Skip to main content

Why I speak out...

Some friends/people have been telling me to chill because I am fine and don't have to worry. I am fine, thank you. I have a roof over my head, food on the table, family and friends who truly care for me (thank you for my late birthday party today).
I have not been unchill because I am worried for myself (honestly, I do have some worries with my fibromyalgia), but I know that over 100,000 people have died because of COVID 19 and their families are not alright. And that unless we act responsibility and with care, we will have another 100,000 dead before the end of the year. It seems consensus is coming around that wearing masks can be a great tool in stopping the spread of the virus and saving lives and families from suffering the loss of a loved one.
I have been unchill because POC (People of Color) are still not seen as equal in the eyes of our justice system and in many areas of our society and our church. We have another death that shouldn't have been this weekend in Atlanta. His name is Rayshard Brooks.
I could just chill and not worry about my neighbors, the elderly, those who skin tones and languages are different than myself, and those I will never meet. But then I would also have to send a letter to my Committee on Ministry and resign my ordination and send a letter to my local church and resign my membership. For in my confirmation, I was asked, "Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be Christ's disciple, to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able?" I replied, "I promise, with the help of God." In my ordination, I was asked, "Will you seek to regard all people with equal love and concern and undertake to minister impartially to the needs of all?" I replied, "I will, relying on God's grace." I have not done these all the time, whole-heartedly, and without falter, but I have tried and try again and continue to work on this. Jesus tells the disciples in the Gospel of John that people will know that we follow him by how we love, if we love everyone like Jesus loves. So, to me, being a Christian and a minister of the United Church of Christ, means that I am to speak out about things that may not affect me, but may hurt those I love and those whom I will never know.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nothing Outside Contaminates

 First we start with the human traditions, not all of humanity, but Western civilization under the Doctrine of Discovery that basically states that any European explorer (especially from countries that were still Roman Catholic) coming upon any land and people that weren't Christian were able to claim the land and people in the name of their king and country. This created human traditions of enslavement and taking what isn't theirs which is still happening today in Sudan with diamonds, the Congo with lithium, and Palestine with natural gas. We continue to the 1980's were the wealthy were given massive tax cuts and the unions were routinely broken up and laws were put in place to make it very hard to create one in the 'Right to Work' states. Our human traditions have created once again a wealthy class that if they lost 90% of their wealth, they would still be the most wealthy people in the world.  It probably started with philosopher Francis Bacon who helped begin th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Selling Out

 Last Fall, I read a book called, "A History of Burning." It is a multi-generational story about a family that migrates from India to Uganda for hopes for a better future to help the British build a railroad, whose children through education secures a government job, but then Uganda throws off their colonial oppressors and gains independence and turns against the Indians who live there, and they have to migrate again and start all over in Toronto, Canada. It is a sad story of colonial power of the British Empire bringing in foreign cheap labor to build their infrastructure that leaves out the local population. And once Uganda gets independence, the corporations still control much of the economy and fosters division between the Ugandans and Indian to keep the country unstable. It is a triumphant story of human determination in the face of adversity, but only a few make it.  One of the first paragraphs in a Wikipedia search about Africa told me that Africa is politically unstab...
Post a Comment
Read more

You Will Be My Witnesses

 The first time I served communion as a licensed minister in Fargo, ND, I picked up the tray of cups and proclaimed, "This is the cup of the new covenant!" And then I remembered we serve the bread first, panicked, and said, "Which comes after the bread!" The next time, months later, I served communion, I took the cover off the communion cups, and the altar table was stone, and I timed it perfectly, and purely accidentally, so the cover spun on the table, and you would hear it go, "whew, whew, whew" faster and faster. Sitting near the front was a couple that worked closely with me in the youth groups, each time when I began and messed up, they were bent over, hands covering their faces, taking great humor in my mistakes.  In my first church in Walker, MN I messed up just about every baptism, including one time putting the head right on my lavaliere mike and the baby started crying into mike, and I almost dropped the baby when switching it around in my arms....
Post a Comment
Read more