shut up, listen, learn, lament…

I can probably count on one hand specific national and international events that have grabbed my attention and stirred my heart in new and significant ways. The Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict in 1992 was one such event. As a college student, I was glued to the TV and saw the smoke from the buildings on fire, all from my suburban neighborhood in Long Beach. The riots and the realities outside my life context and experience stirred something in me vocationally. I believe it played an early part in my desire and decisions to serve among those living in poverty in urban contexts.

I share this because this week I am experiencing similar feelings and stirrings following the Zimmerman/Martin trial and verdict. Thanks to cyberspace and social media, I have been able to follow the post-trial reactions pretty closely from Argentina. I find myself wanting to stand in solidarity with African Americans who lament in anger and grief for not only the verdict, but also their very real life experience it represents. But I feel inadequate to say much of anything. My life experience and context growing up white in the U.S. is very different. I really don’t have a clue. Anything I say could very easily seem trite and insensitive. In fact, I fear this post might even come across that way.

And, quite honestly, I am frustrated and angry with the defensive reaction from some.  We can not ignore, blame and excuse away the real life experiences of others. In my opinion, it only distracts from listening and learning from the African American community and deepens the racial divisions that clearly exist. White Christians, especially, should strive to listen and learn from our black brothers and sisters who are genuinely hurting and lamenting this week. We should see this as an opportunity to move forward in better understanding, reconciliation and healing.

For now, I am going to take the advice of our Word Made Flesh Global Executive Director, Leroy Barber….”listen, learn and lament.” I am also taking Eugene Cho’s advice to heart, in addition to listening, seeking to understand and mourning…“to shut up.” Prayerfully, by being slow to speak, being quick to listen and learn, and lamenting with the African American community, I will someday be able to not only speak up from a more informed, compassionate and empathetic place, but also engage and act!

I invite you to join me in shutting up, listening, learning and lamenting. Here are several articles and links that have especially helped me get started these past few days. Surely, I have missed some good ones, but I will start with these. Just click on the article title.

Okay, time for me to shut up!

From Leroy Barber: “How Christians should respond to the Zimmerman verdict: An interview with Leroy Barber”

From Eugene Cho: “If our black brothers and sisters are hurting, can’t we at least listen, seek to understand, and mourn with them?”

From Leroy Barber: “Raising Black Boys in America: An Interview With Leroy Barber”

From Jim Wallis: “Lament from a White Father”

From Enuma Okoro: “When Your Church Is Silent”

From Margot Starbuck: “Responding to Trayvon Martin: Our Renewed Call to Suffer Together”

MLK..."the beloved community"

Unfortunately, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. remains on my bookshelf still unread. Maybe I’ll get it read by MLK Day 2009? In the meantime, this morning I reread a chapter on Martin Luther King, Jr. in Philip Yancey’s book, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church. In the book, MLK is one of twelve mentors and spiritual directors who inspired and transformed Yancey’s life and work.

A couple quotes from MLK really stand out to me this weekend. Most of the civil right’s victories and progress did not come until after King’s death. Yancey tells the story of how Roy Wilkins of the NAACP kidded King that his methods of nonviolence had not achieved a single victory for integration in Albany or Birmingham. King responded with these words, “Well, I guess the only thing I’ve desegregated so far is a few human hearts.”

Ultimately, regardless of what laws and oppressive structures are changed, the real, lasting victories for reconciliation, forgiveness, and love must take root in human hearts. King goes on later to say the real goal is “to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority…The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community.”

This vision and truth of King's words and example challenge and inspire my own life today, as the themes of reconciliation and hope continue to take root this 2008.

PS - Here is a link to an excerpt from the book With Justice for All by John Perkins. "The book tells Perkins’ journey toward finding racial reconciliation even in turbulent times."

ambassadors of hope in kolkata

Tomorrow I am sharing with the “Women of Grace” prayer group at my church. I am sharing about what’s ahead for me in Buneos Aires, along my desire to understand more deeply and live more fully HOPE this 2008. I am grateful for examples of friends who serve as ambassadors of hope in places of desperate poverty and oppression. Today a link to an article written by Sarah Lance came my way. Sarah serves in Kolkata, India with WMF and is about restoring life and freedom in the lives of women in the red light districts. Sari Bari is the business initiative I have shared about often. Check out the Sari Bari web site to learn more. Sarah and the community in Kolkata continue to impact my life by their example and inspire me to be an instrument of hope!

Restoring Life in the Red Light Districts of Kolkata India
By Sarah Lance
http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/urban.php/884

Sari Bari Website:
http://www.saribari.com/

ambassadors of HOPE...

This first week of Advent has me reflecting a lot on HOPE. Saturday was World AIDS Day, so I was remembering and praying for the people I met in South Africa impacted by the disease. On Saturday morning my friend Jon shared at a men’s breakfast about the sex trade and the work of International Justice Mission in India and around the world. My spirit is heavy as the reality of suffering, injustice, and poverty confronted me with faces and stories of HIV/AIDS and young girls forced into the sex trade. It brought to mind the lack of hope for so many around the world.

Hope is defined as, “A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.” The cycles of poverty, injustice, and suffering are often hopeless to escape. I remember conversations and tears of hopelessness as new friends in places like Rio, Freetown, and Cape Town have shared their stories and desperation for a better life. There is not much “confident expectation” that their wishes and desires will ever be fulfilled. Yes, we can point people to the Second Advent and Christ’s return when He will dwell among us and there will be “no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:1-4). But what about NOW! What about Jesus, the Good Shepherd’s, words in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

One of my favorite quotes this year is from Mortimer Arias in Announcing the Reign of God, “How, then, can we announce the kingdom of God as hope? By hoping. By living and sharing hope. By working with hope. By dying with hope! To be an evangelist is to be a sign of hope, a servant of hope, a minister of hope.”

The theme of reconciliation keeps rising to the surface as I think about hope and Advent. God teaches us in 2 Corinthians 2:19-20 that we are “ministers and ambassadors of reconciliation.” A group of 47 Christian leaders from around the world point the Church and Christians to be a people of reconciliation and hope in their 2005 paper, “Reconciliation as the Mission of God” (http://www.reconciliationnetwork.com)....

“Above all, Christians must be people of hope; hope in God’s victory in Christ and that, over time, reconciliation can break in, because this is God’s mission…This costly journey requires hope, nurtured in practices where we listen to God in worship, Scripture reading, and prayer. As we open to the pain of a broken world, we hear God’s word that ultimately, in the eschaton, all things will be reconciled in Christ. In the meantime, we do our part. It is in this hope that keeps the process moving forward…The church itself ought to be a key indication of hope, a living alternative, infusing and challenging the social sphere with a more radical vision of God’s reconciliation.”

This first week of Advent I am reminded of ultimate HOPE found only Jesus. But I am also reminded that I am called to be a minister and ambassador of that hope, pointing broken people to reconciliation made possible through Jesus! Followers of Jesus are called to be the visible signs of Advent….Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love! And, our actions need to speak as loud as our words!