If I could only shake the feeling that God isn’t hearing me.

I know everyone has times when he or she feels like normal praying isn’t working. There is a request on the divine table, and God hasn’t responded.

In spite of praying prayers of specificity, the plate before the supplicant remains empty. And the plate has been empty for a long time.

The scriptures say that no person who puts a hand on the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God, so I don’t look back. I look up. I strain to see God, looking up, and I don’t see her …but I know she’s there. And how about this: even though I don’t see her, I am not about to look BACK or take my hand off the plow.

But really, this “waiting- for -the -answer” time has been longer than long. It has been protracted.

I say to my friends that I am on punishment. God is chastising me for something. When I look back over my life, I can see reason why God might want to do that …

But this “punishment” has gone on a little long, even by what I have come to know as God’s standards. “Kairos,” or God’s time, is not supposed to be a time of suspended anticipation, is it?

I don’t ask God for much. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I should have been asking God for more all along. But I didn’t and I don’t, and maybe that’s why this particular prayer is taking so long to be heard. Maybe God doesn’t know my voice, or maybe God thinks I don’t really need what I am asking for.

How wrong you are, God. How wrong you are.

I am in spiritual labor, but the baby will not move down into the birth canal. That’s the best way to describe this. I am having contractions. I know the answer is there and it wants to come … but it will not. And, like physical labor, spiritual labor hurts.

But the process must continue; a birth will happen. Seeds of God’s love and promises have been planted in my very soul, and we know that in the parable of the sower, it is made clear that seeds planted will indeed yield a harvest.

So, I wait and push and wait and sit in silence and let God push and pull as the head of this birthing process… I moan sometimes, but actually, now I am so tired that hardly a sound can come from me. It’s been too long.

The good thing about this is that I, as a pastor, can share this experience with others. Whenever someone looks at me with confusion, wondering where God is, I will be able to say, “Well, sometimes, God … ” and can add the bits and pieces of my own labor without divulging the details.

But I have to say that I am not impressed with this wait. So, today I will be in prayer in a deeper way… so that if there is anything I missed in cleaning myself out I can fix, so that those spaces can be filled with God.

I will do that because those spaces so need to be filled with God’s answer, presence and peace.

That is … a personal candid observation.

America is trying to get past her past, but we have a way to go.

A friend of mine called me early this morning and asked if I knew that the people who died in the University of Alabama shootings were all people of color.

Two African American professors and one Indian, who was the head of the biology department, were those who died.

There have been no pictures of the victims in any of the media accounts of the shootings. I said to my friend that I just assumed they had been white, and that pictures were not shown because next of kin had not been notified.

I wondered why I had thought that. Was it because it was science professors who had been shot, and I do not think of African Americans teaching those subjects?

I know that it has been alleged that the shooter was angry because she did not get tenure. Not until my friend alerted me about the color of the deceased professors did I do some addition and conclude that possibly this shooting was race related.

I surmised that it was possible, unfortunately, that this woman was angry because she, a Harvard-trained professor, had not gotten tenure and that the only reason these people of color had tenure was because they were in fact people of color — babes of Affirmative Action.

The further away we move from the historic election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, the more clear it is that this “post racial” dribble has been just that – dribble. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, among other prominent white journalists, proclaimed that with the president’s election, the issue of race was behind us. We had finally overcome, he and others concluded.

Not quite. Race is such a part of who and/or what America is. The issue of race, specifically, the issue of white over black, white against black, has been the refrain of every hue and cry of American history lesson from the beginning. The issue of race, at the heart of the Civil War, nearly tore this nation apart.

There was never any healing. Blacks went forward and succeeded on many levels, not because of white people, but in spite of white people – and that, even BEFORE there was ever a thing called Affirmative Action.

The resentment whites have against blacks remains front and center in the minds of still too many. I am afraid that racism and resentment about so called “preferential treatment” given to black people, is probably at the heart of the Tea Party movement, even if nobody ever says it aloud. I feel and hear the resentment when I listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and others.

Never is there the acknowledgment by people like that that African Americans have worth or that they add tot he fabric and strength of this country, only that African Americans, and, probably, anyone not white, only pull from this great nation.

After my friend called me, I searched frantically on the web for any pictures, any mention of the color of the victims. There were none. I finally did a search of the victims by name and found that a television station in North Carolina had shown their pictures. Both of the African Americans were graduates of North Carolina State University.

When John Wilkes Booth killed President Abraham Lincoln, he felt like he had done nothing wrong. Lincoln was a man, Booth felt, who was out to destroy America and American values.

Why do I feel like so many people, who say they want “their America back,” are calling for a time when discrimination was overtly rampant and the government supported it? Why am I feeling like white resentment among some, along with fear of what Obama’s presidency means for white people, is at the heart of many who are so angry? And why do I feel like they feel their anger is justified?

I am a little disappointed at mainstream’s media apparent attempt to quell any conclusions that people might make by not showing the pictures of the victims. I thought that was standard journalism, to show pictures of victims and suspects, once next of kin were notified.

Apparently not, not in this case. Maybe the editors feel like doing so might ignite the spark of resentment or cause one more person to admit, sadly, that the era of post racial America is not yet here, if it ever will be.

That’s just a candid observation.

We need a break.

The political atmosphere in America is so venomous. The state of the world is so … serious and heavy and burdened.

There is the Tea Party, which thinks the country has gone to the dogs, thinks President Obama is a socialist, and thinks Sarah Palin is America’s best hope.

There are the Democrats, seemingly afraid to make tough choices because they want to be re-elected and the Republicans who are circling the issues and the Democrats like sharks who have seen blood.

There are the political ads, complete with soft music and soft voices, working to rile up “the American people” by playing on their fears, frustration and anger, making promises and trying to lift themselves up by tearing their opponents down, mercilessly, without grace or respect.

There is Haiti, where, despite lessened media coverage, the dearth and despair is greater than any of us can imagine.

There are the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where young men and women are dying for … I am not quite sure what.

Then there is the Superbowl.

The Big Game is being played in the Superdome, where after Hurricane Katrina there was so much suffering, pain and death.

It’s the Superbowl, for goodness’ sake, the place where we see good football and, until this year, silly, entertaining commercials.

It is not the place for an anti-abortion ad. It is not the time or the place for us to have to wrestle with our ideologies, which only add to the sense of heaviness, anger and divisiveness that plague so many Americans.

It’s the time to root on our team, and laugh, and eat way too much and drink beer or whatever. It’s time to pick “our” team and pull our hair out, not literally, as move toward the championship.

The Tebow ad is out of place.

At first I said, in an article for my Washington Post blog, that it was ok for the ad to play, or would be ok, if CBS had allowed “the other side” to show an ad,too.

But I’ve changed my mind. A football game is not the place for politics and ideology.

“The other side” probably doesn’t have the money, though, that Focus on the Family has. And today, with everyone struggling financially, it really is all about money. I suppose CBS is struggling just like everyone else. Everything is relative.

But really, this Tebow ad has already soured the spirit of this Superbowl. I believe in life. Life of fetuses, life of babies after they are born, even if they are poor and non-white. I believe in the life of the poor in general, in their quality of life.

I believe in the lives of the people who suffered in the Superdome after Katrina and Rita.

Superbowl Sunday has always been a day for fun.

Not this year, not as much. It’s hard to have fun when someone brings a spiked drink. It’s like Tebow threw water on the fire.

We need to laugh and shout and forget for a minute. We need a break.

This Tebow ad thing is not cool.

That’s a candid observation.

I wish I could say I was stunned by Chris Matthews saying that President Barack Obama is “post racial,” and that for an hour, he (Matthews) forgot he was a black man. But I am not.
I am, though, fairly irritated that someone who is supposed to be intelligent would say something so stupid, and yes, I do mean stupid. And I am irritated that white people in general seem to want to claim that this is a post racial society. Are you kidding me?
I remember the day after Obama won the White House. All the major media were saying that his election signaled the beginning of post racial America. Richard Cohen, of the Washington Post, might have been the first journalist on record to call Obama “post racial,” saying the day after the election, “we have overcome.”
An article in the Wall Street Journal said that the president’s election said that his win made it possible to “put to rest the myth of racism as a barrier to achievement in this splendid country.” And Rudolph Giuliani said that his election moved us beyond the idea of race and racial separation and unfairness.
None of those statements are true, though I know the writers wish they were. White people seem to want racism to die instantly, without viable work being done, and then dance in the streets singing “racism is dead” like the munchkins in “The Wizard of Oz” danced in glee after a house fell on the wicked witch of the north.
It is not going to happen.
America was built on racism, and was a product of a Constitution and Declaration of Independence that wrote racism into our very fabric. Black people were only 3/5 of a person, according to our highest legal document. Indians were totally ignored. The United States was founded on the principle that all white men are created equal. It was called democracy, but it was a very peculiar and specific type of democracy where capitalism would make sure that white people with money maintained power.
And though the Constitution was written at a time when the church and therefore the Gospel, exerted big influence on America’s people, that influence, unfortunately, supported racism and even participated in it.
We therefore live in a culture of racism, a culture which has been bred, honed and fine-tuned over the years. Egalitarianism is not an issue; all people were not SUPPOSED to be treated equally. Capitalism, combined with racism, helped form our country, and those two “isms” are still alive today. They will not die easily, if at all.
What is post-racial anyway? How can a person be post racial? I have no answer for that, but a post racial society is so far from what we are that it is laughable that anyone would say anything different. A post racial society might be defined as a society where race does not matter. That is not the United States. Nor are we a society where power and wealth are not tied to race, or a society which is color blind. All of those are possible definitions of a post racial society, and none of them are applicable to the United States.
Why do I say that? Because it is still easier for white people than black to get jobs, black people still receive less comprehensive health care than do whites. Schools in black neighborhoods are still understaffed and lacking in adequate resources. Young black boys in school with behavior problems are still treated differently than white boys with the same behavior issues. Police are still guilty of racial profiling and are still quick to shoot first and ask questions later. Black people who use crack cocaine still get greater prison sentences than do white people who use cocaine… The list goes on. We are not post racial, and cannot be, as long as those situations, and more, are our reality.
Why are white people so anxious to say that the race problem is gone? I think it is because they are unable to own their culture’s history. It is not pretty. It is, as a matter of fact, downright disturbing. There has been economic, judicial, and physical domestic terrorism practiced in this country. It is easier to deny it than to own it. The problem of racism in America is made bigger because white people deny its existence and black people, rightfully so, hold anger because of that denial.
White people seem to want the problem to just go away, but no problem dissipates without acknowledging its existence and then working to fix what’s wrong … and what is fundamentally wrong is that the cries of African Americans has never been acknowledged as justified … PLUS, the white culture has continually, over the years, added more racist behavior on top of an already sad and sordid past.
The situation then is one of a trust broken, a trust by African Americans that they would be treated as equal human beings with dignity but finding that not to be the case. America’s whites have continually used their privileged status to get what they want, at any cost, to any people. Its treatment of American Indians, wiping out whole Indian cultures and relegating survivors to reservations is appalling. America’s whites have continually violated what should be a given: the belief that all peoples have worth.
They have heaped insult upon injury, leading to despair on the part of some African Americans, and anger with many to most. They have not been their brothers’ keeper, but instead have been their brothers’ brutalizers. Egalitarianism was never a goal of white people. And so, African Americans have worked for acceptance yet never found it. African Americans have been good enough to fight in America’s wars but not good enough to receive decent treatment when they got home. African Americans have been used, their gifts violated and exploited, and then kicked to the curb. And white Americans have never acknowledged they have done that.
The result to this white denial, as I said, has been black anger. We have skirted around the issue, but not dealt with it. In a relationship (and this is about relationship) where trust has been violated, it takes a long time once the problem has been owned to fix things; if the problem is never acknowledged, the relationship invariably fails. There has never been healing between the races because the problem has never been owned by white America. Black people have succeeded not because of white people, but in spite of black people, but the hurt has never gone away.
As I write, I think of one fact that is as sad as it is inconceivable to me, and that is that many African Americans are saying we are in a post racial society as well. The whole racist culture has produced people who have sought to assimilate, and deny who they are. There are still many African Americans who hate themselves and would like nothing better than for the problem of racism to disappear, and they become “one” with those who have oppressed them for over 400 years. That a people cannot be happy with themselves is a sad fact of our still being in a “racist” and not a “post racial” society.
The term “post racial” implies that there was a “pre racial.” We have never been a pre racial society. “Post” means that something has come after an event. A woman can be pre menopausal, menopausal .. and only then, post menopausal. The pre menopausal part of her life is generally OK; being menopausal is traumatic for some, uncomfortable for most … but once it is done and a woman is “post menopausal,” she has suffered and endured the process of changing and generally has relief and high quality of life.
America has never endure the process of changing from a racial society, a society where racism has been at the helm for far too long.
Surely Chris Matthews and others realize that.
It’s going to take more than the election of an African American to make this country post racial.
Just a candid observation.

There is a thought that I cannot shake: people in America prefer big business over big government.

All over the place, I hear that people don’t want health care reform because what has been proposed is big government. The cry of “socialism” was (and still is) loud and clear when a government option for health care was on the table. The people didn’t want it; the politicians ran from it.

But if it is control that people are afraid of, what is it that makes people NOT afraid of big business? Surely, it has not been lost on people that it is big business that is controlling health care now? It is the insurance companies who are controlling who we can see, when we can see them, what treatments we can get, when we can get them, and what will not be covered at all?

It is big business which has determined that it is not profitable for them if people with “pre-existing” illnesses are bad for business; therefore, if you have high blood pressure, or cancer in remission, and you change jobs, chances are great that no insurance company will pick you up.

If you get too sick and require too much hospitalization, you might be dropped. You might not be able to see the doctor you really want to see if he or she is not on a list which the insurance companies have compiled.

Ummmm, isn’t that control?

I thought, and maybe I was wrong, but I thought that in a democracy there was supposed to more emphasis on egalitarianism. I know,I know …that from the beginning, the scales were tipped toward white men with money. But wasn’t the underlying principle of the new government supposed to be egalitarianism? You know, a living out of the “all men are created equal” declaration?

Government was supposed to be “of the people, by the people and for the people.” I remember that from elementary school lessons on the United States Constitution.

That was the protection against “big government,” and certainly, there is some consolation in the fact that because of our Constitution, America will never be a dictatorship.

But there is no protection against big business …and in fact, big business might be considered a new dictator. Big business makes money on the backs “of the people,” and big business makes life difficult “for the people,” and ignores cries “by the people.”

If one does not pay, one is cast aside.

I keep thinking about this, why people cannot see, or will not see, that it is big business that is running the so called democracy. Big business has gotten in the way of health reform for over 70 years, because it is protecting itself and its interests.

If we’re afraid of “big” control, we ought to be really afraid now, today, because big business has the people right where it wants them and will fight with big money to keep it that way. Big business has the means to shut down any and all opposition, because it fights with what people want more than anything else: money.

I just cannot see why control by big business is any better or safer or comforting than some government control which seeks to make it possible for more people to get health care.

And that is a candid …and confusing… observation.