My daughter drew this a while ago, but it’s by far my favorite drawing. I like that she depicts herself as flying. Really captures her personality. Peyton told me the girl standing on the ground is mommy, and that she’s wearing purple because that’s mommy’s favorite color.
Every morning when I see this picture on the fridge as I leave for work, it reminds me to try to look for beauty in everything. I hope she & Brandon never lose that sense of wonder; I hope it only deepens in me.
Brandon at birth.
Today, on the Time website, Christopher J. Ferguson published an article titled “What You Need to Know About the New Census Numbers on Hispanic Births.” Here are some of my initial thoughts.
First, I find this development to be an extremely beautiful one. It is wonderful to see America becoming more diverse. This article, however, is terribly troubling and telling.
First, it’s titled “What You Need to Know About the New Census Numbers on Hispanic Births.” Who exactly is he referring to when he says you? I have my hunch.
Then the subtitle reads, “The data has gotten attention because of fears that it threatens our national identity, but it signals a blending of culture more than anything else.” I can tell you that for Hispanic and other minority US CITIZENS, this does not feel like a threat. But besides that, it is not a threat but an evolution of our national identity. And finally, why does this author feel the need at all to assuage any of these supposed fears? Why does he feel this need to calm people down by calling it a “blending” rather than a threat? This subtitle and article marginalizes a massive segment of the US population, and it shows a gross ignorance that is inexcusable for a psychology and criminology professor at Texas A&M International University.
Finally, this article makes me wonder, why do some in the majority population feel so threatened by this development? Could it be they finally realize that the country is in fact still profoundly racist and that reality has concrete implications for minorities?
What is most ironic is that the author who penned this article is probably oblivious to how his words come across to minorities. At least to me, that’s the only thing that explains how this article even saw the light of day.
NOTE: I am not saying this author is being deliberately racist; but, his language does betray a racial ignorance that is symptomatic of a country that is racist from its individuals all the way through its structures and rhetoric.
Posted in Racism
Our human sympathies are just as subject to the manipulation of Satan and people as any of our other faculties. That such sympathies can almost never be seen in an ill light makes them incredibly dangerous. A lack of discernment regarding judgments where they play a significant role can lead to catastrophic results. I have also seen sympathy used as a rhetorical guise to cover over the most selfish, sinister, misguided, & ill-conceived causes. Consider Jesus’s words when he rebukes Peter. “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Peter’s desire for a kingdom and leader that fit his paradigm was set on derailing Jesus’s redemptive plan for humanity. This core motive glistened with a sheen of human sympathy (i.e. his desire to protect Jesus from harm) that it almost passes as heroism. In reality, it was a well disguised torpedo from Satan.
To summarize, as one Christian author once wrote, “Never let your human sympathies cloud your vision of God.” Love radically, but never love without wisdom. I believe this is important advice as Christians navigate the current political landscape.
Posted in Uncategorized
I’m currently reading through some books in preparation for Sunday’s sermon. At the moment, I’m working through The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah. In it I came across these three accounts of racism in the context of American evangelicalism. That so many evangelicals consider racism a personal rather than a systemic, structural problem shows a massive failure in understanding and contextualization.
Account 1
“The following story from an Asian American blogger reveals the harmful aspects of the creation of ‘the other’:
I am sitting in a service at my home church in Missouri. During an announcement for a new outreach to international students, a non-Aisan woman dressed in a kimono (traditional Japanese dress) stepped up to the mike. She was an elder’s wife. She feigned an accent, in which she spoke in halting English. The congregation roared with laughter. There were two Asians in the church that day. One was me. The other was my unchurched friend. He turned to me and said, “This is bullish__.” He got up, turned around (we were sitting in the front row) and walked past the crowd of 800 laughing and guffawing faces.
Posted in Christianity, Ministry, Pastoral, Racism, Theology
Sociologist R. Stephen Warner: “What many people have not heard…and need to hear is that the great majority of the newcomers are Christians…This means that the new immigrants represent not the de-Christianization of American society but the de-Europeanization of American Christianity.”
I am looking forward to the day more theologies from regions around the globe—and locally—are not plowed over or bullied out by entrenched theological positions. I do value Western theology, but to think it’s exhausted theological enquiry is silly and dangerous. In fact, a proper understanding of the inexhaustible nature of God should help any Christian realize that theological development will probably never reach its end in time or by humans.
I am most looking forward to seeing American evangelicalism receiving a dose of much needed humility. Taking a global view, the myopic nature of the rhetoric on Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, Ministry, Racism, Theology
This is the second entry in my hospital chaplain series. In it, I’m revisiting some of the experiences I had while fulfilling my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) unit at Overlook Hospital (Summit, NJ). To orient yourself as to the purpose, the context and tone of the series, it’ll be helpful to read the first entry “A Story about Holding Hands.” The following entry is a truncated account, and only touches on some of the events and the surrounding issues. I hope, though, that this short piece draws out some of the reader’s own struggles and that it helps point the reader toward some possible ways of processing them and finding hope.
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I could never get used to visiting the Intensive Care Unit. The lighting in the area was dimmer than in the rest of the hospital, everyone spoke in hushed tones, and there was heaviness about the room that was so palpable it felt like I was wading through a thick emotional humidity when doing my rounds in the unit. I didn’t necessarily dread visiting the ICU; I just had to prepare myself for it. In fact, in a way, I looked forward to doing my rounds there. The unit offered an experiential landscape that I’d never previously explored—one that was not replicated anywhere else in the hospital or in my life.
Posted in Life and Death
“No matter how much you change, you still got to pay the price for the things you’ve done.” -Town, 2010
Saw the movie Town today. One of the better Ben Affleck movies. His character says these words at the end in a parting letter to his lover. Initially, they struck me as profound. Something about them sent a gentle wave of nostalgia through me. It could have been the closing, dramatic music and Affleck’s reflective voiceover, but, for some reason, the words seemed like they were true to the experience of life. Encapsulated in them is a sense of opportunity and hope mixed with resignation, regret and tragedy—the perfect ending to a Hollywood film. Unfortunately, while these words may sound wise and contain the tried and true formula for pulling at a moviegoer’s heartstrings, I believe they are trite and Continue reading
