A Monday Where You Need To Know Where You Belong
“Racism, a belief that race determines human traits and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race, has also existed since biblical times – as can be seen in behaviour and attitudes that reflect and foster this belief, which is racial discrimination. ”
We live in a world where the majority of our population has experienced diaspora. We are groups of people who live outside the area in which we have lived for a long time or in which our ancestors lived. Peoples have moved across borders, nations and continents to settle somewhere else and experienced unsettling in unimaginable and inhumane ways.
My own parents, grandparents, and my husband’s grandparents and one parent, immigrated from Belarus and Ukraine, and made their way to Western Canada where the work to become Canadian and make a place for future generations was hard, but in their minds, worth it.
SETTLING IS NEVER EASY IN A ENVIRONMENT THAT DOESN’T CARRY THE LEGACY OF YOUR GENERATIONAL ROOTS.
Since Biblical times, people have moved nations and continents, either by force, or by choice, or by following God’s calls on their lives. Abraham was both a refugee and an immigrant as God called him on a pilgrimage over decades from Ur to a new land called Canaan.
THE DESIRE TO BELONG, BE ACCEPTED, CONTRIBUTE AND YET KEEP CULTURAL IDENTITY HAS BEEN A GENERATIONAL AND DEEP-SEATED HONOURABLE ONE.
Racism, a belief that race determines human traits and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race, has also existed since biblical times – as can be seen in behaviour and attitudes that reflect and foster this belief, which is racial discrimination.
Under pressure, the long-existing desire and right to be treated equitably regardless of race, as well as an increasing fear of those who do not look like ‘us’ (whoever you may be), racism, are icebergs pushing up to global visibility in this cultural moment, neither the targets of racism or racists themselves willing to let their respective beliefs lie beneath the surface.
I grieve for those against which racism is perpetrated. I grieve for women who continue to be caught in cycles of inequity on unfair playing fields. I grieve for all who found their voice in the black lives matter movement, but only through grievous injustice. I grieve for the indigenous who want the pursuit of truth and reconciliation to continue until true belonging is achieved. grieve for the Asian community who are suffering torrential waves of hatred and violence in recent days. I grieve for all caught in the perpetual cycle of poverty, who look at the world as a prison guard who keeps them tethered in their desperate captivity.
It is no wonder that the current state of the world can tear you apart.
Dis-integrate you.
Dis-orient you.
Dis-appoint you.
It makes you wonder if you can ever survive the stench of human suffering, brought about by individuals and systems that defend their own privilege to the detriment and death of others.
Gather is a non-political movement. Gather is not an institution that is caught in generations of hierarchy and tradition. Gather is a movement that seeks to shape and define and influence culture by being followers of Jesus Christ, the only man who singularly did just that.
Wherever and whenever hatred or bigotry rises up and is directed at any child of God, we who follow Jesus, and therefore stand for love, must act. We must stand up, speak up and show up.
WE MUST RECOGNIZE, HOWEVER, THAT NO HUMAN LAW WILL HELP US FIND SPIRITUAL PEACE.
For a community to belong, the individuals in that community need to belong.
The place of belonging may or may not ever be found on this earthly planet. We are destined for a place that we can only long for as we witness the high emotion in the world around us.
We are experiencing the consequences of long-held emotions pulled taut and with greater reverberation in a world suffering the waves of uncertainty that a global pandemic has brought.
Don’t believe the press. Don’t believe that things can’t change just because the world is full of bad news wherever you turn.
Instead, believe that even in the suffering, we can choose to be transformed.
2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
We must choose the transforming process over the influence of media, hate mobs and warrior declarations as the call to justice asking us to conform.
WE MUST CHOOSE TO LOVE.
WE MUST CHOOSE TO RAISE THE VALUE OF EVERY HUMAN BEING AS MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD.
Raise up your sister. Raise up your neighbour. Raise up your fellow pilgrims on the journey, regardless of gender, race or class. Raise them up. Lift them up on your shoulders. Carry them. Honour them.
Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" is the standard for belief and behaviour.
UNITY CAN ONLY COME FROM EQUITY.
Belonging only becomes from secure identity in Christ as His child. That is your only true home. And it is the place you can call others to, as Jesus did, from love and for love.
I believe in you!
Cathie