Sometimes Asking is Enough

 

A friend of mine asked me a question about why I did something.  Not strange really, since I often do/say things that others find odd or different.  However, this question isn’t one for which I was prepared.  At least, not from this person.  I’ve been watching certain programs on various aspects of civil rights as it pertains to the USA.  Whenever there is an opportunity to learn more about times in our country that deal with this topic, I tend to hope to sit and absorb.  Racial issues, civil rights, equality, giving a voice to the oppressed, community reclamation and empowerment, and the like are all issues that touch a part of my soul that always feels fractured.  My friend genuinely asked me why I watch and learn about things like the Jim Crow laws, or learn about people like Medgar Evers, Emmitt Till, Paul Robeson, etc.  The question shocked me.

I’ll be honest, it shocked me because I didn’t have a well-thought response.  For years and years, I wanted to open my eyes about the issues of oppression around the world, and then be used to help open others’ eyes.  It felt like a calling to me to be challenged about the tendencies of all people to be sexist, racist, bigoted, and broken.  When one’s heart is confronted with transforming truth on an issue, it becomes a part of your life.  But, I couldn’t answer his question.  After thinking about it, I realised that the reason is that something has to give inside of me.  Learning, in and of itself, isn’t wrong but for many years I was constantly trying to find applications for what I had been learning.  The last few years, not so much.  So, I’m rededicating myself to look for concrete ways to apply God’s perspective about these issues in today’s society.  There is much to pray about.

People are saying things like being post-racial in our country.  That somehow we’ve moved past equality with regards to race or gender in this time in society.  Of everything I see, we’re not even close.  In fact, I believe that we’re just becoming better at hiding and obfuscating the roots of our bigotry.  So I ask for the grace to see what, if anything, God is challenging me with here.  I thank my friend, who truly doesn’t understand why these issues are so important to me, for asking the question.  Now I’ve got some chewing to do.  My first task is to sit and read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Dr. King Jr. and see where we still as a society fall so very short with regards to civil rights and equality.  Here’s to open eyes and listening ears to the community around me…

Just one day

Saturday came and went.  It was nothing special.  One of the few weekend days that I can remember where someone or something wasn’t exactly clamouring for my energies.  Since I am a social person, for most of my life I have strived to have my free time filled.  Laughter, tears, random activities all acting like nervous words in the empty spaces in conversation.  I so love people and have often spent time doing things that make my mind recoil because of the people with which I was doing them.  Over the last few years, my life has changed significantly enough that those times are fewer and farther between.  Either because of my schedule, or the schedule of those around me, there are fewer opportunities to spend time as only an extrovert can.

It’s sad really.  Humans are so good at adapting.  I have found myself adjusting to the lack and making it a part of my life.  So much so, that the proverbial and metaphorical inertia is very hard to overcome.  Whether it is just getting older, or a testament to the fact that I really can pretty much survive in any circumstance (something I’ve told myself for decades)… I get the feeling that I no longer need something to keep me from getting out of the house and keeping me home.  I now need something to get me out!  That is very scary to someone who processes from the outside inward.  If you find yourself in the same 4 walls, with little contact outside… you’re left with just yourself and whatever contact you can have from inside a bubble. 

I lost a day yesterday.  When you’re young, that doesn’t bother you very much.  The world seems to be something that will always be there, or more correctly, you’ll always be in it.  But, the older I get, it becomes ever so much more important to get the most out of every day.  So, doing things that I used to do just for the sake of spending time with people are things I question now.  I’m less likely to be willing to just sit and play games, and I want to sit and make real contact with people.  I’m glad that part of me didn’t disappear in the past few years of what seems to be God-inspired isolation.  But, I lost a day, and it doesn’t sit well with me.  Not at all.

I have people around me that every once in a while will try to pull me out of my life.  Often, they do it at times when I cannot go.  The actual times when I am free to go and do aren’t very conducive to times when other people are available to hang out.  So, the requests that I come out to play, as it were, as less and less.  Finally either I stop returning the calls, or the calls stop coming.  It’s just a battle of attrition, and my relationship suffer.  People don’t want to work that hard at staying in contact with each other.  We always want it easy. 

So, yesterday, I spent a lot of time, sifting through things in my life.  Detached a bit from things going on around me, I lost the fact that there were both people and activities going on.  I would have gladly participated in them at one point.  But, being insulated makes one myopic.  It’s really a great metaphor about the society in which we live.  We’re so wrapped up in our comforts, our problems, etc that nothing outside of our metaphorical walls ever grab our attentions.

Myopia is quite self-defeating in some aspects, revealing in others.  But, I lost a whole day, essentially doing nothing of substance.  And, I feel convicted.  There are three things that last forever… God, God’s word, and people.  As someone who recognises that we have a responsibility in investing in those around us with deliberate purpose, I pray that I can have less days missed in the future.

So how does one keep those opportunities from being passed by?  Everyone, once in a while must have their whole world thrown up in the air so that whatever isn’t necessary can be shaken loose.  There is a great metaphor regarding that process.  Threshing.  Separating chaff from gathered wheat.  It’s the change from temporary to permanence. 

It’s the process from day-to-day.