Will you still hashtag tomorrow?

"Will you still love me tomorrow?"

The Shirelles asked this question in their 1960 hit of the same name.  While they were asking about a romantic relationship, I think the question, or a variant on it, is a good one to ask.

Recently, social media celebrated "Blackout Tuesday".  People put up black squares as their avatar, passed around the hashtag #blackouttuesday, #blacklivesmatter, and other similar slogans.  (A backlash attempt, "whiteness Wednesday", backfired when K-Pop fans stormed Twitter and posted K-Pop videos with that hashtag.) 

I looked at the hashtags, and the posts, and thought, this is a good gesture, but what about tomorrow?

To call these last few weeks "convulsive" is a bit of an understatement.  We're dealing with coronavirus, a very contentious election, and now, more violence of whites against blacks, and specifically, white police officers against black suspects. 

I've heard of and seen wave after wave of protests across the country.  I know people who have participated in peaceful protests.  I have heard people say "we are sorry", "we repent," and I have heard African-Americans say, "I'm exhausted," "I'm beyond exhausted."  In our virtual lobby last Sunday, an African-American woman spoke of her feelings about recent events, and you could hear the exhaustion in her voice and see it in her demeanor. 

But people cannot march in protest forever.  No one can keep up the level of intensity that's permeated this country for the last several weeks.  Eventually, the public protests will die down and hashtags will not be trending quite as much.

What then?

What are you planning to do tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, to fight racism and other sins in our country? 

Today, the hashtag is on your Facebook and Twitter posts. 

But will you still hashtag tomorrow?

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Spiritual Echolocation

“Joy still comes in the morning.”

I heard this line in a song on my car radio this morning, while taking my husband to work.  Yes, my husband has gone back to work for the first time since March!

On the way back, I asked myself, “Joy still comes in the morning, but what do you do when the night seems so long?  When there’s no light except for the occasional teasing of the sun, like the perpetual twilight people in Alaska live in for so many months out of the year?”

These last few weeks have been some of the most convulsive our country has ever seen.  I know there have been worse times in our country’s history (Civil War comes to mind).  But these last few weeks and months?  The isolation of coronavirus turned our world upside down and inside out, and then the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd — and now, the shooting of Rayshard Brooks by an Atlanta police officer — has burst open the abscess of racism in this country. It is not a clean surgery, either.

What do you do when there is no light at the end of the tunnel, not even the headlight of an oncoming train?

Whenever you take a tour of a cave, inevitably, there is the moment when the tour guide turns off the lights so that you can “see” what it is really like underground.  If you want the definition of “ink-like blackness”, that is it.  You can see nothing but black.  There’s no light for your eye to catch or to focus on.  It is truly terrifying.  You don’t dare move, you don’t dare take one step because you have no way of knowing if you will put your feet on solid ground or go hurtling down into an abyss.

What do you do?

Bats and other creatures who live in caves, who live in that sort of darkness, use what is called echolocation.  Since they can’t see, they use sound to navigate their way in the darkness.  The sounds they make bounce off of walls and help them find their way.  Dolphins and whales also use echolocation to navigate in the ocean.   Sonar uses the same principles.

I wonder if there’s such a thing as spiritual echolocation that helps us find our way in the dark, when we can’t see the joy that will come in the morning.

When the coronavirus really started to hit, it was March, right before the beginning of spring.  I kept saying to myself, spring will come, spring always comes.  Even in the middle of coronavirus, spring will come.

Well, spring came; and now it’s only four days until the beginning of summer.  And we are still dealing with the effects of coronavirus and now we are dealing with the open abscess of racism.

But spring comes, summer comes; summer will turn into fall and fall into winter.  God promised, after Noah left the ark, that summer and winter would not cease as long as the earth endured.

Right now is a time of darkness for so many of us.  The night is long and we don’t think morning will come.  Maybe you’re there right now.  I’ve been there and probably will be there again.

Maybe now, if we can’t see, maybe now is the time to use some spiritual echolocation.  Make some noise.  Pray.  Scream if you have to.  Then wait for the sound to bounce back.  Listen.  Listen for what God might be telling you.  Maybe it’s nothing more than, I’ve got this; or, remember what I have done for you before.

Spring does come, even in the middle of a pandemic.  So does summer.  So will fall, so will winter.  Sunrise does follow sunset. Even in areas of Alaska, where there is perpetual twilight during so many months of the year, the morning does come.

Joy does come in the morning.  But while we’re waiting for morning, let’s practice some spiritual echolocation.  Because God is there for the sound waves to bounce off of.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

"Oh, hell no."

"Oh, hell no."

That was the response that one woman put on another woman's Facebook post.

C. is a Christian woman.  She's African-American, a single parent to a wonderful teenage boy.  I know them both.  

Yesterday, she wrote that someone she knew posted the following on Facebook.

"All of this could have been prevented if:

1. George Floyd would have used an actual $20 bill and not to try to pass off a counterfeit bill.

2. Gave the cigarettes back to the store when they asked for it.

I don't agree how the officers handle [sic] the situation.  I believe all of them should and have been held responsible for there [sic] actions.  They all have been arrested and charged.  There has been a lot of lives and business lost over something that could have been prevented."

C. went on to write, "I really wonder if people understand how much this hurts."  Then added:  "I am tired of the justifications ... if if if . . . He was murdered on camera over eight minutes."

J., another woman, who's white, and whom C. and I also know, wrote the following in reply:

"Oh hell no.  Y'all.  It's time to take back the church from this kind of co-opted, tone deaf, insulated Americanism.  No. No more."

Some of you that read that sentence are going to be offended at her use of the term, "Hell no."  After all, she's a follower of Jesus and she shouldn't swear, right?

I'm reminded of a quote attributed to preacher Tony Campolo: 

 "I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a $%*&. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said $%^& than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."

We Christians, especially us white, American Christians, are very touchy when it comes to certain subjects.  We're especially touchy when it comes to sex and swearing.  We don't want to talk about sex because it might encourage kids to do it.  And we especially don't want people to swear around us because it offends us.  Not because it's offensive, but because it offends us.  There's a difference.

I am sick and tired of our white-bread, sugar-coated Christianity that emphasizes a shallow theology composed of "accept Jesus into your heart, and here's five ways to be a better Christian (man, woman, wife, husband fill-in-the-blank)."  Like the audiences Tony Campolo spoke to, we are more offended by swearing, sex, and the lack of prayer in schools than we are about poverty, racism, domestic violence, and the general poor treatment of people of people in our society.  We'd rather have our greed and our appetites filled than have any sort of care and compassion about those whose bank accounts and stomachs are empty. 

We women, especially, are encouraged to buy our pink, lace-covered Bibles with soft, breathy sayings from the current celebrity de jour of Christianity.  We're encouraged to keep a clean house and homeschool our many children and are shamed when we can't/don't.  

I don't plan to make a habit of swearing.  It is offensive and indulging in a steady diet of cuss words is a bit like eating junk food for every meal.  Lay's and Fritos taste good, but after a while, they make your body sick.  We Christians should be better than this. 

But isn't it time to lay aside our sugar coating, our white bread, our lacy pink Bibles, and confront our sin and engage in some serious repentance, on our knees and maybe on our faces?  

I don't know if George Floyd knew that the $20 bill he handed to a cashier was counterfeit or not.  (I probably would not know the difference between a real and counterfeit $20 bill.)  I've heard reports that "he was a criminal who was turning his life around".  I've also read where he had fentanyl in his system at the time of death.  I've read that he was positive for COVID-19.

Even if he had a criminal past, even if he had committed a crime, even if he was resisting arrest, does that give anyone the justification to put their knee on another person's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds while that person is saying "I can't breathe"?

Isn't it time for us to think about how that is just one more piece of evidence that the life of a black man is not worth as much as the life of a white man?

Isn't it time for us to listen to our friends of color who are afraid to go jogging, afraid to wear a mask to the store, afraid that their teenage sons might be stopped by the police on suspicion of fill-in-the-blank and possibly shot even though they obeyed orders? (See Philandro Castile.)

Isn't it time to think about how what we post on social media will affect our Christian brothers and sisters of color?

Isn't it time to stand up and say, "Oh, hell no!"

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Breaking the Third Commandment

Last night the President of the United States broke the Third Commandment.

He walked over to a church, after protesters in front of it had been tear-gassed, held up a Bible, and had his picture taken, after threatening to send out “thousands and thousands of troops” to stop the violence currently taking over America if the governors did not do it themselves.

If you look up a list of the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus in the Old Testament, the Third Commandment reads, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” (King James Version).  The New International Version reads, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”

Last night, in using the Bible and a church for a photo op, the President of the United States took two symbols of Christian America and misused them for his own purposes.  

There are people who have called him “brave” and said “well done”.  

No.  This is not well done.  

Trump used St. John’s Episcopal Church as a backdrop for his photo op.  The Right Reve. Mariann Buddy, who is the bishop of Washington, D.C.’s Episcopal Diocese, said she was “not given even a courtesy call that they would be clearing with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop, holding a Bible, one that declares that God is love and when everything he has said and done is to enslave violence.”

Earlier, Trump told governors on a conference call that they had to “dominate”, and take back the streets, and called them “weak”.

We have a man who died at the hands of police a week ago.  We have another man who died at the hands of two white men three months ago, and it took two months for video of that murder to emerge.    We have a woman who died at the hands of police who “went to the wrong house.” (Oops.). In case you have forgotten, their names are George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.  

I know of two African-Americans — people I am personally acquainted with — who are afraid to go jogging in their neighborhoods, who are afraid to wear masks when they go out.  Another African-American whom I know personally has said, I don’t want to die.  I just want to go home to my wife.

And our President has the chutzpah to go to a church and hold up a Bible, after demanding that governors “take back the streets” and threatening to send out “thousands and thousands of troops”.  

President Trump, do you want a second Civil War?

Do you?

We Christians get very touchy at the use of certain language.  We should.  I find certain words offensive and I don’t like my ears and my brain being assaulted with them.  

But something is terribly wrong when Christians are quick to scream about a particular word which takes the name of the Lord in vain, quick to demand prayer back in schools and the Ten Commandments posted on the walls, quick to demand that abortion be outlawed . . . and yet see nothing wrong when a President of the United States misuses the name of the Lord by using a church and a Bible to make himself look strong, tough, and Presidential.

We, indeed, have lost our compass.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.