And the Tears Came: MLK Day Reflections

MLK Day is always a poignant day for us. We know it's coming, but it always stops us in our tracks. This year's MLK Day is actually different than before. My hope is placed in a different direction and projection than the one we have been on.

So, this morning, as I stumbled into Monday and into my usual ritual of coffee, clearing the cobwebs, and reading the Text and other things, the tears came. Yes, the tears came for no explicable reason. Then I started thinking and writing. And this is what came up and out.

Raised in the racist, rural South in the afterglow of Jim Crow, those things shaped me in ways I still am deconstructing. Mr. Washington, my first black teacher, believed in me and fostered my love of learning and my interest in music. Seeing the lone black girl in our now "integrated" school is still frozen in my mind.

Lubbock Christian College, black students in Meistersinger Chorus and Bible classes, theater, social clubs, and the like, expanded my vision for people. Influenced by a drama coach who envisioned a brighter day for people of color, and shaped by her choices of productions. Influenced by a fiancé/wife who would not tolerate racist slurs.

Graduate school in Memphis and part time youth ministry at the Highland Church of Christ hit me between the emotional eyes. A predominantly white church, a black woman who worked there as a custodian taught me up, and the place and space of whites and blacks, wealth and poverty, again challenged me. When we first moved there, while looking for an apartment, Charles told us that we were not getting an apartment because of him. We did not know. He did. He was black, and a friend.

Almost two years in El Paso with a youth ministry that moved fast. Kids and families of all colors and shapes and sizes. Black kids, white kids, Hispanic kids, Indian kids, intermarried families, Spanish only in some homes of the grandparents, and again, wealth and poverty, and the distinctions between races and the ways in which adolescents of races respect each other. Going to classes at UTEP was like being in a foreign country, it occurred to me, as I looked across the Rio Grande River one morning into one of the poorest sections of Juarez. We never went there, but we did go to some fine restaurants in another section of town, but we were accompanied by people who knew the area well. We studied with and baptized a bunch of kids of all races during that time. They were hungry for connection in their violent world.

A return to Memphis opened my white eyes even further. Again, we worked with a biracial, bi-cultural group of teenagers. They were of all descriptions and family types, rich, poor, black, white, from the projects, from Germantown, intact nuclear and single parent families, and the challenges and opportunities of engaging them were rich, meaningful, and challenging. Terry Bell directed the bus program, and many African American kids came and grew up at White Station. Kids are kids without the deep seeded prejudices of us older folks, so we experimented with a huddle ministry that attempted to connect the kids into groups with each other. A weekend retreat co-led by Terry and me was the beginning of getting the kids to venture across the racial barrier into each others lives. Those were challenging days of working in the Robin Hood apartments and then speaking in the local private school. Formative days indeed.

A two year journey to West Virginia and to Ohio Valley College again proved pivotal as we worked with very poor, first time college students who grew up in the hollars, or skilled athletes who came from Cleveland, Ohio to attend this small private college. The notions of races and class continued to be imprinted upon my heart. How are we the same, how are we different, and where is this thing going?

Then after those two years, we began a 24 year stay in Abilene and at ACU. Teaching and mentoring all manner of students, men and women, just out of college and those returning to be retooled, Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, and as a reflection of the field of mental health, not very many people of color. Some, though, came from other states, Africa, South Africa, the Pacific Rim, and we all grew together. We knew what we needed to teach, but we had to learn how to teach and they needed to learn what they needed to learn and to return to their people. In many ways, that task made their people my people.

Then, a life-changing call came from a civil rights attorney one afternoon, offering me the opportunity to engage in the Black farmers movement as a consulting psychologist, doing psychological and family evaluations and assessing for damages to health and well-being for those seeking justice before the DOJ and USDA. This was life-changing and earth moving in my head and heart. Still does. That decision led to trips to the farms, to Washington, DC, and to seeing how those in power treat those who are disempowered. I could never return to the comfort of my previous space and place.

Then, after 24 years, we bought into the vision of developing programs and services for my wife's ancestral people in Oklahoma. We did not buy the vision without much prayer and consultation. We laid out seven or eight of those proverbial fleeces. So, we moved, despite my deeply held inside misgivings. This part of the journey involved envisioning and building things that would serve the marginalized American Indians of a 13 county region. It was a challenge. Stepping out of my comfort zone and working with those whose tribes had been marginalized for centuries, who had been kicked to the curb. At some point in that journey, I transitioned to building supra-structures and budgets and administrative sorts of things. I struggled to keep the vision of serving marginalized people alive because I was living and working around wealth, far beyond what I had ever earned. I had transitioned from being a social justice advocate to a part of a bureaucracy, and I had moved away from my first love.  Still, we learned a lot in those days about language, culture, values, history, privilege, marginalization, and what red and blue meant.

Finally, when the time was right, we returned to our beloved Homeland and to the work that calls deeply within my heart. I understand that I play only a minor role in the grand scheme of things. That does not trouble me at all. We are more involved in the Black farmer movement than ever before. Speaking at land summits, serving informally with BFAA, and fund-raising for African American farmers are some small things that I can do. Researching stories of farmers and working toward publication of several things keeps the dream alive of telling their stories in places and space where they cannot go, a promise I made to them while on faculty renewal leave in 2005.

The invitation to join Regenerative Outcomes was not a quick decision for me. When Charla pointed out that it involved among many other things the notion of justice. If these treatments are not covered by major medical insurance, only rich white people will be able to afford them.

We will soon begin fund raising for one of the most compelling stories of an African American families I have ever met. Their journey is one that moves me deeply, their story one that is in our hearts, and it is friends that we call them, and they call us. All stories move me, this one in particular.

So, all of these things flowed just sitting and pondering the fact that this is MLK Day in America? Yes and no. I will read things he wrote today. We will watch his speeches. We will once again be moved by his dream. On the one hand, I feel as if his dreams are being derailed in the current political climate. I am deeply distressed by that.  On the other hand, his dreams are more deeply embedded in the hearts of good people than can be taken away by one administration at one point in time. I am committed to working toward that end.

So, to sum it all up, in my days of retirement, I am still just one white voice in a huge wilderness. There are other voices of all races, genders, and classes, and we are committed to equality for all of God's children. The voice of the church must sound the call to justice loudly and clearly along with political and economic voices.

When we listen today to "I Have a Dream," my heart will be moved. My convictions will be pricked. I am praying that across this great land of ours, we can all work to make justice and equality something that endures until the Lord returns.

That is my story and why the tears came, at least part of it and a small slice of why.

What about you and why your heart is moved on this day?