I did not grow up in Alabama when police dogs were used in Birmingham or when pressure hoses were turned on black student demonstrators. No, I grew up when these things were mentioned in a joke by Mr. Houseman in Dirty Dancing – a movie we grew up idolizing with hopes that we, too, would one day dance dirty. Black kids sat next to me in school, were just as smart as me, and called me Superior Sampieri to tease me. In my days, I listened to “We are the World,” watched the Cosby show, with a black family as my role model, and waited for the premiere of the music video, “Black or White”.
I was a girl who rarely, but occasionally, tested the boundaries and limits of thought in my home. I had within myself a value system slightly different from my parents. For example, I felt no qualms with blacks and whites intermarrying, while my parents would say that interracial marriages were against the bible.
I thought that my generation was advancing, was growing out of the racism and segregation of the past – signs, I suppose, of my general naiveté. It was not the advancement of future generations that would save us.
Racism is still rampant. When I watch police brutality videos, I am shocked by two things:
- the behavior of the police officers to other human beings
- the words spoken by both parties
Self sufficiency is our staple. We need nothing else. We will be brutal and unkind when we are scared. We will disrespect authority with defiance when we are treated unjustly. We look at each person and only see the color and associate it with the sin. We’ve stopped seeing people, and we’ve stopped seeing people because we are consumed with ourselves without seeing ourselves. Racism may be a disease, but lately, it is a symptom of a bigger problem – the disease of self.
We were given two eyes to see. We’ve forgotten that our eyes are mirrors to humanity and to ourselves.
Where is Jesus? Where is the light? Where is amazing grace?
Grace shines the light on self and illuminates me, and I cannot hide. No longer is it just you that is unkind, selfish, defiant, disrespectful, and racist. Now, I see that I am unkind. I am selfish. I am defiant. I am disrespectful. I am racist. When we never use our eyes as a mirror to self, racism begins. I am never any better than the man in front of me.
Grace has never left me exposed in the light. Grace illuminates my own evil, and then it wraps me in the light and covers me. In the covering, death always occurs – mine and His. It says to me that I am loved even though I am not worthy of being loved. I don’t have to fight for myself, because grace has already fought for me, and Jesus won. Grace says I can give up the rights to myself and let it lead. If it covers me, will I cover you?
Often, we can cover up our own mistakes. We’ve not understood our own need for a Savior, and this is why brutality and disrespect grows across a nation.
Through the blessed gift of eyes we’ve been given a gift. We can see! Through this mirror, we see not only ourselves, we see Jesus. We see how much we need Him. We learn to allow Him to fill our empty, dark places.
Our eyes not only mirror our self-destruction, but show us how to feel and then, how to love. Unless we feel the sting of words thrown loosely around, the jarring ache of being tossed to the ground like a rag doll, or our inability to catch our breath as the knee presses into our back, we will not know how to overflow the Love we’ve allowed to fill us. We must not turn our eyes away in disgust or hate, we must watch with eyes of Love.
Our eyes, a mirror to show us our depravity that we may see Jesus.
Our eyes, a mirror to show us our wounds that we may give Jesus.
Our hands and mouths, the way we will live like Jesus.
A love that wraps us in grace and covers us is kind and compassionate to one another. A love like that values life – all men and women, and races of every kind. A love like that says you go first, and I will serve you. A love like that says I will respect you. A love like that turns the other cheek. And a love like that knows that words must be spoken with great care. A love like that casts out all fear. Can we imagine this?
Once we’ve tasted this blessed grace, me must shine it to illuminate the dark, dark places. Jesus is the hope for the world we all want to live in – a world that looks a lot like home, where racism ends and we actually see one another. Jesus is the advance in our humanity, the end of brutality, and the hope of every nation.
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