Allume recap, on reconciliation

I am finally getting to my Allume recap, on reconciliation. I had the fortunate pleasure and ability to leave for this blog conference trip, one Wednesday afternoon, after school was out. The conference would start 24 hours after I left my home, but it would give me time to just be quiet in preparation to hear God speak.

When I got to Atlanta, I began flipping radio stations. I found NPR, and they were in the middle of a pledge drive. I heard Terry Gross’s show, Fresh Air, for the first time. It was a replay of an interview she’d done with David Oyelowo. I stopped there, as I was fascinated. I would like to say that sometime in the past two or so years that I have been going to Allume, I’ve become an anthropologist, but I’ve been one for much longer, I just didn’t realize it. It is very much a Walter Mitty style of studying humanity. I stare at humanity of which sometimes I am the subject, and I make observations into what I see.

Anyhow, David Oyelowo is a black actor, and in his interview, he was talking about reverse racial discrimination when he moved back to England.  Being a man with a royal Nigerian heritage born in England, his family returned to the mother land of Africa for a time, and he is a teenager when he comes back to England. The black kids in his class begin calling him a “coconut” – black on the outside, but white on the inside. I found it utterly fascinating how as a man from a royal lineage he did not feel the weight of slavery and oppression as a younger boy, but then had to navigate racism from within his own race as he got older. He talked as if his heritage was a gift of identity. Listening to that part of the interview is what hooked me, because he began speaking like a Christian. All heavenly citizens can choose to identify as a slave which is what we’ve come from, or we can choose to identify ourselves as royals.

You can listen here:

I soaked it in and thought about my writing and how I had not been writing much about these things as much.

Then, the next day, Allume started, and it was on the theme of “togetherness,” and surprisingly, the opening key-note by Logan Wolfram, she said, “You cannot change the world until you change your world first,” and she began to talk about racial reconciliation again. For me, I knew that God could take me on a journey and give me my own specific theme for the weekend. But I knew immediately as Logan spoke, God had given me a direct and specific theme for the weekend that I must take home and decide what to do with it, which had started the night before and continued in numerous ways throughout the weekend, and it seemed very much to include this idea of reconciliation.

Logan said, “You cannot change the world until you change your world first.” Mostly this means for me to steward my family well. We’ve been in a hard place as a family this year. Some days, I wondered how and if it would stay held together, oh, but Jesus.

But from Austin Channing Brown, I learned that in the brokenness are gifts that spur you onto actions to change the world into a better, more Jesus like place.

I learned from Brian Dixon that I need to write to just one person, and as I have listened to God, He is showing me who he or she may be.

From Diedra Riggs, I learned that racial reconciliation is a process that begins with me. Reconcile yourself to yourself first, then reconcile to God, then you will know you are loved, and you can love yourself. Celebrate the way God designed you, and be comfortable in your skin, saggy or taunt, and when you enter the world, everyone will see you as a wonder. This is being an ambassador of Christ.

From Amber Haines, I learned that desires are windows that point to Heaven.

From Timothy Willard, I learned that you cannot learn how to write beautifully. This is the wrong question. To write about beauty, you must experience it and see it, and then study it, bathe in it. As you do so, your writing will become like the thing you’ve seen.

From Amber the second time, I learned that the first step in writing broken beauty is to seek to become whole, not divided within, because you certainly cannot be honest. Once, you’ve done your business with God, you ground yourself and describe the physical world, and then let the physical intersect the spiritual.

From Sara Hagerty, I was reminded that families sometimes don’t get along – that even just in a family, as one unit, we are different personalities. Jesus enjoys our ticks and quirks, and we have to settle into learning to love the differences as well as the sameness within our families and church bodies.

From Crystal Evans Hunt, I learned that sometimes we need divine interruptions to introduce us to the Savior. Sometimes the journeys are not just about us and our interaction, but it becomes about bringing people with us.

Rachel Macy Stafford taught me to be the party by 1) starting with only 10 minutes of distraction free time with Jesus, 2) giving myself permission to be and not do, and 3) by taking the pressure off by only loving today.

Esther Burroughs closed it out and brought us by teaching that there is only one change agent – the Holy Spirit, and He will always point to Jesus, not to me, or my blog, or any book I will write. (phew! what a relief!)

Last year, (2014) I left Allume with grandiose ideas to move my blog (which I did), write consistently to a particular audience, and to grow, but moving the blog was harder work than I realized, and I let the momentum die. I am sorry about that.

This year I find myself pondering similar questions, and I feel like the Lord is leading me graciously. I sense Him asking me to serve the weak, the weary, to serve the wounded orphan, to write about church life, to get gritty in working toward diversity, to be still and see the beauty of Jesus around me and share it. I hope to serve you as I listen to Jesus. Because I cannot do this alone, I’ve long to hear why you, yes you, the friend that always reads no matter what. How am I serving you? Are you interested in having a group on fb just for readers, so we can serve one another? If so, email me or leave me a comment.