I thought long and hard before writing this devotion today… I’ve wanted to say something about the recent events, about the need for change in our own country as well as in my own life.

But, so much has been said – much of it very good and true. Plus, I hesitate to make further commentary – this is not about me, it’s about my black sisters and brothers… this is their moment to lead the way and sometimes I just feel like I should listen instead of talk and write.

Then, since I’m a musician I thought “I could play music – I’ve not done that since the beginning of lockdown”

Well yes… I could. The song that came to mind was “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, the de facto Black National anthem. I even sat down at the piano and played through it for about 30 minutes, reading the words, trying to come up with my own interpretation of the piece, reading the words…

But it felt wrong – almost like I was somehow appropriating the culture for my own use, or taking the easy way out. Now, mind you… that certainly wasn’t my intent. But then I read the words more closely each time I played through it:

Lift ev’ry voice and sing, ‘Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, ‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand,
True to our God, True to our native land.

I was struck by the hope, the optimism of this song. It was written in the late 1800’s, probably 1898 or so, less than 35 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Black people were still not truly free, and there would be still years of struggle (which still continue today). The line “Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet come to the place for which our fathers sighed?” sounds like a cause for celebration, and yet in reality Black people were “free” in name only, still subject to segregated schools, lynchings, discrimination, and all manner of systems that were being set up to insure they never got ahead. The Civil Rights Movement helped, yes… but it seems like a lot of the systemic racism and discrimination then just went underground – it became unpopular enough that we worked hard to make it appear as if it was a thing of the past, when in reality in a thousand subtle ways racism simply became sublimated into the fabric of our society and culture as white Americans, largely unconscious.

I’ve never thought of myself as racist (who would want to ?) and I’ve had the privilege to serve for a time in two different churches where I was the minority – a Latino church when I was in High School and later in life a Chinese Presbyterian church. I loved my time at those churches, and I fear they treated me with far more love and respect than if the circumstances had been reversed. But, I realize I have work of my own to do… unconscious reactions that I have because I’ve been programmed – even something as simple (and apparently automatic) as double-checking to insure my car doors are locked when I stop at a stoplight and there is a person of color crossing the street in front of me.

Ouch.

And then, there’s the reality of the tightrope my Black friends must daily walk to be safe – I confess I never grasped the extreme pressure they are under to make sure they “act correctly and don’t antagonize the white man” so they can make it home safely. This stood out in sharp relief not too long ago:

Lindsay and I were on an evening walk to Crooked Lake Park. There were a group of friends playing softball – one was pitching, one was hitting, and a third was in the outfield chasing down the balls that were hit. As we turned into the park, the batter smacked a hit nearly all the way to the fence that borders the park, separating it from residences. The ball hit the sidewalk, and bounced over the fence…

The guy in the outfield chasing down balls just happened to be black…. and when the ball bounced over the fence, he stopped in his tracks and yelled back to his two white friends “I’m not gonna go get THAT!”

And it hit me. If it had been me, I’d have simply hopped the fence and gotten the ball. No one would have thought anything of it. If someone had come out to see what was going on, I would have held up the ball and explained… and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been a problem. Later, when Lindsay and I talked, she wondered if he saw us ’round the corner right as the ball went over the fence…. and maybe wondered if the two white people would call the cops if they saw him go get the ball, or fail to stick up for him if the owners of the property came out angry…

I confess I’m still shaken by that experience. And, it’s only one small step in the daily dance my black sisters and brothers must do to stay alive… Now, I wish I’d hopped the fence MYSELF and given him the ball back.

I have work to do. Hopefully as hidden prejudice comes to light, I can keep resisting it and learn to be different. And, I know I will have to fight it for the rest of my life. May God help me.

Will you join me?