How Reconciliation Can Begin To Reestablish Trust
The first thought I had this past week was; how did we get back to this! Where do I begin? I guess I can say that I am not surprised. What is; swept under the rug eventually creates a mountain out of a molehill. The time comes that you will trip over it and have to face the fact that it must be dealt with. There is no denying it. For the last 6 decades, we have witnessed that molehill ignored it, as we tripped over it we hid behind the ideals of imaginary greatness. We sauntered off to our beds at night and saw it as; business/life as usual. However, what festers does leave an open wound and it spreads and causes more damage than if it were dealt with and taken care of to prevent it from causing damage to other members and the entire body, causing more pain or worse demise. We stood by and did nothing.
Today is a new day made up of fragments of the past. Make no mistake about it the country has grown and dreams of those who became martyrs have been realized but there is much work that needs to be done. There is a bloodline of hatred that has carried over into the new millennia and it is evident. As I sat back and watched the country get torn to shreds over the last three years, twelve if you include the hate spewed with right-winger agenda towards our prior sitting president. it is truly baffling how many can persist to believe that they mean well. Our country is made up of denial masked in prosperity, hope, dripping with anger that is fueled by beliefs that differ from the true rules of Christ, that is masked by identities and doctrines that are false.
I am reminded as to what got us to November 11, 2016, and we are at a standoff; the past and the present, along with the future will either suffer or die with these differences. Dreams will become hopeless memories and ideas will cease to exist because everyone will have to fight, the unnecessary battle. They will have to use their energy to protect themselves and the people they love. The country is going through civil unrest. It is no longer black and white it is finally a battle of what is wrong and what is right. It is not a race conflict it is a moral conflict that will ensue. I make no mistake about it, what the elements are, however. It is made up of race, religion, culture, class, sex, and sexuality. The devil has finally created his anarchy. The country is on a polarizing divide, with some not even aware due to their lack of understanding and just their willingness to forgo exercising their right to vote or break from the comfort their privilege as granted them. I must admit I am empathetic to the latter.
As a Christian, I am hoping that love will prevail in the end. That it will have the profound effect that is promised from the father. I must believe this; I do believe this. However, I am also a strong believer in the end times based on the final Revelation. I don’t know when that may be. However, it begs the question. Is this the end or just the first stage of failure? My country has never had a year without a stain, it has always been a beacon of what oppression looks like. We just did an excellent job of pretending it does not exist. I tell you this much. I am as much in the dark as you are as to the direction the future of our country will take. I am afraid that we will get lost in the battles and the arguments. We will lose sight of love. The citizens of the United States need an intervention from itself. However, if God were to intervene now, it would not be an intervention it would be the end. The end of everything as promised by the second coming.
Let’s take ownership of our actions and give history a break from telling the same story of pain and broken constitutional promises. Let’s begin to think about our actions. What does it profit you to worry about racial differences and economic differences to the point we begin to cause harm to others? Nothing but your soul. Because we must work on ourselves. If you spread hate and call yourself a Christian (A follower of Christ), it is an oxymoron. Love of Christ and hatred do not fit together.
Jesus came and fulfilled the law. The law of the ten commandments, which includes loving thy neighbor. The fulfillment of the law is based on love, not hatred. Sacrifice not selfishness. Compassion is a byproduct of love. There is no asterisk that points to an alternate approach. The love is built into the ten Commandments and Christ made it clear he is the fulfillment of the law of Moses. When he asked us to pick up his cross and carry it, it was not to place it on the lawn of a black family and light it on fire to terrorize them. It was not to hold up a bible as a prop.
“And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations), he cannot even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize the duty of what is called allegiance.”
Let’s take a walk to where Christians live with the belief that they are somehow better than others. It is within the confines of religion. Not from God himself but from the mouth of the leadership of a church that dwelled within it a privilege. Wreckless thinking and justification of crimes committed. It is up to us to stop it and change the way that the word of God has been used to corrupt the minds of the young and the old alike. I wish not to digress into this before I give you a baseline to understand the point of view. However, if you give it thorough thought you will find the church that sings peace on earth and confess that Christ is love is the same church who believes in war and racial supremacy. War and racism are not Christ-like. As Leo Tolstoy has stated in the kingdom of God is within you; “And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations), he cannot even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize the duty of what is called allegiance.”
15Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? 17Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’
How is it that the Christian population does not fight for a better more united country? Is it because we are outnumbered within our own ranks? When Christ said: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven”. He is speaking of those who say they are, but they are not who they proclaim to be. This verse lies in Christ asking us to observe the fruit the tree produces. To be clear he is letting us know in advance that many will say they know him and follow him but produce a result that is not of him.
This is our country, for a nation is made up of its people. If it does not make amends for its crimes, the fruit that it brings forth is not good. We are the people and this country reflects us. However, we have been lied to — to hate and fear one another on the bases of the color of one's skin. How can you fear the captive and oppressed? By lying to the masses to have them carry out the agenda of the supremacy lie. A lie that has handicapped whites and has tortured and killed black and other minorities with impunity.
This brings me back to recent events. The White Evangelical vote. It is a farce. I am a Christian and I can see it for what it is. It is smoke and mirrors. As Christian, it is our duty to follow the law of God. We can’t decide what people will do; God has already made that clear by the gift of free will. If one wants to be a murderer then that is what they will be, whether it is an unborn fetus or a grown person. It is all semantics and I am beyond tired of it. Where is the White church when an African American male is murdered? Nowhere. Where is the same church when a white male, woman, or child is harmed? Everywhere. The bigotry is in the response. The fruit has already dropped from the white evangelical tree and it is rotten to the core. This group uses Christ to support their methods and pre-Christian beliefs that are foreign to Christ’s words.
What we do next is imperative and the world is watching our country eating itself. It is an indigestible dinner that will cause inflammation at the core for generations to come. Unless we can reconcile and root out the problem and call it what it is for the last time. To place policies in place that will protect the unprotected and abused. To show the African man, woman, and child, they too can breathe and to flourish in the American dream without risk of falling into the crosshairs of racism. Reconcile by acknowledging and understanding that racism that lived in the shadows hidden in plain sight has caused just as much damage as when there were supported policy for that line of thinking. It is just masked in euphemisms and carried out by those with titles and badges.
These ideologies of hatred have flourished without impunity. This thinking is deadly if you are black going out for a jog, it's insultingly painful in the workplace, threatening while shopping, deadly when sitting one your own couch in your own home, and downright uncomfortable in situations in which there should be no discomfort. Trust is the only currency and that trust has been lost and it is time to replenish the bank of trust. The only way to do this is through proper education in the schools, re-written textbooks, and the true story of all Americas in habitats are told with accuracy and unadulterated. The vague storytelling allows for racism to flourish by continuing the lie to the next generation. We are living proof that the lie has gone on for too long. If a child is programmed to believe these half-truths it is no surprise as to why you see such a support for the resurgence of racism on such a massive scale within American society. Trust can only come through reconciliation and admittance of past crimes. Against a people that only asked for you to see their human soul.
Don't shoot. I can't breathe. Don’t hang me. Don't discriminate against me. Let me live in peace. Don’t lie on me. Don’t. Stop. It hurts!
In Christ I trust!
