I've seen many searching for answers far and wide
But I know we're all searching
For answers only you provide
'Cause you know just what we need
Before we say a word........
I almost cried tonight when I heard these particular lyrics in church tonight. You see I have so many questions and so few answers. I have a dear friend who told me that when we die and get to heaven, all the answers will be written on that big whiteboard in the sky. Not that I feel the need to get to heaven any time soon, but I'd really appreciate access to that whiteboard.
I am taking a class through the University of MN on Race, Power, and Education and learning so much. It almost feels like I had a huge sticky bandage blinding me and it is being slowly peeled off. You know when you pull that band-aid off slowly it hurts. I am sitting in discomfort caused by things I now see.
Today I was looking through my pictures trying to find the one I had planned to use for our Christmas cards. Of course, I couldn't find it. But, I came across several photos I took during the summer of 2016 at the Science Museum of MN.
Yeah, it is a blurry pic and your probably can't read it. Can you see the red letters that state, "Kill the Indian in him and save the man." As part of my class I have been learning about the History of Indigenous People in MN. My friends, it is ugly, brutal, and oh-so-very-sad. It breaks my heart. As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving (my most favorite of holidays) I ponder the single story I heard since childhood about Squanto and Samoset and the Pilgrims all being best of friends. They all broke break together, so the story says. In truth, today the day that we celebrate as Thanksgiving is a National Day of Mourning for Native American People in this country.
Last week I had to turn in a midterm paper for class. I wrote about my questioning, not of my faith, but of a church and it's people, who historically have talked about this nation as being blessed by God. Heck, our Pledge of Allegiance even states that The United States is "nation under God." In my paper, I wrote:
Prior to beginning my personal and professional learning around equity in education, I read Shane Claiborne’s Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. I heard him speak when he came to the Twin Cities. His words began to inspire me to critically look at my faith, what I had been told versus the actual story of Jesus in the Bible. I need to reread this book soon. As I flip through it, so much jumps out at me and begs me to dig my mind and my heart into this unsanitized version of Christianity. He posits: “Much of the world now lies in ruins of triumphant and militant Christianity. The imperially baptized religion created a domesticated version of Christianity--a dangerous thing that can inoculate people from ever experiencing true faith. (Everyone is a Christian, but no one knows what a Christian is anymore.)” (240). At the time I first read this, a disconnect existed between what I thought of as the God of the Church and me. I thought the history of the Church was an academic realm of robed white scholars, with little in common with my more personal experiences. This disconnect left me in a kind of half-attention to the Christian tradition. But Claiborne’s words were like a wake-up call that brought me back to life. I saw that there could be a place for the way my head and heart interpret scripture, that there were others who think like me.
As I read more, and realize the depth and breadth of racist structures, racist thought, and a militaristic legacy, I continue to turn to my faith, to the God revealed by Christ. The strength of my personal, spiritual experiences, with renewed learning about Christianity's radical origins, both empower me to argue and question how my Christian God could have blessed these United States of America--as popular religion in our nation often claims. How could God bless--favor, condone, endorse--a country that did not claim all lives as 100% human? How could God bless a country that raped and pillaged the people whose land it stole. How could God bless a country that imported human beings and treated them as property? How could God bless a country that built itself upon the lives and land of others?
Clearly I am still going to church. I am planning on celebrating Thanksgiving and giving thanks for so many beautiful people and things in my life. We will roast a bird and serve it with all the trimmings. But this year I will light a candle in memory and acknowledgement of the historical underbelly of this day. My family will talk about the other stories that we are not taught that got us to the table, lest we believe there is only a single story. I hope and I pray that our world can become better than it is, that it can acknowledge past wrongs that have brutal and ugly consequence in the present day.
As I pray and lift up my many questions to God, I trust that He has the answers before I even say a word.
