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It sucks that I share my birthday with such a horrific act of murder as happened five years ago in Charleston. It sucks even more that we live in a world where such violence occurs at all. 1/
The perpetrator of that horrendous act—a white man who killed nine folks in a church simply because they were black—was politely arrested off US 74 in Shelby, NC, just west of Charlotte. The FBI agents bought him lunch at Burger King. 2/
Surely the brutal irony won’t be lost on anyone in June of 2020 (in case it was lost before now).
If you’ve a mind to commemorate my birthday, please do so by watching this 45 minute video: 3/
If you’ve a mind to commemorate my birthday, please do so by watching this 45 minute video: 3/
In lieu of a typical service this past Sunday, the (almost entirely white) congregation I serve instead entered into a hard but necessary dialogue about the nature of racism and justice in this country. 4/
It’s honest and messy and bears the unmistakable marks of a wound exposed for the cleaning. 5/
I’m thankful to be serving a congregation in which, rather than a) completely ignoring our shared sin of racism, or b) engaging in performance action while ignoring our culpability, we’re engaged in a process of honest introspection and communal repentance. 6/
By this process, we know we’re part of the problem and are trying to understand how to faithfully respond to it and enact change within our selves and our community. 7/
This process necessarily includes listening, hearing, lamenting, seeking, asking honest questions of ourselves and others, and all of it leading toward concrete action. The conversation in this video is one step in such a process. 8/
There will be others, but I encourage you to watch this one.
Grace and Peace (and thank you for the birthday wishes!). Fin/
Grace and Peace (and thank you for the birthday wishes!). Fin/
