Tag Archives: community

Boiling Point

For weeks I waited for the pieces to come together to launch this website and tell you stories. My intention has been to share tales that might encourage people, maybe a person like you, and add levity to the daily work of raising kids, sustaining marriage, and all that you may do as one day spills into another.

And then George Floyd was murdered. Recently before, in my own America were the murders of other black Americans: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Dreasjon (Sean) Reed. Boiling point.

The pot had been simmering. For years and years heated by angry words, unchecked bias, and inequality that Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered for in 1968. The simmering pot of racism in a country someone once called a melting pot is now a boiling pot.

For a couple of years I had fled the Facebook and Twitter scene to avoid this kind of simmering. Social media can be anxiety-producing and I figured there was enough of that in my life so goodbye Facebook and Twitter. I deleted the apps on my phone and said goodbye to my newsfeed.

And that was nice. It was nice not to know all the anxiety-producing news and go about my life. It was nice to narrow my gaze to my own work and get ready to launch a website. It was nice to ignore the simmering pot.

Now the pot boils and there is no ignoring. I need to see the words on Facebook and Twitter. Otherwise, how would I believe the ignorance from my very own president? There is no filter on his Twitter feed. (Except when his words are too violent and Twitter has to take them down. ) There is no news bias on his feed. No one else to blame. As much as his subordinates would love to take away his Twitter account, I hope they never do. It is through those words of his that we see the words that hold true for the people who adore him.

Yearning for a glorified America is to yearn for a colorblind America with no awareness of the tension among people that needs to be named. The famous Twitter feed suggests we let the white people in charge take charge with military force. He stood in front of a medic station on a church lawn where people had been providing water, holding the written word of a God who sets people free.

We are to be color-amazed, as Bishop Eaton has preached. We are to be amazed at the uniqueness of people, the value of each breath, and the strength in each voice. This is not a time of this or that, them or me, us or you. No person is perfect in this boiling pot. We have all sinned. We have leaned on political allegiance instead of the freedom of Jesus Christ that is for each person.

There is a story our nation needs to tell. We can delete the apps and ignore it, but the simmering pot now boils. So pray. Pray all day long as you hear the news and realize we have so much to learn about this boiling pot. Pray, because only prayer (not the news) changes our perspective. Pray and realize the story of rage and racism is indeed your story and mine.

Teaching “How Come” Not “I Know”

Let’s be honest. The country in which we live is quite…what? Unsettled? Angry? Confused? Thank goodness we all seem to have enough toilet paper! That’s one worry that no longer grips us.

What is going on? A pandemic not everyone believes is a pandemic. A vicious murder not everyone believes was a vicious murder. A president who teargassed peaceful protesters in order to hold up a Bible in front of a church for the camera.

What?

How do I explain to my kids what is going on when I’m not even sure? I am overwhelmed by the hatred, violence and anger, along with the certainty that only by leaning one way or the other, all the way, can someone be right.

And so I offer one response: curiosity.

Perhaps I don’t need to teach my kids in this moment as much as I need them to teach me. No one is better at curiosity than children. In the earliest years, a child’s world can only be understood through “how come” questions. “How come it is bedtime?” “How come birds fly and I don’t?” “How come vegetables don’t taste like cookies?” It is only when we have a few more candles on our birthday cake that we extinguish “how come” and replace it with the dark and lonely words: “I know”.

Nothing stops progress faster than an unequivocal “I know”. When “I know” a thing, curiosity withers away and there is no reason to wonder why poverty settles in every crack of particular neighborhoods. Or why girls who are brown-skinned more often grow up without a father. Or why moms of white boys don’t have to worry when our sons go for a run. “How come?” because “I don’t know.”

How come it is easier to teach our kids “I know” this or that instead of joining them in the land of curiosity. I want to live there forever. Then, maybe my kids will, too.

How Do I Explain #GeorgeFloyd to an 8-Year Old?

Photo Credit: @Joshhild

“What are you watching?” asked my daughter, as I stood in our kitchen staring at my phone.

In a moment, I had to decide how to explain racism and riots to an 8-year old. Or, I could turn off my phone and let the moment go. Isn’t that so much easier? To believe whatever is happening on a screen is far away and someone else has to live with it?

I was watching Pastor Ingrid C. A. Rasumussen on Facebook walk through the neighborhood of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis. Touring littered streets, she explained the true identity of the damaged buildings that exposed generations of anger. Like vapor, smoke rose up here and there, like injustice that rises up here and there and here and there.

“I am watching a pastor show us a neighborhood where there was a riot.”

“Did they wreck things?” she demanded to know. “Someone is going to owe a lot of money! Why did they do that?”

“His name,” I slowly began, “was George Floyd. And he was murdered by a police officer, and many people are angry about it.”

With my husband, we tried to explain there are police whose job is to keep people safe, and there are people who are black and there is an ugly history we can’t seem to shake off.

In the end, dear daughter, this world is not yet as it should be. People who happen to be black are not as safe as people who happen to be white. Last week was one of many moments the vapor of injustice rose up in a city we know well and love very much.

There is no perfect dialogue to explain George Floyd’s murder to an 8-year old. It would be perfectly easy to believe his story need not be tied up with our story. But I want my kids to know some hurts in the world are not easy to explain, and those hurts are our hurts, too.