Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Your Theology Won't Let You Be Colorblind

I'm writing over at RAAN this week.
Much ink has been spilled on how the concept of colorblindness is not only unhelpful, but actively harmful. Yet, people who want to claim they don’t see color, or say things such as, “there’s only one race: the human race” are plentiful. You can see them come out in droves in the comment section of any online article touching on race or racism.  
The response is usually people of color begging them to see their “colorblind” words are hurtful and diminishes their (POC) lives. So I have a word for my fellow White Christian brothers and sisters.  Not only are your words hurtful, they are unbiblical. It’s time to examine not only how your words affect others, but your theology as well.
Read the rest at:
https://www.raanetwork.org/theology-wont-let-colorblind/

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Sitting in Saturday

Some of the most sound advice I've heard as of late about sharing what is going on in your life publicly was from Glennon Doyle.  She says to speak from your scars, not from you wounds.  So thus, I have been relatively quiet.  The wounds have been brutal.

There's a lot going on in our lives though.  Our kids are changing schools and we are changing churches.  These both come from (very different) places of brokenness and hurt and attempts at reconciliation that aren't happening in this current phase of life.  We hold onto hope that they will.  But sometimes before you can come to the table and process steps forward, you have to take time to heal your heart and soul.  And you have to make decisions that are painfully hard because you know, deep down, what you and your family need, so you don't shy away from walking through the valley.

And yet life still pushes forward.  One child tests out of an IEP while we begin evaluations on another.  The baby learns to walk and how to get into everything.  Scott has half the month of May booked already for work travel.  I continue to volunteer with CASA and the parent committee at school.

In the meantime, I've started doing some sub-contracting work for Be the Bridge, and its brought me so much joy.  Being able to write on a topic I love is life giving to me.  It brings some change to the day to day mundane of childcare and keeping up on the house and life.

Now seemed like a time to say something, albeit vague.  But sometimes simply typing out words is what I need to do so that I can release them from the tumult of my brain and take a deep breath again.

Which brings me back to were I started.  Words from Glennon.  She also speaks of this time of Good Friday to Easter in a way that makes where we are right now not seem so overwhelming.  These trials we face are much like this calendar season we just exited.  Good Friday.  The death.  The hurt.  The broken.  Saturday.  The waiting.  The wondering.  The mourning.  Easter Sunday.  The rising.

We sit in a Saturday state right now.  We are mourning and unsure.  But there is peace in knowing that at some point comes the rising and breath of new life.