a key to racial reconciliation

Let me invite you in today to join a tough but honest conversation, a place where you are safe, honored, and respected. Your opinion is welcome. And it will be listened to in its entirety. Please don’t shout at me, though, because when you shout, you’re hard to hear. I want to have authentic, sincere dialogue. My goal is not to prove any point. My goal is to journey together… learning, growing, and together working to solve some of these tough problems, facing what plagues us head on.

One of the problems that continues to plague us is the seemingly increasing, intense division between black and white… the racial impetus… that so many have fed from so many varied angles… knowingly or unknowingly. There’s a wall that has stood between far too many primarily because of the color of their skin. I shake my head.

I shake my head because we are all created equally, regardless of demographic. Even with that absolute, constitutionally-promoted truth, however, the challenge remains that we still often fuel and feel that division. We feel divided. We too often feel divided due to the color of our skin.

That grieves me.

All men, women, children, etc. deserve to feel loved and respected. But we withhold love. We withhold respect. Many justify withholding love and respect due to racial differences — and — due to how some choose to articulate their opinion about our racial differences.

For months I have pondered why this has intensified. For months I have observed the masses who declare that only one “side” needs to start loving and respecting the other more. People are out there pounding the pavement… protesting… declaring in their indigenous way that they deserve to be loved and respected. Yes, they do. Yet so many in their verbal and nonverbal protests, demanding to be respected, intentionally or not, consequently omit all others who deserve our love and respect. This lack of awareness — that you can’t fight hate with hate, you can’t fight bullying with bullying, and you can’t fight for respect with disrespect — is killing our conversations that have the potential to lead to solution.

Let me go a little deeper…

Here is where — killing us even more — the omission of God from society is hurting us. It’s impairing us and even our intelligence far more than we may know or be willing to admit. Let me give you second sentence.

So many people want to have conversations about what’s happening on the planet with the absence of God’s wisdom and role from the discussion. They won’t or don’t want to talk about God or acknowledge him, recognizing that as the creator of this planet and the creator of us, he may hold the key to figuring some of this big stuff out. How can we continue to have these grandeur conversations about these tough subjects with the full omission of God? It makes so little sense to me… it also continues to advance the idea that self-reliance is often our greatest sin.

God knows more than we do. He created us. We love what we create. And therefore, if God created and therefore loves us, shouldn’t we humbly find a way to make him part of the equation?

Here on Earth we spend all this stinkin’ time railing on one another. We insult. We impede. We intimidate and point all sorts of fingers. Friends, do you realize what we are doing?

We are insulting and pointing fingers at those who are also created and loved by God.

My a-ha these past few months is that I don’t think we see others as loved and created by God, just like we are. After all, why would we justify treating another so poorly? … why would we look down on them so much? … why would we say that only they need to love and respect another more?

It thus begs the question… How would it change our conversation in regard to racial reconciliation if we could see both black and white as equally created and loved by God?

Wouldn’t you treat someone loved and created by God differently? Wouldn’t you treat them with increased honor and respect?

God loves us because he created us, but our omission of him from the conversation is killing us and allowing for all sorts of judgment and disrespect. It’s throwing otherwise intelligent people off track, allowing judgment to seep deeply into their thinking.

Want to instead be part of the solution?

Don’t assume for a moment that the Intramuralist has all the answers — not even close. But I believe we could start by refusing to align with a “side” and stop pointing fingers at another. Recognize first and foremost that each of us is created and loved by God.

Oh, how that would change our conversation…

Respectfully… always…
AR

{Photo by Zac Ong on Unsplash}