The Healthy Tree ?

I captured this picture this morning on our walk. The tree I wanted to take a picture of was the green tree. I loved how the leaves were green and then had a much lighter yellow green at the tips which you can’t really see in the picture. But it made me stop and take a breath and enjoys its beauty. But then as I drew closer and started walking under the tree I noticed that the beauty from a distance wasn’t the full story. As I walked under the tree I could see all of the dead branches. And not just one branch but a series of dead branched, What looked healthy and vital from a distance had this death and decay underneath.

I wonder if this analogy will help you see the problem our country has with race. From the outside, people used to look at the United States and see a country where you could come, be free, and live the life you dreamed. We were the city on the hill, the light shining in the darkness, the beacon of hope. We were the people who provided refuge to the huddle masses yearn to breath free. We believed our self to be the land where all people were created equal and we had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Yet our city on a hill, has always had an unspoken, unacknowledged disease at its core. Racism is part of who we are. We don’t talk about it. We ignore it. We don’t teach it. We (those of us who are white) don’t think about it. Yet, race is always there. We as a country believed that we could own other people. That we could buy, sell, breed, rape, beat other people. We believed that we had the right to this land and could take it from the people already living on it. But now we know. We know in a way we haven’t in a long time. We were taught we solved the race problem, we got rid of slavery, ended segregation and jim crow.

But that was never true. Admit it. You have never thought about the package sitting on your porch that should have been delivered to your neighbor on the next block, but you let it sit there for over a week waiting for UPS because if you took the package to your neighbor you would be accused of stealing. We have an ugliness at the heart of our society where if you are black or brown you can be killed in your own home while sleeping, shot for buying skittles, killed for playing with a toy gun, arrested and jailed for going 1 mile over the speed limit, shot for jogging, arrested for walking. You are daily confronted with racist symbols, called names and treated as if you are invisible. We as a country need to be honest about our history and repent. We need to not look away, not turn our backs because it makes us uncomfortable. We need to read books, watch documentaries, and learn to be different and teach those around us that everyone is beloved of God and made in God’s image. We need to remember that we are not truly free, until everybody is free.