Kaleidoscope

This post is a difficult one to write. It has been percolating for a while, but I never know quite what to say. I started this post over a month ago when I was convicted about this issue. I realized that it is time to try to express these thoughts and feelings but they still feel inadequate at expressing the complexity.

Race. This is a hot topic these days. I sit from afar and watch the racial tension in the US and think about how complicated it is. I wonder whether I really want to move back there, to bring my black husband and future half black children into that world.

On the other side, I am the minority here. I dare not compare my experiences with minorities in the US, but what I do experience is being looked at through the lens of my race. And I don’t like it. I don’t like when people assume I have money because I am white. I don’t like not even being able to apply for a job because I am a foreigner. I don’t like the perception that life is easy because I am white.

Yet at the same time, I know that I am privileged. It is easy for me to stew about not being allowed to work in this country and then people looking at me like I have money to give them. But then I am convicted of the savings account I have back home. It is easy for me to complain about not being judged for a job purely for my qualifications, skills and experience. But then, I have had the privilege of growing up in a place where education was valued and available.

I again want to quote Marilyn Gardner’s Between Worlds. She says “I have realized as I’ve grown older the privilege that I have, not for any merit other than my skin color; my life has advantages that I did not earn, simply because I am white.” She says in a later essay that “…cultural humility demands self-evaluation and critique”… that it “…puts us on our knees, the best posture possible for learning.”

Even now as I watch the Olympics, these thoughts come up. I am proud to be American. I am cheering for the USA. But I think how privileged we are to have the facilities, the coaches, the time, the money. I know many athletes in the US still have overcome adversity to get where they are. But I can’t help think that overall, our athletes have quite the advantage. It is inspiring reading the stories of the refugee team, like the swimmers who pushed their sinking boat to rescue.

While national pride and racial pride are good, as Christians, we have a higher calling. Multiple times Paul says there is no Greek nor Jew, black nor white, man nor woman. We are equal in God’s sight. I don’t know how to solve all the deep seated racial and ethnic problems in the worlds around me, but there a few things that I have needed to be reminded of and maybe some of you do to.

1) We are all equal in God’s sight. Heaven will be a beautiful place full of diversity of color, tongues and expressions of worship. How I long for that day! Let’s celebrate that diversity now too!

2) But here on earth, there are vast inequalities. What privileges have I had because of my race, ethnicity, sex, nation of birth? Thank God for these, be humble and then look for ways you can use your privilege to stand up against those inequalities, whether it be in big or small ways.

I pray for you and I, for my home country and my new home country, that Christians would lead the way in celebrating diversity, building bridges and tackling the injustices. I pray that we would keep our eyes fixed above, on our heavenly home, where one day we will all worship the same God together in unity. Amen.