I just saw this post that was shared from a friend on Facebook last night.... So powerful...
Hi friends.
My mother and father are 67 and 71 years old and they live in a small, rural fishing village in southern Virginia. Last Sunday afternoon my mom called me and said that when services finished at her beloved, white episcopal church, she and my father drove across town to attend services at the black Southern Baptist church. "Wow," I said. "How did you feel walking in?" "Nervous," she said. "But your dad and I had been reading all the comments from your black readers and we just felt desperate to do something - to show up and say: you are not alone in this." "Wow," I said again." How was the service?" "Beautiful. The man who first welcomed us in the parking lot had two whole pews reserved in back of us and both pews filled up with his children and grandchildren. His entire family came because his father's day request was that they all attend church together. Everyone, just every person in the congregation welcomed us with open eyes and kindness and curiosity. It was beautiful. Beautiful and long."
Monday night, my daughters and I were talking about Bubba and Tisha’s experience and what was happening in Charleston and the black and white responses around the country. We ended up looking at pictures of some old civil rights marches. The girls were quiet. My youngest daughter pointed at some of the marchers and said, "We would have marched with those people, right mama?" I almost said Yes. I almost said: Of course, yes, baby. Yes. But then my older daughter said, "I don't know. I mean, we're not marching now."
What if the best indicator of where we would have stood during the old civil rights era is where we stand during this civil rights era? Seems simple and scary enough to be true.
My news feed looks different than it did before Charleston. I am following twenty women of color now, and a group of black and white leaders working everyday towards understanding, equality and racial unity was generous enough to allow me to join them, to listen in. So now when I wake up and log on to social media, I read their stories and perspectives first. My news feed looks different and now suddenly the world seems different. It’s interesting. We should choose who we follow carefully and intentionally. Echo chambers are dangerous to the soul and world.
As I read my brothers’ and sisters’ pain, learn more about the history of this country and take in the responses of my white friends who are really listening- I think of this scripture: Repent! For the kingdom of God is near!
When I think of this scripture I do not imagine fire and brimstone and God arriving on a white horse. No. Repentance simply means to rethink. An attitude of repentance does not necessarily mean: I am bad, I need to be better- it just means: I will constantly, my whole life long, rethink what I think I know. It is near impossible to be a follower of God and not constantly rethink what you think you know about God and God’s people. This is why certainty, self-righteousness, closed mindedness and hard heartedness are such huge obstacles on the path. Just the hugest.
And when I read: "The Kingdom of God is Near" I think: that’s good news. Kingdom = kin. Kin means family. The kingdom of God comes when our one human family treats each of its members like beloved sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. The spirit of God is anything that unites us and the spirit of evil is anything that divides us. The two most repeated verses in the Bible are Remember, and Do Not Be Afraid. We are dismembered and we should not be afraid to re-member. To come back together. As one family, On Earth as is in heaven.
And so my daughter’s question to me was this:
If those people are our family, mama- and you say they are- then why aren’t we marching like they are our family? Why aren’t we wailing and picketing and writing and fighting like our family is dying?
That’s where we Meltons are today. We are rethinking who we really are and who we want to be. We are learning that we might not be who we thought we were at all. We are recalibrating, trying to rearrange our priorities and beliefs and time and friendships in a way that might answer our daughter’s questions. We want to be able to answer her.
We are repenting, because the Kingdom of God is near. Let it be so.
-Glennon Melton
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