Thought 2 - Amid the Racial Tension and COVID-19

Humanity. 

Artistically designed, a God-formed thought that he initiated into existence, just like a mother bears her child. Humanity has forgotten her origin; an origin of love and peace and dominion over animals and other things but not over each other. Humanity bears the burden she herself created; tears upon tears, clenched fists nailing bleeding faces, slapping crying mothers. Humanity's mother made her child to be beautiful and brave and to depend on each other. Her mother is a rainbow, made up of each color; her mother is light, bright light that pierces darkness. The child, humanity, formed to represent the image of her mother, just like babies grow up to look like their parents, act like their parents, talk like their parents. Formed under the weighty glory of holiness and pure beauty, made to dazzle her mother. Made to walk barefoot, live naked - not as an act of sensuality but rather as the absence of shame. Humanity's mother is not like her child, who wanders away. Her child loses focus, the earth shakes beneath its feet and she runs to other things - but not her mother. She runs to the dirt, thorns, and thistles - the things that come about with little waiting needed, but that last only as a mist lasts. Humanity is a broken jar, whose potter continues to slab wet clay over the top of her so as to mend the cracks and breaks she has recklessly allowed herself to bear. She turns her head away from mother - a mother who is the creator of all good things.

Humanity. 

She denies her mother's hand when she is in need of help, even though her mother reaches out time and time again. Humanity's mother knows that her child will come home, but she also knows that the journey is long and hard that leads to home. She knows her child's heart has gone far far far away into lands she never intended her to even think about entering. 

Reality. 

Reality is thorns and thistles that choke life out of humanity. Reality is rocks and stones being thrown at humanity's face; she takes hard hits even though she has the opportunity to dodge them. Humanity's bruises are far to deep to mend; indeed they are nearly unable to be healed. Her wounds are cries for help, but nobody comes. Nobody listens. Stop - wait, reality does come. But this reality feels distant - odd - as if she is stripped naked and completely vulnerable - all her wounds become healed - at last, unbeknownst to her, she has run into her mother's arms. She rapidly scoops her up, lovingly whispering gentle things to her scraped up ears. Humanity has never hears such kindness-  reality would tell her things too horrible to even repeat on paper. Paper-thin was she, but her mother fed her nourishment and she became strong. 

Real Reality. 

This new real reality humanity has encountered is safe, welcoming, and unafraid to call out mess-ups. Humanity sometimes tries to set foot on the fake reality's ground, but she can only stay for a few seconds before losing her breath from anxiety and deep pain resurfacing. Humanity kicks fake reality's butt and stomps on her face. She is not tricked anymore,  she is not lulled into the old patterns. Instead, she is invited by real reality to take her rightful place as the honored guest. 

I am sad. Sad that humanity has become so far gone from her mother - her father - her parent figure God.  I am sad that we have chosen to destroy each other and cut each other with wounds and tears and sit by as people get chocked to death. I am sad that killing is now a form of entertainment in our late twenty-first century. I am mad. I am annoyed that this is the way things have turned out. I am annoyed that people believe so many lies that they end up believing they have the right to own another human.  I am sad that I am quick to judge other people and not myself.  I am sad that I judge my neighbor's character, but not my own. I am sad that I shake my head in disapproval towards a white man who kills a black man, but am not quick to realize what God says - that even one hateful thought in my head is the same as killing another man. I am slow to recognize that sin is SIN to God - just as I judge another man is the same as one man dehumanizing another. What I want to recognize deeply and fully is that God truly did create each human with equal value and importance, each created in His image. He has no exceptions or rules on who falls into that category of "made in his image." 

Just as a painting looks dull with only one color, so the world would look and act and seem a dull mess without each color.  The intrinsic beauty in unity that comes from racial reconciliation is insurmountable. It is glorious to gaze at. And I truly do want to live in a world where each human is seen as beautiful and cared for - to look beyond outward appearance and to gaze into one's soul. One may be dazzling on her outside, perfectly figured and made up, but dying and desperate inside. One may seem put together on the outside, but he may be committing suicide of the heart. Oh God let me be one who sees the soul, who sees the whole human, the whole person, full of beauty and life and light that surpasses outward appearance or societal standards of beauty. I desire desperately to have a heart that does not envy another man or woman in appearance or situation or circumstance, I desire to love myself well and fully and wholly and then to love others well and fully and wholly. I cannot love others if I do not love myself. And this is not selfish,  this is genuine desire for heart and soul and character change. This is a heart that longs to serve and to look at others and pick them up where they are hurting and to see the potential in their paths. 

I cannot wish that humanity would change without first being willing to change myself. I cannot beg for change without first changing the inner man - myself. I cannot wish there were no implicit biases without first pointing the implicit biases out in my own heart and begging that they be destroyed - by my mother, by my father - by my parent figure God. In my heart there is so much darkness and sin and evil, and I know that there is hope, but let me not get there just yet. 

I am in a place of grieving, of somehow not even knowing fully what to say or do or how to act or how to treat myself or view myself or my brothers and sisters. I am grounded, but feeling lonely and even angry, but how dare I let it turn into unrighteous anger. I crave holiness and purity in my being, I do the things I do not want to do, and the things I do not want to do, I do. I am broken, guilty, worthy of punishment. My heart is not clean, but rather gross and evil and wicked and wayward, and I have evil thoughts and judgemental, critical tendencies, selfish ambition and deceit. I am broken, and in need of hope and light and life. I need Jesus. I cannot go on looking away from my mother, my father, my parent figure God. I cannot resist His deep love or His beckon to be pure and holy and to live in unity with my brothers and sisters. My heart is anxious, sad, scared, and scarred. I can only find healing and wholeness in my Maker. 

So to you, Maker, do I look. I look at your face and I see your creation and your story and I cannot help but wonder why, what, when, how, who... what is your plan. But then I remember that you don't always work in plans. You work in beautiful, spontaneous places that don't make sense in my mind. Not to say you don't like structure, for indeed, you are its maker, too. You are creative, though. You do things in spunky ways, with upside-down kingdom tendencies. You don't do things the way we do them. You are different, your ways are higher, better, wider, fuller, vaster, more lovely than ours. So all I truly can do is fall on my face and worship you and ask that you give me peace. I love you, Maker. You are still creating me. You are in your maker space, leaning into the mess, the mixing of the colors into brown, the glue on your fingers, the clay in between your toes, and you think its all beautiful. You think its all very good. And glimpses of that goodness make you laugh and dance and delight. You aren't distant from this. You are very near to this. You are grieving over this. Teach me to grieve the things you grieve. Teach me your ways. I want to come to your maker space and watch you work and create. 

You have a beautiful design and dream for humanity. Your dream is wholeness and unity with you and with each other. That though we are different we are each as vitally as important, just as you, the Trinity, are unified in one spirit but serve different purposes. You are one, united, loving, together. You are perfect. Not in the human sense or understanding of the word, but rather perfect in the sense that you do not change, you are complete, whole, holy, set apart from humanity. Yet your love for your creation overflows. Teach us to be creatives. Teach us to see things the way you see them. Not as to-do lists, but as beautiful dreams and stories and parables. 

Teach us to press into your design for humanity.