Stories: The Ones I Am Increasingly Tuned In To

It is quiet in my house this morning. Buddy sits beside me on the floor. He seems content, not that it takes him much to be in that spot. He is a curious part of my story, and even of our story, the “our” of Charla and me, and the “our” of our sons and grandsons, and also anyone who comes to our house or in the neighborhood finds themselves often enrapt by this handsome and playful dog.

We are all story-tellers of sorts. Some of us tell them quietly by the way we live, the things we do and the things we do not do. Some of us are story tellers with words, words which have meaning that we put on pages both the paper kind and the electronic kind. We have some degree of intention with those words and stories: to inform, to shape, to change, to cajole, to connect. Some of us tell intentional stories and some of us tell reactive stories. Which is which, I often wonder.

I am increasingly enrapt by God’s story, how people capture all or part of God’s story, and then how we use that whole or pieces toward particular ends. Even God’s story is not immune from politics, and politics enters the scene when there are at least two of us. A difference of some sort is called for in hushed tones or in shouts from the mountain top. I want the story of God as I see the story of God to shape how you see the story of God and what you are doing that has implications for the story of God. If you and I see the story of God similarly, then my story has meaning and purpose, and if not, then what do I do?

Listening to the story in the words of James Cone and his book, “A Black Theology of Liberation,” is hard. He tells us his story of studying theology and becoming like the white men who had taught him or whose books he had read. Then, he realized that he was Black, from a Black community, that he had Black ancestry, and that he must spell out a theology of liberation for His people and for anyone who engages with his people.

From 1994 up until even these days, I have heard stories of African American farmers and their families who have suffered under the unflinching power of law, policy, and procedure of people who tell themselves a certain set of stories and who live out stories with certain themes and subthemes. My story has been shattered and reshaped and re-reshaped by sitting in living rooms, walking the fields, standing around the tractors, eating shared meals, and listening to stories of farming while Black. A white guy who worked for the USDA once said to me, “You are going to speak at this conference. Right? I’d like for you to tell them to just get over it and move on.” He was telling his story and his corporate, lawed, ruled, and policied up story. My brash, stunned, advocating for a righteous cause story would not allow me to do that, so my words were, “No, I will not insult them by saying that.”

In that moment was a collision of stories, worldviews, and whatever else you want to call it. I remain in that place and space. And the narrative has many, many applications.

So, I think I’ll keep “Listening to the Story of My Life,” using words of Frederick Buechner, trying to listen more attentively to God’s story of liberation for His people through the Gospel story, and listening and learning and validating the lived experiences of people who are not like me. Their stories are important.

While It Is Still Early

We are still in the earliest of days of this chapter of our lives. While we call it "retirement," it feels active and busy and hoping that along with that will come productivity. One of the decisions I will make is where to post things that I care about and write about. Until then, a thing or two will land here. Some will land both on Facebook and Let Justice Ring.

One of the changes is in our schedules. I am an early morning person, so reading, writing, pondering, and drinking coffee, and being with Buddy are my self-assigned tasks until we both shake off the slumber and dreams with a walk through the neighborhood with Buddy the Boxer. He is always eager to go.

So, this morning is a curious interface of Psalm 25, Proverbs 25, a reading from Thomas Merton, a prayer from Lemuel Adams, and a snippet from James Cone. I want my integrity to be pure despite what I observe in others. Since there is a day of judgement coming, per Adams, a black preacher for white churches who lived 1753-1853, "A few turns more upon the stage and we are gone." The power of terrorists with random decisions and unpredictable standards and the absence of process, written in the mid-60s, strikes a chord of curiosity within me about today's world both globally and here at home. Then, James Cone's notions that he and white theologians read and write from "different social locations and thus with different hermeneutical interests," and that shapes what we see and how we see what we see, strikes another chord.

Not sure how all of these merge, and perhaps they should not and were not meant to merge, but they prompt some jaggedness within me, at least for the day. With a penitent heart, I would like for God to coach me on moving from my world of "separateness" into a world toward those that I deem with their "otherness," and thereby understand my separateness and my otherness from their perspectives. Maybe we can move from the I versus the You to the We of human existence. Perhaps there can be some grace and mercy in that for others, but also for me.

Going Live

Going live with a new blog is certainly daunting.  While there is energy and excitement that I feel about this new beginning, there is also the wonderment of several things.  What will I write, who will read the words, and how will they respond are at least three of the things that stir within.

Several years ago while I was on faculty at ACU, I started a blog on this same platform.  That blog is still on the web.  It did not seem right to delete it as there were too many people, places, experiences, and ideas that shaped letjusticeroll.blogspot.com. Back then there was more time to contemplate important matters. The Social Justice Teams with their own unique space within the blog are still there, including their photos.  They made important contributions to the cause of justice and to my life.

A word or two about the title.  Let Justice Roll Down was not available, and that would have been a direct quote from the prophet Amos.  After searching around a bit, the phrase "let justice ring" was found out there.  It still sounded prophet, and useful, but not copyrighted. 

Now that I am in a different time and place without the inherent obligations of a bureaucratic structure, there seems to be an opening of spaces and places and ideas and words and stories. That means time for reading, research, ideas, and contemplation about things that matter. Words and ideas do matter, as does action. So, I will pick up with things that matter deeply to me, and hopefully to some of you.  Those things will broadly fit under the notion of "social justice." They will relate to marginalized people in a number of settings.  They will deal with injustice at individual, community, institutional, and societal levels.

Many of the contents of these pages will be about my journey as a white male through the maze of injustices to people who do not look, think, or act like me.  My journey is my journey and I do not expect anyone's to be the same, though I do suspect that perhaps we can land on some similarities and certainly many differences on occasion.

People frequently find it rather curious that a white guy from East Texas would be an advocate for Black farmers. I, too, am curious about that at times.  Somewhere within these pages, I will share that story though it is out there in other venues. There will be stories about places Charla and I have been, the people we have met, and how are lives have been altered.

When I pass over to meet God face to face, my only wish is to have left this world a bit more just and righteous than I found it in 1949.