Reckoning and Solidarity
Do you have someone in your life outside of your color-line that you can “be with” in solidarity?
Remember the line from the movie Tombstone where Doc-Holliday (Val Kilmer’s character) said, “Make no mistake, it’s not revenge he’s after. It’s a reckoning.” That right there, along with several other scenes gave me chills and was the reason I can watch that movie over and over again. After spending time in the racial unrest we see our country in, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are in a 20/20 Racial Reckoning. We are not in trouble; we are in transition. Trouble only comes to those who refuse to lean into “the bend” in the long arch of God’s justice. This is our time to lean into it.
Someone asked me the other day if I thought we were going to see things get worse with the racial tension that we see happening in our country. I said, “Well, that all depends on our ability to recognize how far we’ve strayed from God’s principles and our courage to course correct.” Racial sin isn’t new, but the light by which we judge the problem is definitely shining brighter for the world to see. None of us can unsee what we’ve seen: a knee on a neck for 8 minutes, 46 seconds. World-wide protests. Fires, unrest, change. Just as racial sin isn’t new, righteous relationships that heal any divide has always been the right step in the right direction. Now is the time to pursue those righteous relationships in the context of what I call a 20/20 Racial Reckoning. Do you have someone in your life outside of your color-line that you can “be with” in solidarity? In conversation? In learning? In heartache? In hope? Go and pursue those relationships and from that place of knowing each other as deep-spirited friends (Philippians 2:1-2 Message) we can model the healing that the whole world so desperately needs right now.
Fred Lynch is a Musician, Author, Influencer and good friend of Replenish. @Flynchmob
