My “The Race Thing” experiences now lead to lessons I learned in church.
I was raised a Catholic. This was yet another area in which my parent’s, especially my mother’s, thinking was segregated. Church meant Catholic church and no other. I quickly wanted nothing to do with church when I was growing up. I quit going when I was 16 and could pretend to drive myself there on Sunday mornings.
Years later, when I was 30, I was invited to a Protestant church. For the first time I said yes. The pastor was a very kind and dedicated middle-aged woman. Her sermons actually made sense, something that had never happened to me in church before.
One day our pastor invited all the children up onto the altar. She spread them across in a line, facing the congregation. There were about 25 kids of various ages and races. She instructed them, “Look down the line and find the person who looks just like you.”
For a few moments the kids search down the row. Suddenly sounds of realization began rising from the audience. As the children continued looking for their clone, applause began from the crowd.
I hope the kids learned something that day, but I certainly did. The question that arose in me that day has stayed with me for more than 20 years. How can we say someone is different because of how they look, when no one looks like us? Siblings, and sometimes strangers, may look similar, but even “identical” twins are not truly identical. They have been proven to have genetic differences as well as unique fingerprints.
This was just another in a long line of lessons that the Lord has shown me over the years. I’ve realized, slowly, that we are all different, by God’s design. I’ve also realized over the years that I have met plenty of ignorant people. They came in various packages: white, brown, black, etc. Ergo, ignorance knows no color.
To be continued . . .