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This post arises from my daily life, where I find God’s lessons popping up in surprising places. This one was on a Sunday morning LYFT ride to Church.
OOPS! JUST KEEPING IT HONEST
Being a child of the sixties, a Viet Nam War protester, and one who marched with Martin Luther King when he came to Boston while I was still in high school, civil rights simply made sense to me. I couldn’t imagine why we wouldn’t want all of our people to feel safe in our country.
But, like most white liberals, that did not mean I had many friends who were minorities. In my first twelve years of public school in Worcester and Oxford, Massachusetts, the only minorities were the Jewish kids who daily endured the sanctioned micro-aggression of recitation of the Christian Lord’s Prayer. And in my college years, in West Virginia, there were a total of three African American students on a campus of three thousand.
I happily lived my quite privileged, lily-white, sheltered, liberal lifestyle. I just wanted those I mostly didn’t know to be treated fairly.
More recently, in my seventies, at every opportunity, I have fought the rising tide of white supremacy that floods our country. I especially find the so-called ‘Christian’ version of that tsunami particularly repugnant.
And finally, I am now spending more time with minority people, primarily in two places: church and on LYFT rides. And while my life remains mostly lily-white, this is at least a small sliver of progress for this aging baby boomer. Drivers on LYFT are mostly minorities, African Americans, Latinas, and Asians. Since I no longer drive, I make use of their services three or four times a week and often marvel at the efficiency of their computer-driven systems. On these rides, Hispanic music is often playing, so I have heard more of that than at any other time in my life. And I work hard to communicate with drivers who even have their GPS speaking in Spanish. I now can almost say “turn left” in Spanish! But drivers are better at understanding English than my feeble attempts at Spanish. I feel quite happy with all of this, especially since the drivers are all working so hard and not content to remain economically impoverished. Like a good ‘ride share liberal’ (no longer to be shamed as a ‘limousine liberal’), I wished them more power and success. If things go well, perhaps they will one day own the company.
Then, one Sunday morning, lightning struck as I awaited my weekly ride to church.
For security reasons LYFT always informs riders of their driver’s first name, license plate number, and make of vehicle, with a small picture included. My driver that day was to be Steven (not his real name). My immediate thought was, “Good. At least he is white.” Shock reverberated through my activist soul. Explosions and bolts of electricity erupted in my consciousness. “Where did that come from? How could I, a lifetime battler against racism in all its forms, think such a blasphemous thought?” I guess it is easier to take the liberal out of the white ghetto than to take the racism out of the liberal.
Mostly, I am quite impervious to guilt, but on this day, guilt swarmed over me. As I have aged and become physically less able and cognitively a bit slower, many former commitments and activities have had to fade. “Please, oh please, not this one too.” It didn’t take very long for me to comfort myself with the thought, “I just want to communicate easily with my driver.”
We, liberals, are really quite good at excuses. They are one of our secret superpowers. The thought is, of course, forgivable, though I was glad I caught it.
My driver arrived, and after he pulled into my driveway, I climbed into his quite comfortable and roomy SUV. Steven immediately announced that he had recently immigrated from Eastern Europe and spoke little English!!!!!!!
The ironies of life are such outstanding teachers, giving so many lessons about my own incompleteness. Not much communication today, but lots of lessons.
We traveled the fifteen-minute trip in silence, other than an occasional squawk from the GPS in English. The radio was even silent. It gave me a chance to breathe into this instant lesson and see myself a little more clearly.
I arrived at my destination, First Baptist Church, sufficiently humbled and grateful for this unexpected experience. I went inside on time for my usual half hour to meditate. Sat in a pew where I meditated during that extra time. The choir was rehearsing a rousing, hand-clapping version of a song whose words were along the lines of “Draw the circle wider, and when you do, draw it wider still.” Perfect; As good a summary of Christian ethics as I have ever heard. That morning, I got to draw the circle wider, including all of us, drivers from wherever, in whatever language, passengers, choir members, congregation, and myself.
I am so grateful that God isn’t done with me yet as she draws circles ever wider, surrounding me with her infinite wisdom, love, and ever-deeper connection to myself as I learn to draw ever wider circles.
Resources:
1. Galatians 3:28
2. Google “Draw the Circle Wider” or www.commoncups.org. And YouTube has several videos of choirs singing this song. (And I confess, I think our choir’s rendition is the best.)
Thank you, Graham for your “OOPS”, but before I comment I would like to make a couple of other comments:
1. Thank you so much for your leadership of starting and writing this blog series. I think it is so important to hear from our own congregation—- not academic or overly religious, but personal and relational. What do we actually think and feel towards our church, our Christianily, our community and our world.
2. I wish that we would have comments to create discussions. We don’t have real opportunities for such discussions anywhere, including the church. I think that these essays give us the opportunity to really think about our world and our place inthe world. and thank you for the hard copies you have placed in the Narthex for all to take.
As for my comments in “OOPS” I think you have really opened an issue that is so much more common in at least my life. Yes, I want to be open to all —to all races, genders, sexes, economic groups, etc —– until I am not. I can stand up and pound my breast in being good —- until I am not. AS with you, we did not have black or brown students in my high school—– but those Native Americans (of course they were “Indians” to us). We could not play sports to participate in debate with them. They were just drunk and lazy. Most recently I was waiting on the sidewalk for my wife to pick me up. three white kids with pants down to their knees walked by dribbling a basketball—- no problem. Shortly afterward two black kids walked by also dribbling a basketball. i stepped back, held my computer closer to my side and felt a bit of anxiety. To me my old fashion religious sense is thats this is a “sin”. I know we don’t use this word any more. “it is just a bit of a social problem” No I think it is a sin and I think we should not be afraid to use this word, understand it meaning, and work with correcting these problems in our society. thanks so much for your writing and invitation to respond.