Often when we are down, we dare not look ahead to the future.
What can “Lift Every Voice and Sing” teach us to do?
Here are 3 things you can do now to practice hope for your future, using this classic hymn that’s been providing hope for over 100 years in the Black community and around the world.
I’m writing today at Do Not Depart. Will you join me there?
It doesn’t have to be in writing. It doesn’t have to be online.
But we’ve likely all been in more conversations of some sort this past week about racial injustice in America.
And when we refuse to talk about it? Here are 8 justifications I’ve used in the past. Lord, have mercy.
I’ve revised this list from last Friday’s post: Whatever Your Volume, Say Something.
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But it’s not meant to shame us when we’re quietly listening; there is immense value in that.
Listening needs to come first.
But after we listen, there is a second thing to do: use our voices. However God individually calls us to do it.
Whatever that way is, may we do it in love.
Who have you had conversations with? Have they been easy or hard? Please share in the comments.
It’s washed away now. Bare.
The rain stripped our sidewalk clean Tuesday. It left no traces of the laughter that we had last week with colored chalk, drawing pictures with our 2-year-old granddaughter.
We had fun writing names.
But sometimes we write names for another reason.
And writing these names is not fun.
We write these names as a testament to a life taken too soon. It’s a ritual undertaken frequently to memorialize yet another Black man or woman dying at the hands of systemic racism in our country.
#sayhisnameGeorgeFloyd
Isn’t everyone talking about it?
Well, no.
When we don’t speak up about racial injustice, why not?
Here are 8 thoughts behind choosing silence. Unfortunately, I’m guilty of some.
HOPELESS
Sometimes we don’t speak up because we feel hopeless. We think our voice won’t make a difference. Nothing ever changes. Why bother?
DEFENSIVE
But *I* didn’t do anything, we say. *I* am not racist, we say. We drown out voices telling us otherwise. Our pride smothers our humility. It strangles our repentance and growth.
ASHAMED
When I watched the video of Amy Cooper call the police on Christian Cooper, a Black birdwatcher in Central Park, I cringed. For her weaponization of white women’s tears. Sometimes we want to ignore the stories because we feel ashamed by them.
IGNORED
Or we’re quiet because we think nobody is listening to us anyway. Why talk into the void? Our sound is too faint.
APATHETIC
Does racial inequality really concern me? Everything’s stable in my community. Why stir things up? We have no skin in the game.
INARTICULATE
Or we don’t want to say the wrong thing. We don’t want to be misunderstood. We don’t want to make things worse. So we say nothing.
UNCERTAIN
Maybe we’re conflicted. We’re not even sure what we believe. We’re waiting for complete confidence before we say anything at all.
UNCOMFORTABLE
Or maybe we see others face retaliation when they speak up. We don’t want to lose friends or make someone angry at us. Conflict makes us uncomfortable.
But does silence really resolve any of these concerns? Does it release us from personal responsibility?
Does it make racial inequality disappear?
You don’t have to start big.
Here’s what speaking up does NOT require.
Start here instead: with yourself. Talk it out with God about you.
What do I believe about race? About justice? Why? Why not? Are my beliefs helpful or harmful to God’s heart? To other people?
Then maybe talk it out in the privacy of your home. With your partner, with your kids, with your parents.
Maybe you will talk it out further with others. With coworkers or church members or friends in your neighborhood.
Of course racial injustice need not be the only thing we talk about. But it is one thing we need to talk about. It’s worth our time. It’s worth the risk.
And it might just be a matter of life or death to another human being.
Something stirs in each of us when we see injustice.
And when we cause or contribute to injustice ourselves? Once we realize it, let’s repent. Grieve it. Turn from it. Change.
Oppression not only harms the oppressed, it also destroys the oppressor. It eats away at our souls until they crack.
If you’re a follower of Jesus, Latasha Morrison says in her book Be the Bridge that we are the agents of reconciliation. And because of that:
“It’s never too late for us to acknowledge and lament racial injustice. It’s never too late to understand the historic depth of racism and to ask God to show his mercy and heal us.”
It’s never too late to give our nation a fresh start and make the world a safer place.
I believe God smiles when he sees our attempts to play better together, to love each other stronger, to write each other’s names in chalk on sidewalks—for life, not death.
This is work for all of us to do.
We are all stewards of God’s grace.
We drove our granddaughter back home on Saturday. We returned home to a quiet house.
I put the sidewalk chalk back in its box. I’ll save it again for the next time she visits.
And then we’ll draw again. It still won’t be a masterpiece. We won’t get it perfect. Not many people will ever see it or know about it.
But we’ll know we did it. We’ll keep adding our names and voices to life’s conversation, however small. It will form us.
Add your voice, too.
You have something to say.
Start somewhere.
Say your something.
Yvonne Chase, a sister of color and of common faith, writes her response to a white sister about how to respond to racial injustice at her post, Silence Speaks Volumes.
She doesn’t want to offend you. But listen. Listen with your heart to her heart.
I’ve been sitting with her words all week since I read her post.
“Whatever you do, don’t be silent….If you are my sister in Christ and believe we’re all made in God’s image, how can you be silent?”
May Yvonne’s words stick with you, too.
“Black people cannot fight this battle alone. We need our white allies to come alongside us and fight with us until change comes.”
Read all of Yvonne’s post here at her blog, YvonneChase.com.
Then add your own links below so we can hear your voice, too.
Thanks for sharing, Yvonne! Here’s a button for your blog.
1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.
2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.
3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).
We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.
MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
LAUREN SPARKS
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LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
So many of you ARE saying things! We read your words and hear your hearts here online and in person. We’re listening and learning. Thank you.
Get the infographic here of 8 Reasons We Don’t Speak Up…and Why We Should Anyway
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
“The world needs more of what’s good and true in us. It needs to be reminded that we’re miracles.”
– Ashlee Eiland
Being kind can sometimes be easy. Other times, it can cost us.
Being kind often means listening with ears wide open.
And when we can’t can be physically present to listen in person, we can listen through written words. Even when it’s uncomfortable.
Ashlee Eiland writes words for us to listen to in her new book, Human(Kind): How Reclaiming Human Worth and Embracing Radical Kindness Will Bring Us Back Together.
Her words aren’t always easy to hear. But they just might be necessary.
Ashlee is a Black woman of faith who grew up in majority-white spaces. If you wonder what that’s like—its comforts and discomforts—you can listen to Ashlee and find out. She shares her stories and lessons she’s learned along the way.
“Being black, no matter what your black looks, sounds, or thinks like, is a full-time job here in America. Trying to stay alive is an exhausting grind, regardless of your job or the car you drive or whether you have a college degree.”
Ashlee also lets us know that kindness is sometimes the hardest thing she’s ever given.
Yet even despite hardships, she’s found that kindness is the best way to show love.
Be kind to others.
And be kind to yourself.
“That truth is this: no matter what destructive and damaging names you’ve been called, they aren’t the ones that matter. The ones that matter are Worthy, Valuable, Chosen, and Beloved. These names remind you that you weren’t, in fact, a mistake but a person who needed to live.”
We can all take a page from Ashlee’s book and learn to live better and love better by choosing kindness.
“Seeking to understand someone who’s lived a different story from ours, collecting different beliefs and values along the way, may be one of the most rebellious and controversial acts we could choose in our current cultural landscape.”
“I left that day knowing that sometimes even doing good is not enough. Sometimes we just have to sit with what’s hard and humiliating about the difficult work of unity and do our best not to let it kill us.”
“But maybe it’s worth showing up anyway. Maybe we still show up just to prove that kindness and proximity aren’t always about our comfort. We keep showing up to remind ourselves that dignity and hope weigh more than humiliation’s sting.”
“They stopped whatever they were doing to see what was actually happening, and they extended what they had to offer in order to meet me where I was. Isn’t this how we find our way back to one another? We have to remember what it was like to feel lost and alone.”
“When we let silence do its work, we leave space for the delayed hope of possibility. We may not have spoken our piece, but we leave space for the peace that could one day break through and draw us closer in our humanity.”
Share your thoughts in the comments.
My thanks to Net Galley, WaterBrook
& Multnomah for the review copy
sharing with Grace & Truth
“I know now what I didn’t know then: black men are rarely honored on purpose. And if they are, their honor comes late—and rarely by anyone other than other black men or women.”
– Ashlee Eiland, Human(kind)
I see you, little boy.
Your feet are dangling over the stream at Big Spring Park. You watch your reflection. You stir the water with a stick you found, like all little boys do.
I don’t know your name.
But you are here and I see you.
Others are not here today.
And I see them. Vauntez. And Isaiah. And Kameron. You are little Black boys, too. You read me your sight words and tell me your stories and make me laugh out loud.
I see your faces and hear your voices and feel your hugs.
I also see my godson Chris and my co-volunteer Steve and my former Sunday school student Jeffrey. Once little boys, you’ve grown into young Black men. You’ve made it this far in America living in a Black body. You still breathe strong. You are smart and bold and powerful.
I see your faces and hear your voices and feel your hugs.
I also see Black men my age. Barrion and Nate and Rydel. You’ve accumulated years of experiences yet remain full of love and Jesus and compassion. You inspire me. You brighten the world with all you are.
I see your faces and hear your voices and feel your hugs.
And I see Black men a generation older. I see Mr. Ewing, my first Black principal when I am in 3rd grade at the beginning of school integration. Mr. Bradley, my unyielding yet tender Black principal in 12th grade. Mr. Turner, my friend and prayer partner in public housing battling cancer. I don’t know your backstories of living with racism for a lifetime. Could I handle it if I did?
I see your faces and hear your voices and feel your hugs.
To my brothers, this is personal. I honor you. I love you and I’ve been loved by you.
I say your names.
But . . .
I want to see you breathing. I want you here and alive and unharmed until God ushers you home on his time, not man’s time.
Your life matters to me.
To you, little boy with the stick in the water, I’m watching you. And watching out for you. You already understand too soon why everywhere here is shouting together.
I shout today alongside your daddy who brought you here:
“No justice, no peace. I can’t breathe. Black lives matter.”
You already get it more than I do.
But today I don’t talk to you. My mouth is covered with a mask. But my eyes are open.
I hope I see you a few years from now, too. Living your dreams. Laughing with friends. Loving your family.
You matter.
And I see you.
The world feels heavy.
And dark.
We need more light, yes?
Laura reminds us that WE are here to be light, “bringing out the God-colors in the world.”
“Oh, that we may shine as lighthouses in this darkness, during this storm, through this fog—ever brighter for Him today!”
Read all of Laura’s post here, and add your own links below to shine in the world.
Thanks for sharing, Laura! Here’s a button for your blog.
1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.
2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.
3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).
We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.
MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
