Sometimes it seems as if the life I lived back in the 1960s is repeating itself. There was the build-up of urgency to see change in our nation, the push towards opening up liberty for all people, the enormous pressure to make something happen, the release of government action, policies, and laws with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act--and then the angry resistance and fury that attempted for the next 40 years to tear every accomplishment down to revert to America's "normal" place of naked white supremacy.
The cycle happened again in 2008 after Obama's election, followed a decade later by a sharp uptick after George Floyd's murder in public. There was pressure and hope and demands for change--and some changes were implemented.
But resistance was furious and near-immediate, and the gains have been pushed back by angry people who demand to put things back to "normal."
I'm not one for violence because I'm committed to following the ways of Jesus as we know them from the New Testament texts of his life.
And yet I can understand how violence can be a response to the cruelty and destruction attempting to tear down all that is done when we put the ways of Jesus first.
It's complex. I don't know the right answers.
But I'm grateful for the conversations as people sharing their own lives and experiences help me find a place of peace.
Sometimes it seems as if the life I lived back in the 1960s is repeating itself. There was the build-up of urgency to see change in our nation, the push towards opening up liberty for all people, the enormous pressure to make something happen, the release of government action, policies, and laws with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act--and then the angry resistance and fury that attempted for the next 40 years to tear every accomplishment down to revert to America's "normal" place of naked white supremacy.
The cycle happened again in 2008 after Obama's election, followed a decade later by a sharp uptick after George Floyd's murder in public. There was pressure and hope and demands for change--and some changes were implemented.
But resistance was furious and near-immediate, and the gains have been pushed back by angry people who demand to put things back to "normal."
I'm not one for violence because I'm committed to following the ways of Jesus as we know them from the New Testament texts of his life.
And yet I can understand how violence can be a response to the cruelty and destruction attempting to tear down all that is done when we put the ways of Jesus first.
It's complex. I don't know the right answers.
But I'm grateful for the conversations as people sharing their own lives and experiences help me find a place of peace.