Race

But when the time came for her to leave the community, she didn’t want to leave. Not only did she not want to deliver alone far from her community, but she also had 5 young children that she didn’t want to leave behind. I remember the daily stress of worrying that she would deliver the babies before leaving the community.

Dear Church,

I write to you to admit that I am a recovering racist, working to overcome the lies ingrained in me by white supremacy and a racialized society. I share this to be transparent with you, to own up to and change the ways I’ve bought into the illusion of race and white supremacy, and to challenge you to do the same.

I’m an artist and I love painting narrative-laden surreal landscapes.

The image of the sperm whale is a recurring motif in my artwork. Its mysterious qualities and daily practices fascinate me. Its survival is dependant on holding its breath and diving very deep, almost three thousand feet below the ocean's surface, to wrestle the giant squid: its sustenance.

It’s been quite the year! Thanks for reading and learning along with us, as we wrestled with faith and justice with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other (Karl Barth).

Here are the top Do Justice articles (ranked by top pageviews) that got you thinking and acting in 2018: 

“This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and goodwill toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don’t have goodwill toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power….

“Difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas; as in escaping old ones.” – John Maynard Keynes

There are many things in life as a person of color and faith that present great challenges. I vividly remember going to do some temporary work for a very prestigious company in downtown Chicago. Not long after starting there I was hired for a permanent position, with promises of promotion and other wonderful things that the higher-ups offer new talent. I was eager to gain new employment and willing to do what I must to aid my 3-person team.

I currently live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the traditional home of the Anishinabe people for thousands of years. I am the daughter of colonizers and settlers, a white, American-born woman on this land. I’m not a first generation settler, but I’m a settler all the same.

We noticed her standing just inside the front entrance looking up. While she was waiting to load her bus with the summer camp kids, she had stepped into the church foyer and saw the land acknowledgement: The Community Christian Reformed Church of Meadowvale is located on the Treaty Lands and Traditional Territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

“It has been 1,606 days since Flint has had clean water,” declared Flint Rising director Nayyirah Shiriff after introducing herself to me and a group of about 30 other “Healing Waters” retreat participants in the last days of summer 2018 at the Colombiere retreat center in Clarkston, Michigan. Nayyirah’s statement brought a silent wave of grief over the room.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

                    -Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the doctor who brought attention to the impact that Flint’s water was having on children, opens her book with these lines from Dr. Seuss.