because you’re not

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white or not white

 

If you don’t know, my son is my heart. He is smart, kind, and so very handsome.

I have so many hopes and dreams for him, but more than anything, I want him to be happy. Right now, being happy means allowing him a pen and paper, with which he creates worlds heretofore unseen.

Did I mention that he is kind? His latest passion is giving small bags of non-perishable food to homeless people that we pass on the street. He talks about this nearly every day.

He is a great kid.

 

Last week I was out of town at a Church conference. The theme of this conference was “Healing Relationships,” focusing on the reconciliation of relationships with Native Americans. While I was away, my son was with his mother. During this time, he tried to play with his best friend. He has been friends with this child for over a year. For some reason, however, on this day, the boy told my son “I’m not going to play with you because you’re not white.”

 

My chest tightens. I interlock my fingers because I need to do something with my hands.

 

All of a sudden I’m 5 years old again. I’m standing on a playground at my new Private School. In case you were wondering, I wasn’t white back then, either. A group of boys approaches me, staring. I’m unable to discern curiosity from disdain. Finally, the group leader speaks.

 

“What color do you pee?”

 

When I look back on that day, even today, I can’t decide if it’s more funny or sad. My skin was different, so my urine must be also. Two of those kids ended up being my best friends in elementary school. Of those two, one grew up to be a skin head. Life is weird like that.

 

I’m not 5 anymore. I’m a man. I’m a grown man, a minister, a philosopher, a friend, a father. Some people know this about me, while all that others see is skin that’s too dark, and a tangle of hair. I am not white. Truth be told, I’ve never wanted to be.

 

But this is about my son. He isn’t white. Or maybe he is. His mother is white. I am black. What does that make him? Is he defined by positive terms, or by negation? Is he neither, or perhaps both? He is an artist, I know that much. He loves his family and friends. But in this moment, he is reduced to some construct of race, and measured by the ways in which he falls short of the expectations of a 5 year old.

 

Let’s be clear, I don’t blame this child. He didn’t invent racism, and he didn’t discern my son’s lack of whiteness on his own. This came from the adults who are rearing him.

 

 

On some level, I’m striving for the dream of Dr. King, that my son be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. This coincides with 1 Samuel 16:7, which teaches “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Nonetheless, I don’t want people to ignore his race. My son is black, and he is white. He has beautiful skin and curly hair. He has brown eyes and full lips. He is not only the content of his character, he is the fullness of his being.

 

Also, he is a child. So is his “best friend.” Yet his parents are adults. And we need to talk.

My Black November

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I have a scar on my lower abdomen. It is about 2.5” long, and is deeper than I thought it would be. You can’t see it if I’m swimming, and I don’t take time to look at it each day. Nonetheless, when I do, or when I run my finger across it, I am reminded of the black November where my world nearly stopped spinning.

I was in college, more than half way through. I had stumbled, academically, most of my way through, yet I was finally succeeding. I was on my way to a 4.0 semester for the very first time. One evening I was watching TV, emulating Al Bundy to a degree, hand tucked in my waistband. I felt something that shouldn’t be there. Perhaps it was fear, or the brazen nature of my 20 year old self, but I promptly ignored it. When I came across the same mass in the shower two days later, I ignored it again. I ignored it with all of my strength. When I had no more strength to ignore it, I tried to rationalize it. It must be nothing. It must be nothing.

I kept calm when I made the appointment with my doctor. My thought was, get it looked at, since it’s nothing, so you can stop worrying about it. I even maintained my calm when he asked that I get an ultrasound. The next afternoon I was laying back on a table in the local hospital. A young woman with a nice smile was nothing but professional when spreading cold goop all over my groin. Make no mistake, there was nothing pleasant about this moment. She kept her nice smile shining at me until she say a dark spot. She stopped smiling then. Her right hand kept her monitor pressed against me, while her left reached for a phone. Very quickly she was speaking with my doctor, saying hushed words that I couldn’t quite make out. The phone was thrust in my direction, and my doctor was telling me that I needed to see a urologist for further review.

I somehow maintained my delusion, thinking that further review meant that the prognosis was unclear. When I saw the urologist, he looked at my ultrasound and asked when I wanted to schedule surgery. I asked the question that I had been pretending was unnecessary for weeks. He was the first kind soul to say the ugly words directly to my face. There is a mass on your testicle, and it’s probably cancer. I asked what probably meant, hoping that I could find solace in statistics. He said 97% likely was what studies would show, but he had never seen something that looked like this that wasn’t cancer. He talked about the success of chemo, the low mortality rate for testicular cancer, and my options for prosthetics. I held back tears, redirecting the flow of moisture into an intense desire to spit. On his desk. In his face. In the face of cancer. I was 20 years old. Too young to have cancer. Too young to say cancer.

My desire was to live a life that was untouched by strife and complications. I could only express this by saying “but I want both of my balls!” More than that, what I really wanted was for my control over my life to remain. Inside there was something very deep down that was breaking, and I tried with all my might to hold it together. Before it was over, I’d fail.

I found support in a few places. My roommates, Georgia and Brad, my family, and my friends. I ate a Thanksgiving meal, laughed with family, and resigned myself to go to sleep a few days later. In early December, I was once again on a table. I was reasonably sure that I’d wake up from the anesthesia, but I had no idea what my life would be like after that. Before I slept, I had one thought: no matter what happens, I’ll be thankful. I’ll find something for which I could be thankful, even at the worst moments imaginable. My illusion of control over my circumstance was broken, and thankfully it has never recovered. Instead, I embraced control over my attitude. I had the ability to choose my attitude, and I chose gratitude. My breath is not guaranteed, and it never will be. Gifts are not guaranteed. It is this fact which makes them worthy of celebration.

That November was one in which I discovered a darkness. It was so dark, in fact, that I couldn’t see what it truly was. I thought, at first, it was a cloud of deep evil pressing against me.

 

I awoke from my sleep, my medically induced slumber, to a curious face. The surgeon and the pathologist reported that I was the statistically improbable 3%. I did not have cancer. Instead it was a small growth, easily removed, leaving me otherwise intact. The blackness of that November, in reality, was a deep and rich soil, the fertile ground in which all of my future was planted. I was unmade and remade in that time, realizing that gratitude was the essential substance of my life.

 

Broken Presents

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This week I heard a sermon that got me thinking. My pastor told the story of a nun who heard God say “I’m not going to take those flaws from you. You’re going to have to give them to me.”

It reminded me of my son. He loves to give gifts. In his mind, everything is a gift. He bursts into a room and shouts “I have a prise for you!” (Meaning a surprise.) Then from behind his back, he’ll give a gift. Sometimes food, other times it might be a rock that he found. Quite often it will be something that I gave to him as a gift only a few hours before. When he does this, I know that he must really like the gift because he finds it worthy of being presented again and again, even when he is not the recipient. At times he will give me something that is broken. He is able to overlook the broken nature of the gift, and still seems excited by what it once was, and what it once could do.

My favorite ‘prises’ are his toys. He will bring his very favorite toy from behind his back and hold it out to me. This is not him parting with his toy. Rather he is asking me to partake in playtime with him. By giving me this gift, he is inviting me to play and laugh and find joy with him. He welcomes me to engage with him exactly where he needs me.

I’ve often felt that what I had was not good enough to offer up. I’ve thought that my gifts (if you could even call them that) weren’t worthy, and were not useful to anyone, not even to God. So here I am, once again, taking my lesson from a pre-schooler. Offer up your gifts with pure joy and not an ounce of shame. Even when the only thing that you can lift up is brokenness, lift it up. God doesn’t look at you and see inadequacy. Through the lens of a father, I know that whenever I see my son happy to give something, to share something, I see it as an invitation for me to be happy with him.

I have an old mylar balloon from my birthday last year still hanging on the wall in my office. I keep it because it is the first gift that my son picked out all on his own and chose to give to me. When I look at it, I don’t see something that is deflated, or wrinkled, or old. I do not see something that is broken. I see something that was a joy to give, and a joy to receive.

 

 

 

But drops of grief can ne’er repay

The debt of love I owe:

Here, Lord, I give my self to thee

’Tis all that I can do.

Alone in the Dark

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This is an older post from 2011, but continues to be one of my favorites. Enjoy!

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This morning I was getting ready for Church.  My son, as he often does, was playing nearby.  When I was a child I loved to hide from my parents. I like to believe that this habit was genetically transferred to my son.  In fact one of his favorite places to hide is on the bedroom closet.

In the course of readying myself for Resurrection Sunday, I didn’t think much of him running back and forth.  I was distantly aware that he had just squeezed into the closet and slid the door shut behind him.  Usually he is able to open it again quickly on his own. For some reason this time, he lost his bearings in the dark and lost his hold on the door.  Immediately he was aware of his loss of control, and he began to cry.  It was only a few seconds before I was there to open the door.  His cries were so frantic that it was a few minutes before I was sure that he had not actually hurt himself.  I finally realized that it was not a smashed finger or bump on the head that caused the cries, but his fear. He lost control of a familiar situation and became afraid.  From his perspective, while once I was only 6 feet away, quite suddenly he found himself alone and afraid.

I can relate to this tangible fear.  A life that seems familiar can quickly and surprisingly feel out of control.  The things we are sure that we control slip from out hands.  The lights are  extinguished and against all reason we can be made to feel alone.

The comfort here is that, just as it was with my son, none of us can ever actually be alone. Our grasp of a situation may escape us, and our ability to see our next steps clearly may indeed be hidden.  Our plans can lay dashed, our cries can ring sharp. The darkness may be real, but our Father is still close at hand.  God hears our cries, and longs to hold us close, and reassure us that we have never actually left the safety of heavenly Love.

Just as my son did, in life we may accidentally allow something to obscure our view of God.  Those things can block out the light and block our way, but we will never really  be Alone in the Dark.

The beginning of the beginning

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So I figured I would not be one of those people who start a blog, write one post, and never post anything else.  So I’ll at least offer up this second set of thoughts for your reading pleasure.

Today is the end of my first week in seminary.  You know what it’s like? Remember in the Matrix after the operator plugs Neo back in and he’s all like “I know Kung Fu…”  It’s like that.  You know what it’s like?  It’s how Susan Boyle must have felt that day she sang on Britain’s Got Talent, and immediately haters were transformed into fans.  It’s like that.  You know what it’s like?  It’s like that time after a long winter and you find the first smell of lavender, and you realize that summer is returning, immediately ensnaring your heart.

As I said to my cohort during orientation, I believe that my heart had been there for many many years, but finally my head and body caught up.  I am incredibly happy.  You have likely never seen me this happy before, no joke.  In fact, happy isn’t the word.  It’s joy.  I have joy in my heart.  (Stop singing songs from Vacation Bible School in your head…)  It is the joy of being exactly where I am supposed to be, and knowing it as deeply as I know anything.

I think that this joy is so poignant because not so very long ago I felt nothing of the sort.  A few years ago I thought that I had experienced all of the joy that I was likely to have in life.  I was utterly broken.  But I was also completely wrong.  Sorrow was temporary, but it yielded to the new things that God was bringing into my life.  My favorite scripture, and the partial inspiration for the name of this blog, is Hebrews 10:14

“For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made Holy.” 

I don’t have the energy or mental wherewithal (seminary is hard work, ok? Sheesh, don’t be so judgy) to tell you everything that this passage means to me.  I’ll save most of it for later.  But I will say this:

I am off to something new.  And it’s the right place for me.  This is a part of a much larger process of being made into something.  I am humbled by having the opportunity to do what many wish that they could, but cannot due to time, finances, circumstance, etc.  A theological education gives us the opportunity to be engaged intellectually, and amazed spiritually.  I look forward to the times to come.

Missing the Harvest

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When I purchased my home a few years ago, I was really excited to discover this grape
vine.  I know nothing about maintaining a mini-vineyard, but I had hopes
of learning more about it, learning how to make jam, or wine, or whatever else
can be made from these wonderful little grapes.  I have yet to do any of
that, but normally I pull down a few grapes as I pass by during the
summer.  Today is the beginning of Winter.  A little while back I
passed by my grape vines and saw that I had missed so many grapes this
year.  I had officially missed out on the harvest.  It is too late to
go back, and it feels like I’ve lost something that I can’t get back.  I
have every reason to expect that these grapes will return next year, but what
if this was my year.  I’ll never get this one back. 

It got me thinking a lot about Jesus talking about the work that is before us.
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” Matt 9:37.
I’ll admit that I care less about the grapes, and more about the other things I
might be passing by.  What other opportunities have I missed?  What
if I missed something that I’ll never be able to recover?

Personal admission here:  I am really good at regretting things.  I could
probably tell you something that I wish I had done, hadn’t done, or would have
done much differently in many moments in my life.  I finally realized that
I was living my life facing backwards, shaking my fist at my past selves.
“Why would you do that self?  You’re an idiot!  That was our
moment!I’ve had to fight hard against this propensity, because clearly, all
that I was successful in doing was missing more of my life while
regretting what I had already missed.

Here’s what I believe: There is no such thing as missing the Harvest.  There
is no such thing as missing out on your time, or your chance.  Don’t get
me wrong, you can certainly miss out on a chance, or on a
time.  There are some moments that you will never get back.  Yet
the end of the day is not the end of the season, and the end of the season is
not the end of the year.  The end of that chapter isn’t the end of your
story.  God made us to work and rest, to worship and delight, to laugh and
to cry.  Each day that we draw breath is a day where we can do something,
be something, and most importantly- to love.