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When the Children Leave …
Well, I have recuperated.
At the beginning of the month, I ushered my daughter to Indiana, where she has begun her work (her first real job) as a certified music therapist. I am so proud of her …
Before she left, people around me were asking, “are YOU OK?” I thought, “what a dumb question. Of course I am! I sent her to Spelman College and then she went to the University of Dayton …I’ve been through this before. I am OK.”
But I was not! The angst started while I was still with her in Indiana, helping her to set up. I thought I was coming down with the flu. Not so. I was coming down with parentalitis – a word I have made up to describe the spirit-trauma we parents go through when the children leave.
We want them to leave, right? I mean, we raise them in order to send them forth. Nobody really wants his or her grown child living with them, right? Living close is OK, but WITH us? I think most parents would say they would not prefer that, though the door to “home” is always open…
So, theoretically, I have done my job. My son left a couple of years ago to move to New York. He didn’t live with me, but he lived in Columbus, I thought I’d be OK. He brought some of his stuff over to my house to store as he cleaned out his apartment. I knew it was temporary and that his stuff …and more importantly, he …would be gone. I thought I’d be OK.
But when the UHaul truck pulled into my driveway, and he took all of his stuff and added it to what was in the truck, I was done. He was really …leaving! Miles and miles away! As he pulled away, after having endured my massive hug…that stupid lump in my throat started throbbing. When he turned the corner and I could no longer see or hear the truck, I lost it.
So, I cried as I left Indiana. I cried when I got back into my house and realized she was gone. I was completely stricken with a bad case of parentalitis.
I am happy to report, however, that I am on the mend! I talk to my daughter and son continually. More importantly, I have them in my heart, in a place from which they can never leave. I have in my heart so many hours of love and joy and “growing up” experiences. That’s my “stuff,” and no matter what, my “stuff” will go with me. That makes me smile, and it is indeed a candid observation…
Justice Matters
I traditionally abhor marching, the Martin Luther King -type march. It’s my opinion that there are too many marches and too little action.
The march planned this weekend, then, in Washington D.C., commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech doesn’t move me. Sorry. It just doesn’t. That thousands of dollars have been raised for this march, to be used to pay for porta-potties and parking privileges, and probably for noted people who will speak is troubling to me as well. All that money being spent for one or two days…when communities of black, brown and poor people are floundering …does not make moral sense to me.
But the work being done by a group devoted to empowering people and informing them about the social justice issues of today does excite me. The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, Inc., (SDPC) named in honor of a civil rights icon, the late Rev. Dr. Samuel Dewitt Proctor, deserves attention.
SDPC has invited 50 students from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to participate in teach-ins. They will learn about the social justice issued faced and addressed by Dr. King in 1963, but they will also be taught about the social justice issues facing black, brown, poor and marginalized people today: issues including mass incarceration and the lack of jobs for “the least of these.”
This group, through an initiative called the “To Be Free At Last Movement,” has created spaces for individuals and institutions to come together and forge partnerships that go across racial, ethnic, professional and denominational lines. That seems wonderfully Christian to me, reflecting an understanding of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. That seems, as well, wonderfully indicative of an understanding of Dr. King’s desire to build a “beloved community,” where capitalism, militarism and imperialism are pushed aside as groups within the boundaries of the United States seek to make the way for justice to be meted out to those who need it most, but for whom it seems most elusive.
During this weekend, and in the days leading up to August 28, these students will learn what’s before them, and will plan a rally honoring A. Philip Randolph that will be held at Union Station in our nation’s capital. On Sunday, the torch of leadership will be passed to them by veteran civil rights and labor leaders including John Thomas and C.T. Vivian. They will also participate in a Town Hall Meeting with Judge Greg Mathis during the weekend’s events.
With as much as there is at stake for “the least of these,” it is comforting to feel like someone gets it and is being intentional about training people to carry on what was begun back in the days of slavery. A high note was reached by Dr. King when he gave his famous speech, but many people have said that his dream has become a nightmare. African-Americans are still struggling, as far too many African-American men are incarcerated, and young African-American men still cannot get employment. There is still an overlying spirit of racism that suggests that black people are bad people, unworthy of freedom and too apt to complain when they have access to anything they want.
In theory, perhaps, but in actuality, that is not the case, and that’s why the work of social justice as concerns “the least of these” is so important. It is important that young people be trained and strengthened even as they enter the fray. Obtaining social justice for and by “the least of these” is some of the most difficult work ever. Those who fight for it fight against power, which, we all know and as Frederick Douglass said, “concedes nothing without a struggle.” These young people are being sent into the lion’s den, so to speak, a lion’s den that people like Dr. King and Rev. Vivian and Rep. Lewis knew and know well. They are being equipped to carry on the work – with all of its attendant opposition – of people like the late Fannie Lou Hamer and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. They are being equipped to struggle not only for black, brown and poor people, but people in the LGBT community as well. Justice is a right of all American citizens. Dr. King said he looked forward to the day when all of America’s children, black and white, Christian and Jew …would be able to walk and work together. It hasn’t happened yet, and in the name of globalization, the spread of people needing justice has grown. Justice matters.
That an organization is willing to take on the behemoth task of equipping young people to carry on the work that Dr. King talked about is exciting. It is worth tapping into.
The march? Not so much.
A candid observation …
Moses, Crazy Faith, and Waiting for God
I wrote this book called Crazy Faith: Ordinary People; Extraordinary Lives. In it, I lift some characters from the Bible and from life and
talk about the incredible, crazy faith they had to have had in order to do what they did.
What I have come to realize, however, is that crazy faith, or having crazy faith, does not mean one does not feel fear or anxiety as he or she waits and works for God to “show up.” I have come to recognize something that I have dubbed “the Red Sea moment” that all bouts of crazy faith must have.
This “Red Sea moment” is, of course, about Moses. The Bible is good about telling stories without getting into the “meat,” or the human factor …of being human as one waits for divine intervention. Moses has been told by God to lead the Israelites to The Promised Land. What should have been 11 days, two weeks at most, turned out to take 40 years. No doubt when they finally reached the Red Sea (or, more correctly, the Sea of Reeds), they were all ready to get on with their lives.
That desire would have been shared by Moses, maybe even more so, since he had been leading the people for so long! Moses had been roped into the job of leading the Israelites through the wilderness by God, and he had relied on the voice and direction of God throughout the journey, albeit he acted in frustration and not faith when he hit a rock that God told him to merely speak to, a breach in faith that cost Moses getting into the Promised Land.
So, maybe Moses thought about what his frustration and doubt had wrought for him as concerns that rock as he now stood on the bank of the Red Sea. Can’t you see him? Standing there. holding a rod over the vast body of water, because God told him the waters would part? There he stood, as the Israelites, murmured against him …and as the Egyptians got closer and closer. Moses and the others could hear the hoofs of the soldiers’ horses, and might have been able to feel the earth vibrate and tremble as “the enemy” made its way to the exact place where Moses and the Israelites stood.
But stand there he did. With the rod in his hand, holding it out “over the water,” which would only have been over the edge of the sea, ebbing and flowing onto the land. How crazy is that? Moses most assuredly had doubts and fears….but he chose to believe that God would do what God had said He would do. And God …did.
That’s a wonderful story …but the point is that before there was the parting of the Sea there was probably a trembling of Moses’ very soul. Where was God? And when was God coming? His disobedience and frustration, which led him to hit a rock that God had merely told him to speak to, convinced him that God was 1) present, even when we don’t know it, 2) unimpressed with disobedience based on doubt, and 3) eager to show His/Her children that He was in fact, God.
The Red Sea moment had to have been terrifying for Moses.
Our “Red Sea” moments are terrifying to us as well. When we stand on the bank of a “sea” or on the edge of a “precipice,” needing God and believing God will come to us because God sees where we are standing and knows the situation we are in. when we can hear the “hoofs of the horses” getting closer and closer to us, we are being allowed to feel what Moses most probably felt.
The key is to “stand our ground” while we wait for God. That is hard and that is scary …but that is what God would require, if the Bible is to be believed.
The edge of the Red Sea, waiting in faith for God to “part the water” in our lives so that we can get to another place, perhaps THE place God has put in place for us, is not a comfortable place to be. We may even look at it as a test to see if we have faith or just give lip service to the same. Crazy faith means having stilled voices but enlarged spirits that are making room for God to do a new thing.
Moses, in spite of feeling terror for sure, and worry about what the Israelites were thinking about him and what they would say if the Egyptians got there before the waters parted. Hr might have been seen mouthing quiet prayers as he waited for God.
Many people have waited, like Moses, swallowing their fear and trying, working, to regurgitate their faith. Such regurgitation of faith has its own rewards.
A candid observation …
The President, Racism, and Trayvon Martin
The president finally said something about the outcome of the George Zimmerman second-degree murder trial.
He spoke honestly about what it is to be African-American, specifically an African-American male, in this country. He said that, 35 years ago, he could have been Trayvon Martin. And he was and is right.
Many whites really do not understand, nor do they believe, that African-Americans have the struggles we have had since …forever. Whites complain about us complaining; they say we “whine,” and perhaps some of us do; perhaps all of us do at certain times.
But we also live lives on the edge. I as a mother had “the conversation” with my son about how to act if stopped by police. I worried about him when he got to be a teen, more so than any parent of a teen worries. I had to warn him to be careful. I had “the conversation” about how it isn’t all that safe to be black in America, in spite of his protestations that perhaps I was being too dramatic. Times have changed, Ma, he said.
Well, maybe not so much. Or at least not enough. George Zimmerman remarked that Trayvon moved, walked, too slowly. A few years ago, a black youth, tabbed by police as “suspicious,” ran, was shot, and was killed. The criticism levied was that he had brought his death on himself; he shouldn’t have run.
So, Sybrina Fulton’s observation, her question and the questions of many African-American mothers, was spot on. What do we tell our sons? Should we tell them to run? Walk quickly? Stop? Walk slowly? What?
President Obama’s question, “If Trayvon Martin had had a gun, would he have been able to stand his ground?” struck an immediate note of painful doubt, borne by experience where black youth have been arrested for things that white youth have gotten away with. Surely he would not have been able to “stand his ground,” shoot and kill George Zimmerman, and gone home. He would have been accused and probably convicted of murder. Mark O’Mara‘s comment that if Zimmerman had been black, he wouldn’t have been arrested, was pure poppycock.
The comments heard this week after the Zimmerman verdict show how deep the divide is between black and white people in this country. Juror B-37 was completely infuriating as she talked about how “they” live and talk as she referred to Rachel Jeantel. There was absolutely no awareness of cultural differences and how they are different. In her comments could be heard patronization, scorn, and worse.
All of those comments, and more, have been the polarizing statements, not what the president said. They have been polarizing and maddening, and yet, in spite of the preparation for “riots,” there has been quiet grace, people practicing “hush-mouth grace,” trying to get over yet another wound caused by America‘s disease called racism.
Perhaps some people are calling the president’s words polarizing because they will not believe that what he said he has experienced as a black man is true. Americans live in denial when it comes to racism…When someone says something about which we are in denial, on whatever subject that may be, we instinctively get angry and defensive. Our denial is the only way we can survive in too many cases.
So I understand why people are angry, but isn’t it time that America get out of denial and start the work of healing? President Obama put the ugliness of what it means to be black in America on Front Street. He aired the ugly truth, out loud. People don’t want to hear that stuff.
But that stuff is our stuff, America’s stuff. The sooner we move it from the “stuff” bin in the back of our cultural and historical closets, the sooner we can clean that closet out, air out our differences …and be the nation we are supposed to be.
A candid observation …
Candid Observations 