Race

"What might it look like to replace your well water with God’s living water? If you’re ready, dump out your well water. Let it go. Close your eyes and hold your empty cup in front of you. Say this simple prayer: “Fill me.” - Lisa Sharon Harper

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever. - Psalm 52:8

My mother called me out of the blue a few weeks ago. She wondered how I was doing since I have a tendency of not calling her frequently. I thought it would be a conversation about weather in Michigan or what she was cooking for herself that night or an update on relatives I’ve never met.  Instead she disclosed things I never heard about her childhood. Maybe she was thinking back over her life since she had her 82nd birthday.

In the first post of this tale, I used a metaphor from Pastor Norton Lages to describe systemic racism: “Canadian culture treats other cultures like an abusive husband who sends his wife to counselling expecting her to change.” 

There is a topic central to the work of racial equity which has caused people to either turn toward the work of equity or to turn away from the work of equity.  That topic is white privilege.  Upon hearing the premise of white privilege many people respond with a “eureka” moment of understanding while many others turn their faces away in offense.  If we are to make progress in the work of racial equity, learning what white privilege is and how to effectively communicate it will be helpful.

"[God] never mocks your weaknesses or throws your sin in your face. He never gets tired of you or gives up on his relationship with you. He doesn’t ask you to earn what you can never deserve, and he never makes you feel guilty for needing his good gifts. His love isn’t conditional and his grace is never temporary.” ― Paul David Tripp

Well, it's not often we can say this, but Canadian politics got very interesting over the course of the last weeks. First, a dramatic resignation of Bill Morneau as Finance Minister, then a proroguing (suspension followed by a Throne Speech) of Parliament, and to spice things up even further Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition – currently the Conservative Party of Canada – elected a new leader, the Hon. Erin O’Toole. All of this is happening with the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic which is posing incredible public health and public policy challenges.

At a church planting conference, I heard this metaphor which really described my own experience with systemic racism. Pastor Norton Lages argued “Canadian culture treats other cultures like an abusive husband who sends his wife to counselling expecting her to change.” If you have even been part of such a situation, you know how messy and hopeless it can be. 

It is the first week of August, and the high summer heat of treaty 6 territory in northern Alberta is beaming through my window.  I am thinking about the fall.  I work with university students, and I am wondering how my students and I can think together about all that has happened since we’ve last been together, in March: a global pandemic that has thrown everyone’s lives – and particularly the lives of those on the margins – off-kilter, an inspiring movement for racial justice that prompted many difficult and potentially transformative conversations, record-breaking temperatures