At this moment, I am in the Ballroom of the Red Lion at the Park (Spokane) sitting in a far corner listening to Melissa Woo and Melanie Morrison discuss the racial divide in our country. Melissa as an Asian American has lived the experience of thinking that being white is the goal and now is fighting back. Melanie grew up as part of the privileged white America with a father who struggled with his own prejudices.
I sense so many energies in this room or is it just all inside of me. Some lean in toward the conversation -- some pull away. Sometimes both reactions happen within me. Those of us who call ourselves Progressives -- we have worked have we not since the sixties on the front lines of working for racial justice -- do we need speakers tell us that there is more work to do or that we are still part of the problem? I reel against that suggestion. The theme of this Conference is "Behold a New Thing" -- can't we get beyond this old thing and push for new things?
The truth is many of us would prefer a different vision to focus on this weekend! God, speak your Word to us -- what are we to hear, how are we to respond.
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In my very humble opinion, true racial justice will require a great deal of trust on all sides of the issue. It will be an effort that will wax and wane, that will bulge and contract, almost as we in our bodies breathe in and out in a long exhale. I say this because during the initial workshop presentation given by Melanie and Melissa, I heard a member of the audience try to express the need for people of color with rich ethnic history to be confident enough in who they are to not be shy about attending a mostly white church service in the entirety of their heritage, i.e., distinctive clothing, ways of praying, eyes with which they see God...And while his comments created some stir among others that this was possibly a disrespectful suggestion, I found myself reflecting on my own experiences as a lesbian woman.
ReplyDeleteI had previously attended the Unitarian Universalist Church before coming to the United Church of Christ. And if there's any place where it's "easy" to be an out lesbian or gay man, it was that Unitarian Universalist Church. I was never challenged about my relationship, about who I was, about my experience of the Holy as a Spirit who loved me just as I was. It was comfortable there; I had friends and acquaintenances that I could count on to speak up for me, to rally with me, to seek my engagement in the journey, and to acknowledge me as part of them, their "family." At some point, this very easy relationship became a habit, and in a particularly tough spiritual questing moment, I became aware of it as the crutch that it was. I became encouraged and challenged by the Spirit to grow through trust - the kind of trust it would take to find a church where I might have to struggle up against acceptance, understanding and an environment that didn't know how to embrace me and my family. I would need to trust my ability to know growth from abuse; at the same time trusting in the goodness of others who profess to want to know God.
I found Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ before it was ONA. And I must acknowledge, that the people there thought they had always been accepting, so what was the question? But I still felt great anxiety, fear of the unknown, and trepidation about trusting these people who called themselves Christians. My history both before I was out and after contained many negative experiences from Christians - how could I possibly be thinking of entering the Lion's Den so to speak, of people who would use the Bible against me? Of course, the experience was quite positive, which is not to say there haven't been difficult conversations with people unaware, uneducated, and ill-equipped to deal with their own feelings about "the other." We in the Westminster congregation have grown together through the ONA process, through the experience of having an out lesbian assistant pastor, through the efforts involved in continuing the "and affirming" process of the ONA experience.
I know that had I not had the awakening call from the Holy to explore new horizons, to be brave and to trust God's guidance in this matter, I would still be at the other church, without having experienced the tremendous growth of Spirit that comes through trust - trusting God, trusting myself to know how to protect myself, and trusting others in the struggle. And where would Westminster be? Would they have gone through the ONA process by now? Who knows?
I do know, that the growth continues, and I hope it never stops. May we all continue to breath in and breath out the process of racial justice work; May we all consider taking the risk of trust that it requires for us to create new life together. Be brave. Start new things in new places. Expose yourself to trust. Life is waiting.