I was speaking with someone recently about “being
woke,” and about trying to deal with folks who ain’t woke yet, and trying to
love on them, and how some folks talk about “being tired” and feeling bitter
about the frustration of not seeing people, or things, change.
My friend quoted me back to myself when he
mentioned at one gathering someone had asked me a question and began it, “I am
so tired of people….” And I had asked him, “how old are you?” The answer was “26.” I said, “26, and tired already?”
This made me think of a few things about
inter-racial dialogue and cross cultural ministry, and POC survival in
inter-racial spaces. Being tired in the
emotional sense doesn’t really have anything to do with the amount of hours one
has put in, or even the amount of years or effort, or the strenuousness of the
labor. Many people work long and hard, (really
hard) each day and they are not emotionally tired. So much has to do with perspective, and faith,
and love, and the patience that can come from it.
“why are you not bitter?” Is a question I am sometimes asked, although
I am always surprised by it. Who the
hell do I think I am that I should be bitter?
This is what occurs to me, that it would take an inflated view of myself
to judge others so harshly or myself so important. I certainly have felt anger, frustration, and
sometimes I have surrendered to the closed door or the reality of a mountain
that I seemed unable to climb. I speak
here about calling for justice, or even mercy, at least for understanding about
issues of race, ethnocentrism, poverty, and suffering.
Burn out has more to do with anger than
with exhaustion, more to do with frustration than with a need for rest. Burn out is relieved more with hope than
sleep, more with assistance and fellowship in the struggle than time off.
I have to ask myself some questions, and
maybe you can ask yourself some as well.
Do I believe the world needs changing?
Yes, I do. Do I believe I can
change it? Yes, a little, and no,
probably not a lot right away. Will it
ever be changed? Absolutely, because Jesus
is coming and he will create a new heavens and a new earth.
Is
justice delayed truly justice denied?
No, but it sure feels that way sometimes. Only a God perspective can
help us understand that. Do I believe
that Jesus will not rest until he brings justice to the earth? Yes, that is my hope, my constant hope. What kind of perspective does it take to
live in a world full of injustice, with ignorant people who don’t even know
they may be perpetrators of injustice, who don’t know that their defense of the
status quo is an enshrinement of their privilege? What kind of perspective will give me a positive
sense of progress and help me to endure, to keep trying, to keep listening, to
keep teaching? Nothing less or short of
an eternal one, and that is hard for us temporal human beings.
When we are young we feel change should and
ought to come quickly. Thank God for youth.
When we grow old we realize change does indeed come, but sometimes it has
been and is glacial, incremental, not yet come to full realization. Some people dream dreams, and they work at them
and see them come true, but if the truth be told those dreams are never
universal, never total in scope for all humanity, nor for all time. Human beings celebrate sports heroes and use
the word “immortal,” “unforgettable” and such.
Really? What is a GOAT (Greatest
of all time) today won’t even be recognized in a generation, a century, a millennium. Sports statistics are possibly the most
changeable of things, and all heroes turn to dust.
Some will
perish still in prison waiting for a revolution that will never come, still in
the wilderness, still never having seen the city that was promised to them. They will question sometimes, like John the
Baptist did, “Are you the one?” What do you do with your ego when you feel you
should be the one that brings the change and no one listens to you? What do you do when after all your radical
speech, your passionate displays, your marching, and your advocation people act
like they just don’t care?
Will you waste your time to continue to win
over the resistant, will you continue to pour yourself out to institutions that
don’t live up to their own ideals? Will
you come to be patient with one more stupid question (and there are stupid
questions) from someone who should know better?
It comes back to the question of who do I
think I am? I am a small man, not of
much significance after all, despite my ambition and ego. I am a man of short time, no matter how long
I may live my life upon the earth. Yet,
with all my frustrations I am a man infinitely loved by the God who fills the
universe, who is its creator and sustainer. I am a sinful broken man, yet
forgiven, forgiven, forgiven again. I am
a purchased man, and I can no longer live for myself but for him who died and
rose again for me.
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