Weekend Roundup, August 18, 2017

I’m late in joining the conversation, but my cousin James Andrews got me thinking this morning about the atrocities that took place in Charlottesville not so long ago.  Jimmy said it best, “…it’s especially important for people who look like me (straight, white men) to speak up.” Or in my case, straight, white, middle class moms approaching forty.

I, too, have a voice.

Years ago, in what seems like another lifetime, I was a kindergarten teacher. One of my favorite parts of my job was gathering five and six-year-old students around the cobalt rug for Morning Meetings and read-alouds.  Skippyjon Jones was a favorite, though my faux Spanish accent was rather pathetic and most likely insulting.  Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten was a classroom favorite, which I always read on the first day of school.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar often made an appearance during the Creepy Crawlies insect unit.  Someone should tell Eric Carle that a caterpillar makes a chrysalis not a cocoon.  Eventually, the kindergarten class graduated to Ramona the Pest.  We almost always ended the year with Charlotte’s Web.

I no longer have the bright blue rug.  I left the rug in the classroom for the new kindergarten teacher when I went on permanent maternity leave, exactly two weeks and one day before Emily’s birth.

Instead of meeting on the cobalt rug, close your eyes and imagine me beckoning you into the living room of a grey-blue rambler just north of Seattle. There’s a place for you in my home.  Come, there’s room on the the camel-colored sofa.  Perhaps you’d prefer a spot on the matching oversize chair?  Once you’re settled we’ll sip mugs of piping hot Tony’s French Royale and discuss Dorina Lazo Gilmore’s essay, The Hard Work of Building Bridges.

I definitely don’t want to make light of an evil (yes, evil) situation.  I don’t mean to sound condescending.  A conversation about race is hardly Story Hour.  But trust me, read it.  Because Dorina’s essay is the only essay or blog post I’m sharing this week.  Let her words sit with you.  It’s the eloquent version of the response in my head to Charlottesville and what happened there.

I just thought of it now, but much of what you will find in Dorina’s essay echoes what I’m discovering in Osheta Moore’s Shalom Sistas: Living Wholeheartedly in a Brokenhearted World.  I’m thrilled and honored to be part of Osheta’s launch team.  I’ll never be the same.

I realize how this sounds.  I certainly didn’t mean to turn this Weekend Roundup about racism and bridge building into a book promotion.  That’s not the motive of my heart.  Yet Dorina’s words are words of power and hope. So are Osheta’s. Fancy that an ADHD mind actually made a connection worth sharing, a sacred connection at that.

Enjoy your weekend.  May the love of Christ drive out hatred and racism in your community and mine.  May his love help each and every one of us be brave when darkness threatens to overcome.  Holy Spirit, transform our hearts so we will choose to love without limits every single time, and keep on loving above all else.

N.