Thursday, August 28, 2014

My Changes Because of Ferguson


How I will try to change because of Ferguson

Written by Dan McDonald

 

          The recent events in Ferguson Missouri and the resulting conversations surrounding those events have shown me a need to make changes in my life. Especially I have learned that like seventy-five percent of white persons I seldom interact socially with anyone non-white. I believe that needs to change. I write this blog to tell how I hope to change my life so that I will interact with more non-white persons.

            Three Changes I want to make in my life

            1.  I want greater diversity of friends with whom I regularly interact.

            To intentionally pursue diversity in friendships can easily be regarded as forced and artificial. It can seem unnatural to choose to build friendships with people of a different color, when in one’s whole life there have seldom been friends except from one race. But perhaps what has happened in the past needs to be regarded just as much as unnatural. I went to college with people of different races, I have worked with people from different races and ethnicities, and yet almost all my friends have been white. Was that a natural occurrence or have I simply found it easier to not deal with the difficulties of race in choosing to go along with a sort of expectation that we develop friendships with people that look like us? Perhaps the past choices that led to an all-white group of friends was the unnatural choice and now I am trying to simply recover enough of my humanity to pursue friends wherever I may find them regardless of their race or ethnic composition?

            2.  I want my thinking to be influenced by people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

I like to think. I try to read. I look for books that will influence and provide nourishment for my thinking. There was a time when my reading list seemed to indicate a mind reserved for “white men only.” In the past year I intentionally began reading books and blogs by women. Consequently I will never ever return to reading books and blogs by men only. I am certain that adding more writers of color will feed, nourish and enrich my understanding of life similarly to how reading women has enriched me. I need some suggestions. I plan on reading some books by Christena Cleveland, Maya Angelou, and John Perkins, but I know there are so many other authors and I know so few of them. Let me know your suggestions.

            3. I want to seek greater diversity in relationships alongside less personal double-mindedness and hypocrisy.

It can be very difficult to break out from a mold of having friendships from only one race or ethnic group. The Bible shows us that in the example of St. Peter. He was the one God called to take the Gospel to Cornelius, because God had heard Cornelius’ prayers. St. Peter went. St. Peter supported receiving Gentiles into the church without making them become Jews at the council of Jerusalem. But later St. Peter found it so much easier to sit with his Jewish friends than to be willing to sit with the Gentiles, so St Paul had to address St. Peter’s fall into hypocrisy. I know I am a painfully weak and wishy-washy human being. I will need to face my own tendencies to say nothing to rock the boat. I will have to prepare myself for the time when some white person makes an ethnic joke, or a racist, and especially a subtle almost non-racist remark. I will need to take a stand and say that I have determined I will not listen to offensive remarks against my fellow human beings any more than I will allow myself to make them. I must seek diversity in relationships while seeking a single-minded unity of heart in the principles of my love toward all my neighbors.

 

            What are my expectations in this venture of faith?

        While I cannot pre-judge what I shall discover by implementing these changes in my life, I do have two expectations.

            I DO NOT EXPECT to discover “ the black perspective.”

            I imagine that it is a common sense expectation that it should be as offensive for me to imagine that I will discover some African-American “black perspective” as it would be for some non-Americans to have a few white American friends and thus deduce through that group of American friends “the white American perspective”. For someone to imagine the individuals of a race or ethnic group to be able to be reduced to a group perspective; must be one of the more easily observed expressions of bigotry and prejudice to be witnessed within our fallen humanity.

            I do expect to discover the common bonds of a shared humanity

            My second expectation as I begin this journey is a positive expectation. I believe that the more I share life and friendships with people of other races and ethnicities, the more I will learn that what we share in humanity is generally greater than what distinguishes us within our varied groups that form our self-identities. I expect to discover that we have in common some very basic hopes, dreams, desires, and fears.

With all the hopes and expectations I have, this journey should be one of the great adventures I will ever undertake in this life.


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Jesus' continued sufferings as high priest


The Sufferings of our High Priest

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            The sufferings of Christ in his own body were completed on the cross and in his burial and descent to the place of the dead. He has risen from the dead and the sufferings in his body are complete. In that sense our Lord Jesus’ sufferings came to an end on the cross. But there is another sense in which our Lord’s sufferings continue unto the day when heaven comes down to earth and every tear is wiped away and the former things of sin, death, sickness and curse pass away. It seems important to me that we realize the ways in which our Lord continues to suffer with us and for us; with human feeling and emotion. For there are few greater comforts I can imagine than realizing the depth of his sympathies with and for us as he pleads our case on the throne of grace before our Father.

            In recent days my thoughts have often been fixed upon the troubles in Ferguson. They have been fixed there but there are sufferings around the globe, far and wide, big and small and on the throne of grace is a Savior who pleads the needs of people throughout his kingdom. He pleads the case of the citizens of that kingdom for which we pray when we pray “thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I will be writing one more blog on how I will personally respond to the events in Ferguson, but perhaps it is important to know that our great high priest can be focused on the needs of those in Ferguson without losing sight of all the other needs big and small that exist within his realm that affect few or many of us. This blog hopefully addresses Ferguson in its subject even if not directly, for it addresses the realization that we have a suffering savior who has ascended and makes intercession for the needs of his people.

            It also pertains to the sufferings of a single human being whom I have come to know very slightly on social media, on Twitter to be exact. There is a young woman who tweets wonderfully encouraging sayings with artistic flair on a daily basis. These tweets bring a smile and joy to our lives. But last night she set forth a two-word tweet simply saying, “Suffering silently.” I was overwhelmed. She so consistently set forth encouraging words I could hardly imagine her suffering. But we all have suffering don’t we?

            I have often thought of creation. I have wondered how wide and narrow is the distinction between man and beasts. I come home to a cat in my house. The cat will walk between my feet. She will get in the way. It took me awhile to realize she wasn’t being a pest. She was yearning for attention. Either she needed food and water, or sometimes she was signaling she wanted to be noticed, picked up and held on my arm. My arm can be for her like a tree limb she rests on. The creation can be viewed as a work of progressive response to God’s liturgical call. He speaks and creation forms in a march towards light, life, order, beauty, and purpose. The distinction between man and beasts is both narrow and wide; the difference being that humanity is somehow created more uniquely to reflect the image of God.  Yet we have sinned and brought disorder into the creation. But the creation was not meant to be completed in our humanity. It was meant to be completed in the coming of God into humanity and also his coming into creation that he who came might be made heir and the centerpiece that brings everything back into order and completeness in him. He was meant always to be chosen to become the summation of the creation.

            I love that long ago St. Bonaventure spoke of how in Christ God’s love is a circle which has no boundaries and a center which is everywhere. Our Lord Jesus is one who prays earnestly for the big picture and all the little feelings of all the peoples of Ferguson while never forgetting about the girl whose sister has needs. As our great high priest our Lord who sits on the throne of grace is sympathetic towards us with a depth of feeling and resolve of one who grew in human nature by learning obedience through suffering. The sufferings of the people of God are gathered as if in a bottle to be poured out as perfume before the Father as holy incense to be presented in our Savior’s prayers before the Father. Our Lord suffers. He suffers no more in his body. But he suffers with and for us in every prayer and with each prayer we move closer to the perfection of each of us and of the cosmos. Whether in the near future or in the final day every prayer will have its final and perfect answer whether for the people of Ferguson, for the people of Iraq, or for a dear young lady who has a gift for encouraging people but also a sister in need.

            Our prayers, all of them and each of them is funneled through a great High Priest who is the Lamb of God who suffered for our sins, and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah who conquered them. He suffers with and for us in his prayers for us, but also he takes them into his own being that we might be made complete in him and presented without stain or fault before the Father in the day for which we await, in the day in which there will be no longer the former things, but only the completion of love, hope and faith.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

What Ferguson has taught me to see


What Ferguson has helped me see?

Part One of a Two Part Blog

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            It seems that the charged scene around Ferguson Missouri is beginning to settle. I fear that as things settle our concerns (especially if you’re white like me) will drift away until the old normalcy returns. This week my thinking and my feelings regarding issues of race and social justice have been challenged and hopefully changed forever. I would not describe myself as having been a racist but I now realize so much more that I have been complacent about issues that matter and are affecting others in horrible ways. What has taken place in Ferguson is not a surrealistic suspension of normal reality, but the long contained pressure of simmering frustration at long last coming to the surface. The events in Ferguson this past week brought into view how divided we tend to be about racial matters. For some the newsworthiness of Ferguson was the community that felt that law enforcement treats them less equally than it treated others. For some, the story of Ferguson was how out of control the protesters must have been, since the protests led to riots and looting. But different photographs can show that not every suggested explanation should be quickly received as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. A looted Quick Trip building can be used to suggest out of control protesters. But a group of protesters lined up in front of a store to stop masked men from entering the store suggests that there were times when it was the protesters who halted the advance of looting. I personally have a difficult time imagining that responsible commentators would try to paint the protesters and the looters as the same people with the same agenda. I am not trying to advance a conspiracy theory about who the looters were, but it seems to me that protesters were there to let their nation and community hear their concerns. The looters were likely thieves who realized that in the chaos of these events they might be able to get away with robbery. I imagine looters and protesters to be two different kinds of people with two very different agendas.

 


Looted Quick Trip (this suggests to some the sort of people protesting) (CBS Photograph)

 


CNN photograph - Protesters acted to block masked potential looters from entering the store

Is it really honest to describe looters as protesters or are they differing people with different agendas?

            I want for things to settle down in Ferguson. I want people to feel like they are returning to a normal way of life. But also I feel like I have learned lessons from following the protests in Ferguson that I want to never forget. I don’t want for my way of life and thinking and feeling to return to what I used to call normal before Ferguson.

            I grew up in a rural portion of Illinois populated almost exclusively by whites. For us diversity was the difference between White Anglo Saxon Protestants whose ancestors came mostly from the British Isles or Protestant portions of Germany, and the Roman Catholic immigrants recruited to work in mines and factories that came from Catholic portions of Germany, from Poland, Italy and Slavic portions of the former Hapsburg Empire. I was either sixteen or seventeen years old before I personally met someone who was black. What I knew of in my understanding of racism were theories and ideals generally agreed upon between white Protestants and white Catholics. I had no idea that people of color often faced a culture where they were treated significantly different than those of us who were white. While my experience of white bread culture may have been more isolated than that of many other whites, one of the things realized during the Ferguson events is that 75% of whites have no blacks or non-whites in their friendship and close relationship circles. Those friendship circles are the circles of people we choose to do something with when we aren’t working or going to church. They are the sort of people that we visit a museum with, or sit down for a conversation around food or drink and exchange ideas on a personal level. Seventy-five percent of us whites seldom have such personal times with non-whites. That is important. It goes a long way in explaining why there is such a divide among racial lines regarding some of our nation’s most important issues. There is a brief article in the Atlantic that describes our self-segregating life-styles and it can be viewed here. I hope many of you will take time to read that article because it does such a wonderful job of explaining why that matters.

            For me the primary lesson I have been learning as the Ferguson events have unfolded is that I personally have a need to work intentionally to build friendships with non-white people. I don’t believe I can understand people unless I am willing to spend some time sharing life with them.

            I don’t expect this to be an easy change to make in life. Most of us, at least I hope aren’t racists. But many of us have an awareness of race that causes us to fear that our relationships with other races may somehow blow up in our faces. Such fears are probably irrational but I think such fears often stand between us and getting to know our non-white neighbors on a personal level. Perhaps that thinking is what blocks many of us from being part of a movement of people seeking racial reconciliation. Perhaps our greatest need is to push through the barriers of our limited comfort zones. Our self-segregating lives have furthered our misunderstanding of one another. I suspect that much of what troubles American race relationships will not be primarily addressed in national policies or laws, although we should look for some solutions in such areas. But I suspect most advances will come when seventy-five percent of whites meet socially and have evenings out with black and non-white friends. That is where I imagine the most good will be done as we seek to see racial reconciliation. Don’t get me wrong, I also believe that all white police forces in cities that have a seventy percent black population is a problem also needing addressed. But until we are a nation that enjoys friendships, real friendships with people of other colors and ethnicities I can only see racial reconciliation attempts finding a plateau without any ability to move forward from that point.

            I will write one more part to this blog in which I describe changes I hope to make in my life to address what I have been learning because of Ferguson. I truly hope that those who have suffered so much might see someday how so many eyes were opened as some of us began to see what had always been there for us to see if we had only opened our blind eyes.