My friend from church, New Testament Ph.D., seminary professor, and all-around good guy, posted on Facebook today what I thought was a beautiful response to the events in Ferguson, MO (quote from Thomas Merton in 1958, emphases mine):
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun...Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the
depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge
can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in
God's eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If
only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no
more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed.
Also:
"...talking about racial privilege isn’t a way of telling white people
they are bad people or racists or that they didn’t really earn what they
have. It’s a way of trying to make visible the fact that system is not
neutral, it is not a level playing field, it’s not the same experience
for everyone. There are biases and imbalances and injustices built into
the warp and woof of our culture."
Read the rest here.
Read the rest here.
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