My Prayer

It has been a while since I have written in this blog. This is for several different reasons. Partially because we have been so busy doing various things I have just been too lazy to actually type. However, another reason that may be more prominent is because there has been a particular issue I wanted to write about but was to emotional to type. Once I realized my words might be coherent I then thought about whether it was even relevant to a blog about my travel in Latin America and whether it would be appropriate and I believe it is. For those of you who do not go to ACU I am going to copy and paste part of a news article from a Dallas newspaper.

Police are continuing to search for clues and attempt to determine whether a hate crime occurred when a noose was left last week in the office of the black president of Abilene Christian University's Student Congress.

Student Congress President Daniel Paul Watkins, a political science major and senior from Fredricksberg, Va., found the noose in his office last Wednesday.

There's still no indication whether one or more individuals were involved in the incident or whether it could be considered a crime of bias -- or a "hate crime" -- because Watkins is black and a noose to many people is a racist symbol that evokes memories of a time when African-Americans were lynched.

The incident came at a time when minority enrollment is about 20 percent at ACU -- with blacks making up about 12 or 13 percent of the student body. He said the percentage of blacks on ACU's campus has doubled over the past decade. ACU's total enrollment is about 4,700 students.

ACU has made significant steps in race relations over past decades, Money said, but the lesson Friday was "how far we have yet to go."

When I first heard the news, I cannot describe the feeling as anything more than absolute shock. I felt as If someone had punched me and left me numb. As soon as I could get away from the people around me I went to my room and just started crying. Then I called my parents. After about 30 minutes the tears were no longer wet with pain and hurt but, were burning against my face thriving only by my anger.

I came to ACU last year with the intention of going to a Christian university where my race would not be a central theme but my faith. I lived my whole life as a minority rarely even having Black friends yet most of the people I was surrounded by loved the Lord and that was all that mattered. When I moved to Japan I found a school that was full of people who shared my ethnic background people who did not stare at me or think I was weird, make negative comments about my mixed heritage, or even exercise ignorance on the subject and it was in a word, Refreshing. For the first time in my life I visually fit in and didn't feel the need to prove myself based on a ridiculous stereotype or expectation. Yet in the midst of forming lifelong and concrete friendships I found something missing. Very few people shared my faith in my school and I found it difficult to be a Christian. It was something I had to work at. Alone. Before people had stared at me because of the color of my skin now people stared at me because I was a Christian. They watched every move I made to see if I would slip up. Although I can honestly say they never actually pressured me to do anything; I found the scrutiny to be somewhat stifling, because their constant observation of me was not disguised. It was in this experience that God revealed to me that the unity of the spirit crossed all cultural boundaries, all racial boundaries, and all physical boundaries. He was not God of division or separation but, of love. I longed for a community where those physical characteristics would not matter not because it wasn't weird or different but, because God had washed over each soul with his mercy and grace transforming each one of us into his image and by being transformed we are each equal in Christ, every man, woman, child regardless of whether they are from Texas, Rhode Island or California, Black, purple, pink, white, yellow or blue. Soon after God revealed this to me I felt him leading me ACU, when my parents also felt God l leading me there as well my decision was finalized. Soon after I arrived I began to have a different experience than I had expected.

I am not going to use this opportunity to list every offense I experienced at ACU. However, it is suffice to say several times a month an incident occurred, on a small scale from someone making a comment or joke about black people that was not particularly offensive in of itself until they noticed I was in the room and would suddenly begin to whisper amongst each other uncomfortably, to people who used the word black but would glance at me and then not complete for example stating "My neighbor is blaa………(glances at me)…….he smokes", to those who told me my family was in sin because, my parents were interracially married, to those who believed there was nothing offensive about a noose or saying you wanted to hang a black man because racism did not exist in our society, to a larger scale where certain people actually used the N word in reference to those Black people they considered "less than people". I was overwhelmed and engulfed in a society of hate that I am sure relatively speaking was incredibly miniscule compared to what my grandparents or even parents had to go through. But to me it was shocking, incomprehensible, and painful. I felt the burden of constantly needing to educate others, give patient responses, and to continue to love those whose words had cut into my very being. When I say it was shocking it was not because I had never experienced racism or lived under the delusion that it did not exist; but rather I had not expected from a Christian society, without a doubt I had higher expectations.

One of the main reasons I wanted to study abroad was to escape the constant questions, comments, and statements, I had to deal with. I needed to get away from it all and just live. I wanted to just be me. I needed to be free from a society where I felt constantly judged. The anger I felt not even an hour after I had been broken hearted by the hate that was still alive in our society was livid. I cannot recall feeling so mad in my life. If I had not been so mad I may have laughed at the irony, I had gone halfway across the world and was still affected by what I was trying to escape. A week before in Uruguay I had seen a lighter that had a confederate flag with a young black boy in the center with a sword through his skull and blood pouring out. It seems that no matter where I go this simply has to become something that I have deal with. They always say once you lose your innocence you can never get it back. I can no longer believe the world is a safe place and that there are mostly good people.

In one of the YouTube videos below someone said that the point was not made graphic enough, and because of this the majority of the population would not have the same initial reaction as the minority who were raised in a culture where a noose wasn't just a rope but, a symbol used to inspire fear and communicate hate not only to the person who was hung, or threatened but, to the entire community. According to the representative from the NAACP he said the actions were learned by years of silence and tolerance. This silence and tolerance is from the entire community black and white. I said at the beginning that I was hesitant to post this blog. The reason is that I have rarely been this candid with anyone, even my closest friends. But I am done being silent and I am done tolerating. I have constantly made the excuse for the actions of others and I have attributed it simply to ignorance and naiveté, but where does that line cross. When is ignorance admissible and hate irreconcilable. I no longer know.

For the past year I have been in a dilemma concerning why God led me to ACU. I am not claiming to understand just why yet but, maybe he wanted me to grow. Not in the way I wanted to but, according to a different plan that I am still clueless about; maybe he wants me to get a small taste of what's to come, or he's preparing for a greater course, I have no idea. What I do know is that this trial has made me stronger. I realize more than ever that I cannot rely on others but only on God. I selfishly wanted other Christians to fall back on, to be able to trust. People will let you down but God is the only fixture in my life in which I can completely rely. It is my constant prayer that as I seek his will he will reveal himself to me. I pray that he gives me the courage to confront others not with anger or animosity but with the love of God and that I will live out loud for Christ being vocal in my words and actions and no longer silent. Since tolerance seems to equal acceptance and acceptance equals permissibility I pray for the ability to show the love of Christ while still condemning what is wrong. The phrase Let go and Let God seems so simple and straight forward so easy to follow. Right now in my life everything seems foggy I cannot even begin to understand anything. I am an unstable whirlwind of emotions, thoughts, and ideas, the thought of letting it all just "go" scares me. Yet I know that I cannot move forward until I let God take complete control of my life and work through me, only by living through him can I even begin to make sense of what is going on in my life. There is no conclusion; I don't think I have ever been so confused in my life. I can only pray.

In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.

Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.

What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?

Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.

Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!

My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.

I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Amen

(Psalm 120-121)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE9cGQo5YuY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJKrU9kR3ZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBsltWjTf1Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBsltWjTf1Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ029p480rw