. Grateful that she brought in pictures of her own children who don't look like her and showed them to my son and affirmed his beauty and worth. Grateful that she is the kind of teacher who recognizes it as part of her job to talk about this. Not all teachers would.

You want to know why I say what I do and write what I do and lead groups like I do to talk about this? You want to know why I am working with a friend to develop a PTA training for parents on how to talk to their children about race? You want to know why I cared about this long before I had two black sons who would experience it firsthand?

Because I had friends, close friends who told me the truth.

Because I saw my own biases and lamented and confessed and ask the Holy Spirit every day to keep rooting them out and changing me.

Because I learned to see that this was all over scripture, from day one, and that God's heart breaks for injustice more than I can ever understand.

Because I have a deep hope that if we can change the conversation in this next generation, that maybe, finally, we can start to see some change.

And because of those things, I speak. I speak to children and to adults about what I believe to be true - that God intended our differences to be beautiful, to reveal the vastness of his character, but that the world uses them to divide. I hold my own kids tight and attempt to undo the messages the world is sending them. And not just to undo them, but to replace them. To replace them with the truth that they are beautiful and precious and loved in His sight. That their color is on purpose. That my white son with his blond hair and blue eyes is beautiful and made in God's image. That my black sons with their curly dark hair and brown eyes are beautiful and made in God's image.

God doesn't make mistakes. So many people think that colorblindness is the Christian way to respond but I haven't found a single scripture to support it.

The world is not colorblind, my friends, and neither is God.

So friends, let's wake up and listen. Let's tell our kids the truth when we hold them tight.

And then watch them change the world.

On Boxes and Murder in the Church

Just a few days ago, a good friend of mine called me out. In that, "I-kinda-wanna-crawl-under-a-rock-and-lick-my-wounds-but-I-know-she's-right" kind of way.

We had been talking about a news item and I said something uncharitable about the protagonist of the story. Something rude. Something I have no business saying as a follower of Jesus.

She wrote back to me and said this: "There is more than meets the eye to most people."

She's right.

But oh, do I prefer to put people en masse into boxes. Groups. To places I can easily dismiss or self-righteously join.

I saw a man with whom I disagreed and easily vilified him.

I chose not to see him as made in the image of God. And because of that, I sinned against him.

Shame on me. And, to be honest, shame on many of us.

Instead of being light and salt to a broken, messy world, so many of us sit around name-calling and whining like we are stuck in some never-ending middle school recess of a nightmare. Facebook looks like a war zone. Between Christians, no less.

My heart, this week, has brought me back to a verse from college that changed my life.

21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
²³ “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, , 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.  

Matthew 5:21-24

Perhaps you were expecting some inspirational verse about trust or faith or hope or love. Seems a little morbid to ruminate on a verse about murder. But I remember the moment this verse became a way to live my life. I had been at a retreat with my InterVarsity group and our staff worker had made us really, truly think about what this was asking of us as followers of Jesus. 

It was saying that if we are coming to worship our God and realize that someone is angry with us (and, it seems likely to add, someone with whom we are angry), to stop. Ask for forgiveness. Apologize. Forgive. Do whatever it takes. But be reconciled to your brother or sister BEFORE you have the audacity to come before God in worship. It was saying that our unwillingness to do so, our holding on to unhealthy or judgmental anger, our calling others "fool" is actually just like murdering them.

That's pretty serious, guys.

That night, we were able to go around the room, look people in the eye and create space for forgiveness and reconciliation. Since then, I have tried to live my life in a way that doesn't let resentment fester, that confronts and repents and changes when disagreements or hurts happen.

But I haven't done a very good job of it recently.

You know what's easy? Complaining and cynicism and blame and name-calling.

You know what's not? Actually following Jesus into the hardest, most broken, dark places and letting him develop empathy and lament and hope and self-awareness and forgiveness and action that seeks to reconcile. THAT is the hard work of living out the gospel.

A few months ago one of my pastor's charged us with this: Until "we love we"(meaning Christians being able to truly love one another), no one is going to give a rip about what else we have to say and one way to love is to stop, listen and learn. (Paraphrased)

But what do I see instead of "we loving we?" What do I see (yes, in myself) instead of stopping, listening, learning and therefore seeing each other as beautiful people made in God's images?

I see Christians hurling epithets at one another. Calling each other liberals and snowflakes and conservatives(and never in a descriptive way, but a disdainful way), boxing each other up, taping it shut and then finding like-minded believers to mock and laugh and smugly pat each other on the back.

Brothers and sisters, this is not what it's supposed to look like. What in the world are we doing? Becoming?

As I have been pondering this post, I finally sat down and made a list of all the people in my feed that have made me angry. That post things that make me feel like I have been placed in a box. And I asked God to help me forgive them.

But you know what else I did? I made a list of people who I know have not always liked what I had to say. Who likely have something against me. And I asked God's forgiveness for ways that I have "othered," ways that I have "boxed," ways that I have spewed hate in my heart, instead of offering grace across discord.

Look, Facebook is complicated. It's not "face to face" like people used to be able to argue. I can't get everyone in my feed in a room and walk around and offer apologies and hugs.

But I can get my own act together.

I can remember that while there is space in my following of Jesus for righteous anger, for conviction, for passion, that if I worship my cause more than my God, I will most likely end up being an agent of hate.

So, today, I ask us all to pause. To look at what we've written and what we've pondered in our hearts towards people over these last few crazy years.

Is it the fruit of rage and fear and murderous hearts or is it the fruit of following Jesus into the hard places?

One thing I plan to do is this: before I say anything, I am going to pause, try to hear what that person is saying, remind myself that he or she is just as precious in God's sight as those with whom I agree and then figure out if what I have to say is helpful to the conversation. If it is a truth that points them to a God who loves them and pursues justice and reconciliation. If it's not, I'm going to keep quiet.

As my pastor put it this past Sunday, I am going to do my best to set more tables, not make more labels.

Who is with me?  

Enough Already

I haven't written anything "political" on my blog since the morning after the election. I chose that day to share my own grief, my own fears for the future of my sons. I know a lot of people shared those deep feelings of heartache along with me and continue to do so.

I watched as the next few weeks have gone by as people have torn each other apart. How people who are angry have protested or rioted. How people who are hurt have shared that hurt in public forums for the first time. How people who are elated have either stayed silent to show restraint for those hurting or have gloated in hurtful ways.

Yes, my feed is full of many types. Those who are appalled right now. Those who aren't saying anything. And those who, largely, are telling the rest of us to move on. Get over it. Agree to disagree.

Yesterday, though, I watched a video. It was of an alt-right group hosting a conference in Washington, D.C. I felt like I was watching something that had to be fake. The anti-semitic remarks, the white nationalist pride, literally the use of the following words from Richard B. Spencer:

"To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer, a conqueror...And we recognize the central lie of American race relations. We don't exploit other groups, we don't gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around...We were not meant to beg for moral validation from some of the most despicable creatures to ever populate the planet...America was, until this last generation, a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity."

To hear and see something like this, proudly broadcast, was like watching a scene from a documentary from Nazi Germany made into color. To watch this happening in my own country brought a deep sense of shame.

People have largely laughed off the comparisons over the last year that some people have made of Trump to Hitler as overblown or unhistorical - I myself quoted Martin Niemoller in a post 6 months ago about remaining silent in the face of hateful rhetoric and stand by that post.

Do I think they are the same? Of course not. I have Jewish ancestry. I remember the long, painful day I once spent with my aunt in the National Holocaust Museum and how we combed the database looking up family members to learn their exact fate. I do not think Trump is Hitler. I do not think we are on the cusp of a holocaust in America.

What I do think is that the way he has spoken about many people groups, the way he has unashamedly mocked people, used inflammatory rhetoric, refused to denounce hate groups who have supported him...I do think that that behavior has opened the door to the absolute mess we are now seeing.

People who have always existed in hateful lifestyles and opinions now feel free to do it publicly in a way we haven't seen in decades. At least not on a national scale.

And as a mother and, frankly, a human being, I am appalled. Appalled that in 2016 there is a rising tide of people joining white supremacist groups in this country. Appalled that people didn't see this coming, that wrote off his rhetoric as "mere words." Appalled by the rise in hate crimes. Appalled that the best Trump can do is say "stop it" and do nothing at all to convince us he means it. Appalled that he is more offended by the cast of a Broadway show respectfully engaging his running mate than by the words of this group in D.C.

Words are powerful, my friends. Haven't we learned that by now?

So yes, I've sat by and watched our country spew hate at each other. I've seen people say that those who are hurting are "sore losers" who just have to move on. I have wondered if I even have anything to add to all the words being thrown around. But if I don't say something, I'm not sure I can look my sons in the eyes any longer.

What in the actual hell are we moving on to? WHAT? 

What I wish I had seen over the past week was just one pro-Trump friend of mine denouncing the Muslim registry. JUST ONE.

What I wish I had seen over the past 24 hours was just one person in my feed who unashamedly voted for Trump calling for him to denounce the alt-right movement as distinctly UN-American and, frankly, more dangerous than the foreign terrorism he so clearly fears and uses to demonize large swathes of people.

What I wish I had seen since he was elected was family and friends who voted for him denouncing his choices for cabinet members, his cronyism, the ways he is already doubling back on promises he made to them to clean up Washington and do things differently.

Because the bottom line, at least according to those who voted for him in my feed, is that they found him more trustworthy than Hillary.

Really? Trustworthy?

Friends, what are our children going to see right now?

Men who have their hands raised in the same salute that Nazis made to Hitler 80 years ago?

Or a president who will come out and say "Enough is enough" and move towards the people he has alienated over the past year and a half?

Will they see us bickering and name calling?

Or a generation of adults who are willing to fight for what is right when hate is attempting to define our generation?

I, at least, know what my sons will see and hear in this home.

We will preach love. We will preach forgiveness. We will preach truth.

And preaching those things means that we will stand up and say "no."

No to white supremacy. No to the alt-right. No to appointments of people who clearly only care about one group of Americans. No to people who would attempt to criminalize being Muslim. (And to those who would argue that they aren't attempting to criminalize but just register them...please read your history books. Nothing good ever comes to those who are set apart as "other." Tutsis, Jews, Poles, Armenians, Native Americans...the list goes on.)

Unfriend me if you will. Tell me I'm being overly emotional or overreacting. I don't think having a visceral reaction to an white nationalist rally is overly emotional. I think it's human. I will not be silent, I will not be complacent.

I would much rather fall on the side of vigilance and wariness than on the side of "wait and see" on this one.

And I will not move on if it means our country will become a more dangerous, more openly hateful place.

President-elect Trump, it's your move. Are you going to keep wasting our time on twitter or are you going to speak up? Enough already.

Paralysis

I had big plans this morning to finish painting our great room while the youngest napped. To finally be done with all our big indoor projects and be able to concentrate on the outdoors now that the weather is slightly cooler than hell.

Instead, I can't move. I'm just sitting here, sad, frustrated, angry, paralyzed.

A little over a year ago, my car broke down. It was at a busy intersection. My infant was in the back seat, not napping because apparently none of my children got the genetic memo that cars are restful to infants. I got out of my car and walked to the side of the road. At some point in my life, I remember being told not to stay in a car on the side of the road in case someone plowed into you. Probably there is a hole in that argument somewhere, but I was more concerned with the screaming infant than rational thought.

Shortly after that, a police car pulled past and then pulled over in front of my car. The officer got out, approached me confidently and kindly and said he had received a report of a woman with a car broken down and wanted to make sure everything was ok.

Was everything ok?

Welp, yes, it was. Just a popped tire.

But would it have been ok if I was a black man standing on the side of the road next to my vehicle? Would that officer have exited his vehicle calmly and confidently, weapon holstered?

Or would I have been another Terence Crutcher? An innocent man, a father, a college student whose car got stuck in the middle of the road and who happened to be in the way of some officers heading to a different call. And would they have gotten out of their cars and pointed their weapons at me? And would I have thought rationally? Would I have run? Would I have stayed still? Would I have put my hands in the air?

What would I have done if my car broke down and I was black?

Friends, I am seeing justification up and down on facebook. I am hearing people say "we don't know what happened" or "we don't know what the suspect really said."

Suspect? Really? Was I a "suspect" when my car broke down? Did I look like a "bad dude"?

Nope.

Because I am a white woman.

No fewer than 15 other people stopped that day to see if I was ok. Some people brought me water. Some people asked if they could help with the tire or if I needed a lift.

I was showered with trust and generosity.

Terence was showered with bullets.

And now I, yet again, have to tell my white son that our conversations about the world are going to look a little different than what his brothers will have to hear. I'll have to tell him that he will likely be given the benefit of the doubt. That no one will look at him, dressed in blue jeans and a white t-shirt with a stalled vehicle, and assume he is a bad dude who is probably on drugs.

But they might look at his brothers that way. They might.

My middle child is big for his age. Well, huge, actually. He's muscular and loud and tall. He wears youth small clothes at the age of 2.5 and you can hear him coming from a mile away. And I know from research that he will be perceived as a threat from a much younger age than a big white kid. I know from research that he will be more likely to have the police called for a school infraction. I know from research that his black skin may invoke a feeling of fear in people who see him and don't know that he is sweet and funny and only 2.

So there are other things I know.

I know that he will not wear a hoodie when driving when he's a teenager.

I know that he will not probably call the police if his car breaks down.

I know that he will never play with toy guns.

I know he won't be able to drive slower than the speed limit on a dark road if he is having trouble seeing.

I know that we will have to teach him that very scary line of learning to respect authorities and also knowing that many authorities will not have his best interests at heart.

And you know what?

I know these things because I actually know black people. I have friends who have told me their stories. Who have shared their frustrations. Who have LIVED with these fears and this knowledge their whole lives. Who share about the microaggressions perpetrated on them on a daily basis. Who are tired and frustrated and just about out of hope in our country because black lives clearly do not matter. Who are actual people, not statistics or articles or stereotypes in hollywood.

Who have lived and breathed a culture of hatred toward them their whole lives.

I've only been thinking about it for a little over a decade. And I don't have to live it.

But my sons will.

Today I am sad. So sad. Aching for Terence's family. Aching for all the parents out there who don't know if their children will make it home from the park or the bus stop or the football game on Friday night. Aching for my friends who aren't sure whether it's worth it to drive anywhere anymore. For the ones who have lost loved ones and had guns pulled on them for watering their neighbors flowers. Who worry about coming home after dark to their apartment in case their neighbors call the police on a "suspicious black person."

Aching because too many people in our country are never given the benefit of the doubt. Too many peoples lives don't actually matter.

And so even though I am paralyzed and my wall is definitely not going to be painted today, I continue to write. I continue to shout Black Lives Matter from the top of my lungs. I continue to listen and learn and teach my sons.

I continue to hope that things can change even in the face of overwhelming sadness.

Because if I lose hope, I fear I'll stay paralyzed forever. And that, my friends, won't solve anything.