I Want to Live It!

I overestimated myself. I have had experience after experience of being “the fly I the buttermilk,” the only black person all white communities. I have taught people how to acknowledge that as Americans we live in a racialized society. I have led seminar after seminar helping people deal with the baggage of race in the classroom and in the office. Still, I was not prepared for the things God would show me in the first five weeks of living in Jackson, Mississippi. What God has shown me is that the same issues of race, class and denominational superiority I have criticized countless others about, hold my worldview hostage as well.

In the first few weeks of my placement, I found myself angry, judgmental, and hesitant to engage those who did not share my experience or opinions. Even when I did, I secretly harbored assumptions, indictments, and feelings of superiority within. “Methodists don’t worship authentically… White people pretend they want to help, but all the while they relish the power they have over those who are black and poor… I know I should go over and talk to them, but what do I have in common with someone who can’t read and smells so bad..?” Somehow I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and nowhere felt quite like home. The black people didn’t share my educational background, the Christians didn’t share my worship style, and the women were all white and cared more about feminism than racism. I was used to experiencing these kinds of situations. But at the end of the day I was always allowed to return home. I always had a place and time of rest where the people looked like me and talked like me, and thought like me. I have yet to find a place like that in Jackson.

For these reasons and so many more I have existed as the outsider, the foreigner in the Jackson Community, giving me a new understanding of the need to belong and to call someplace home. In an effort to create a sense of home/safety, I have found myself reaching out to people for reasons other than the typical, visible, surface reasons. Cristina my sister and fellow sojourner in this mission has become like a sister to me - A real place where I can share my frustrations, joys, and struggles. Our relationship came to be very organically, the fact that she is White, and Methodist has never been an issue. Our journey and our theological training have made us kin.

Surprisingly, those I felt most uncomfortable reaching out to in the beginning - the people who frequent the food pantry - have become my biggest supporters. One day I asked God what I should do to reach out to them, and the answer I received was, “ Pray with them.” I obeyed and my life and worldview will never be the same. There is something tremendously equalizing about praying with a person, eyes closed and heads bowed before the Lord. Clothes, education and life circumstances seem inconsequential. There you are, two souls seeking your mutual God. Not only does it equalize, but it unites so that when you open your eyes you no longer see class, or race, or whatever other societal construct that seeks to divide; you see your brother or sister trying to make something of this thing called life, just like you.

This transformation is powerful and inspiring and heartbreaking all at the same time because you know that you will never have all the answers or resources to bring all of God’s children into a place where they can thrive and where as the bible says “justice will roll down like a river,” but it certainly makes you want to try. Coming to the conclusion that people of the world are truly interconnected through energy, matter and love comforts you because you know that you are not alone in the world, no matter how far away from home you might be and that through your brothers and sisters you can in fact experience God . These realizations have confirmed in me a desire to be a part of the work of reconciliation both personally and vocationally. I want to preach it; I want to teach it; but most of all, I want to live it.