Safe Friends

Safety meetings are held frequently in this house. Some would say that is the case for all parents. Others would say that is the case for an over-protective, teensy tinsy bit control-freakish parent. Specifically, we’ve been discussing safety in the context of relationships as they start playing more independently in friend groups, on playgrounds, and soon go off to school. We want them to recognize unsafe behaviors and be courageous to stand up for themselves and talk to us if someone behaves poorly towards them. We want them to choose safe friends. While we aren’t aspiring to raise kids who live in a bubble lined with cashmere, I think all parents could agree that in relationships, safety is vital, no matter how daring and adventurous ones antics may be.   When talking about safe families, friends, and people around us, we usually hit on these points: • safe people speak the truth and avoid lying or gossip. • Safe people respect and care about our hearts and bodies and don’t want us to get hurt, on the outside or on the inside. • Safe people make us laugh and feel happy, but don’t laugh at us or make us feel embarrassed. • When someone makes us feel unsafe, we can respectfully step back from the relationship, but we do not have the right to be unsafe back. • We should carefully choose people who make us feel safe to be our closest friends. (We have more things we discuss in the context of safety from perpetrators, but I’m sticking to everyday encounters here.) And this is maybe the most crucial element of the conversation: • We are all the unsafe one sometimes. We’ve lied, laughed rudely, said words that hurt, or talked when we should be listening. There is no one getting it all right. No, not one. And the person who says something that makes you feel unsafe, but comes later and says, “I shouldn’t have said it, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I care about your feelings. I want to use better words.” And then you see them caring, trying their best at making more respectful choices? Those people? Those people are brave. And they just might end up to be the safest friends of all.

  As is often the case, I find myself wrapping up these sermons and stepping down from my parental pulpit deeply stirred by my own message. (Certainly more moved than my audience.) These child-level conversations start replaying in my head, in adult contexts. I need safety; I want it in my marriage, my friendships, my society. And I am painfully aware that I have been the unsafe person so many times; reactive, quick to judge, angry, defensive, and gossiping. I need the courage to step up and apologize, to listen and learn and use better words.

  What if we made it our global mission to be a safe person? Beyond our close circles, what if we intently set our hearts towards being brave, being kind, being safe, to every human brother and sister we met? To assume that everyone, whatever color or language or class or issue or attitude they presented, was carrying a heavy burden? To assume that everyone could benefit from love? What if we stopped with the judgments and the labels, the assumptions and the indifferences? What if, as white people, and even more so as Christians, we owned our abysmal track record, and said it’s time to turn the tides? We’ve been indifferent and inattentive to our brothers and sisters for too long, but no more.

  What if we committed to the safe friend rules? I think these can apply to every relationship we have. I know I need to put more of them to use in my marriage, towards my girls, in some of my friendships, and to certain individuals in society that I am frankly not too keen on. It all sounds good until we think of that one person, huh? The one Wal-Mart clerk. The one rush hour driver. The one classmate with a unique lifestyle choice. The one west-side apartment complex. But here’s what I know I want people to do for me, and in turn, I owe to others: 1. Discuss someone else’s life with that individual, not to others. It doesn’t feel good to discover you’re the topic of conversation, even if the content wasn’t mean. Gossip doesn’t have to be nasty to be unsafe. 2. Refuse to laugh, respond, or repost jokes and comments that target someone or some group. That someone is some mother’s precious child. That group is someone’s identity they are living every day. I don’t care if they are doing their best or doing their worst at life; criticism, judgment, and mockery are nowhere in our human job description (unless there’s a revised version I haven’t received). 3. Less talking, more listening. If someone has been hurt by a system, a slur, a societal bias, or whatever their source of pain, our job isn’t to explain, correct, or point out their flaws. A safe friend is simply present in the pain. 4. Less talking is good. Silence is not. Speaking from my own, simple story, I have been hurt by gossip and words, but I have been hurt by silence more. On a bigger scale, consider how our silence translates to a populous of people aching under days upon years of complex disadvantages, discriminations, and living on the under belly of white privilege. Our voice may be stuck on silent simply because we’re unsure or removed from a situation. I know mine has been. But inactive silence translates to the wounded as passivity, indifference, and even compliance. It does not rescue the abused, bind up wounds, light up the darkness, or bring good news. As Martin Luther King Jr. says, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” We don’t have to come up with answers or solutions. Start with “Tell me your story. I want to understand. I care about your pain. How can I be a better friend?”

5. If you have small people under your watch, teach them that differences in humans exist, equip them with respectful terms for our differences, and impress on their minds that differences are beautiful, identities are tender, and jokes and rude terms make insides bleed. Labels, stereotypes, an “us and them” mentality, are all taught. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Nelson Mandela

You guys, can you imagine what could happen if we started living like this? If we shut up on gossip and spoke up on behalf of love? If we turned off the assumptions and theories and instead put our ear to the ground, even amidst riots and media outbursts and attitudes that went against our grain, to listen for the pain pounding in every human heart, and simply said, “your story is safe here”? I can imagine it. I think it could change the world.

What do you think? Tell me about your experiences in having or being a safe friend, or share what you've learned from an unsafe relationship.

Part 2-Hard Conversations

Ready or not, our family is entering into hard conversations. My 7 year old heard her first “black person” joke a few weeks ago. I don’t know how to explain what it does to the insides of a mother, watching her child’s face when they have the first hint of realization that their beautiful skin, the skin that they have thus far been comfortable in and proud of, may be the subject of teasing, and worse.   A few weeks ago, after I’d kissed my girls and tucked them safely into bed, I sat down to unwind, but ended up sobbing myself to sleep after watching videos of offensive violence from misbehaving officers. In every video, every story, every church that’s been burned, every shooting and riot, I see my daughters. Oblivious today in their make-believe princess land, but vulnerable and exposed to the tumult in a few short tomorrows. As I teach them about the safety that police officers provide, the fairness of the law, (and I do indeed both believe and teach this), I also realize I will have to discuss and prepare them for possible scenarios that my mom never had to mention, my young mind never had to grapple with.

  I know we often think of racism as expressed hatred; slandering, mistreating, and even killing someone due to their ethnicity or color of skin. But racism is a sly little devil. It creeps in through the jokes we laugh at, the questions we ask, the assumptions we make about how safe our purse is in a certain grocery store, or the way we mock the speech of someone. And maybe even more unsuspecting, the way we try to live colorblind.

photo credit: numbers via photopin (license)

Colorblindness has become a way of trying to express seeing all people as the same, to say that race is no longer an “issue” in our society. It’s an umbrella many of us have perhaps found ourselves under, determined that racism is behind us, and wanting no more thought given to the differences. Reality however, is that we do see in color, and the color of skin has a major impact on every single American’s life story, whether they realize it or not. I, for one, had not the foggiest awareness of its impact on my life for my first 20 years. This is because I happened to grow up in an unearned status of white privilege. And if you are not of a minority people group, so did you.

  White privilege does not mean we all had it peachy and every opportunity was handed to us on a silver platter, while every person of color had to fight tooth and nail to survive. But it does mean we’ve not had to fear or experience our skin, hair, accent, name, etc. affecting our job position, pay rate, customer service, educational opportunities, medical treatment, rough police frisking, incarceration, etc.

  These topics are complex, multi-faceted, filled with differing experiences and opinions, and extremely sensitive; they delve right down to our very identities. I prefer cut and dried answers, defined solutions. I like to avoid conflict. I like to protect my children from pain. I really like to keep myself away from it too. I’d rather shut off the news, close the blog posts, and walk away when the pain and complexity overwhelms me. And to be able to do so is a luxury. “… The problem isn’t that I hate black people. I don’t. The problem is that being white in America means I get to be oblivious. I get to be ignorant. I get to be “colorblind” when it suits me, and that luxury is exactly what keeps me and so many other well-intentioned white people from doing more to confront, repent of, and combat white supremacy and racial injustice in America.”-Repenting of Colorblindness, Rachel Held Evans. (Please check out the entire writing, she tackles a tough subject head on, and says it well.)

  Maybe you’re wondering, as I have been, how we can create a new story for our children’s generation. What if we started by pushing back against the surprisingly numerous racially charged statements that still fly? Stopped to consider the way we would feel if it were our family and our identity being judged or ridiculed? Here are some examples: They are lazy, they’re druggies, they are all so cocky, they’re trashy, they need to go back to their government housing, they probably all have absent dads, they need to speak better English, someone in their neighborhood is always shooting or getting shot, they’re dangerous, they are thieves… and the list of jokes, and assumptions goes on. What if we stopped to consider the “they” in these conversations? Unless “they” are mice we’re speaking of (in which case, carry on with all slander), the statements are lies. There is no “they” people group that is stupid, dirty, or bad. Well except one. The human race. They are one messed up group. The deal is, the capacity for any bad behavior is present in every human heart. If there is an issue that is statistically higher in a certain group, it is a direct result of an oppressive force they have experienced (poverty, discrimination, violence, etc.). If we aren’t willing to acknowledge the human race as being the one with problems, ourselves 100% included, and recognize the connections between oppression and reactive survival behaviors, I can only think of one remaining conclusion: “THEY” (whatever different colored/speaking group being targeted) are more poorly behaved than “US” (white, middle class, Americans) because they are less developed, inferior, and thus unequal to our superior group. This is indeed a world view that has, and still does exist. But it is completely void of God the Creator, who breathed His life into every person in the human race, called His masterpiece very good, and delights in every single individual, flawed as we are, without a trace of partiality.

  What are your thoughts? How have you experienced the color of your skin affecting your life? What suggestions do you have for how we can tend to the wounds of racism and raise a generation that respects and values all humans equally?

Part 3-thoughts on being a safe friend, coming soon.

In Their Shoes-Part 1 (thoughts on the confederate flag)

No matter how much we wish it wasn’t so, no matter how valid it is that skin color is the tiniest variation of pigment amongst countless identical facets of our humanity, skin color impacts each life and shapes each story in ways that we cannot be blind to.

This is why I can’t help but speak up when I hear comments about the Confederate flag. While I am aware of the argument that it’s some new, hot button political topic, it’s not a new grief by any means. For us as white Americans, and especially for those of us who’ve grown up in the Midwest/north, it might seem new. I was oblivious to the fact that government buildings fly the Confederate flag until this year. And I was stunned upon discovery.

I recall my first introduction to civil war history somewhere around 5th grade; remember the churn in my stomach when I read the details of slavery. Shortly after the history class, we drove through a rough little burg and I noticed a Confederate flag painted on the pack of a pickup window. I remember staring at it with alarm and asking mom “Isn’t that the Confederate flag from the Civil War? Why do they like it??” The same confused concerns swirled in my mind when we first drove south for a Florida vacation. Every time I’ve seen that flag, whether as a clueless elementary student or as an adult mother of two African children, I become unsettled and find myself thinking, “I wonder if they still wish the south would have won.” In my mind, the Confederacy=slavery.

We could discuss the flag’s role as a historical image (a representation of one of our most despicable times in American history, I might add), the fact that taking a flag down will never solve racism, compare and contrast it with the Nazi swastika flag (a historical image illegal to fly in many European countries), or discuss government involvement and it’s valid or invalid roles in the issue. There are one hundred articles that have done so already. What I am hoping and longing and praying for is a reflective effort by all of us; imagining ourselves in someone else’s shoes. I live this daily as I imagine my daughters’ futures, but today I’m thinking even beyond that. Not just my mommy heart for them, but what if it was ME?

What if I was the woman on the church floor, soaked in the blood of my dying child who was pierced through with bullets from the hand of one on a mission to “kill black people”? What if I was a teen goofing off with friends, taking dares to do dumb things as most teens do, and I was the one thrown to the ground and hand-cuffed while my white friends watched and went home? What if, when I googled “civil war history” (like I actually did today), and read account after account of states announcing their succession for the primary purpose of maintaining their rights to own black humans, I knew if I’d been born in the 1850’s it would have been me they were planning to purchase? When powerful leaders announced to the country:

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”-Alexander Stephens (Vice President of Confederate States of America), Cornerstone Speech.

what if my family had been the ones to huddle by the bed that night, weeping and crying out for deliverance, half believing our suffering was a sign we were only worthy of subordinate roles? After all, those in power announced their beliefs, backed them by ill-quoted Bible verses, and refuted those who were “…attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal” –Stephens What if those demeaning, brainwashing messages were directed at my identity, for days and years and generations?

I sobbed as I read Stephens’ speech. I urge you to read it, too. We do well to go back and remember from time to time, as nauseating as it is. Tell me this, if those words represent the spirit of the Confederacy, doesn’t it seem that, no matter how many years pass, its flag will represent suffering and tears and unimaginable despair to a people group whose story traces back to its origin? And since this spirit of hatred is still alive and well in so many who proudly wave that flag today (Dylann Roof being a most recent example), do we not owe it to those whose history bears more scars than we can count, to stop and listen oh-so-carefully when they speak up about something that brings them disrespect or pain? As a nation of liberty and justice for all, I’d say yes. As a person who has taken an oath to the kingdom of Love and claimed Jesus as King? YES!

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Isn't kindness grounds enough? Isn't love alone worth it? Could we all just say “I don’t know how it feels in your shoes, I don’t understand all this pain, I can’t heal the wound, but here, rest on my shoulder. Let me kneel down and loosen your laces.”

(This is part 1 of a 3 part series on navigating current issues, white privilege, and building safe relationships in regards to race. I have written this under the assumption that those who are reading are white (since unfortunately 90% of my friends and family are). If by chance you are reading this as a person of color, please, please speak up. Tell us your story. Point out where I’m getting this wrong. Private message me, I have questions and I want to listen, ideally face to face. For the rest of you, I want to hear your thoughts and experiences, too. Bring on the respectful dialogue!)

~C

Wilted

In an unprecedented act of promptness, Dave and I moved yesterday, one day ahead of schedule. A window of reprieve from the monsoon and a rapid response of a few willing helpers got us in motion, and when things picked up steam, Dave stopped me in the bedroom and said, "I think we need to try to do it all tonight". What followed was fast and furious packing of any remains in cupboards and closets, with toothbrushes and blankets and dirty towels shoved in every available space. Thanks to a couple friends, a couple dads (and moms!), and a trusty Grandpa, it was all moved by midnight except a few odds and ends.

This is the first time in history he and I have ever been an entire day early. It's worth a diary notation at least, maybe even a plaque.

No matter the amount of time and preparation, moving is such an uprooting. I've moved small, unstable plants and I've dug around roots to move older, stable ones, all vibrant and green. I don't have any great experience or research, but it seems like the post-transplant wilt is more distinct the more vivacious the root system is. I feel like it's true for us as well.

We moved almost 7 years ago, only 2 tumultuous years into our marriage, leaving a rental house with brown dingy carpet and a bad paint job, perched on the edge of a busy highway. Other than a catch in my throat when bidding the sweet old neighbors next door good bye, I walked away and never looked back. The house was neither tasteful nor comfortable, and held what seemed as many bad memories as good. The roots were small, the transplant was easy.

Yesterday I left a house that held stories of even darker days than the first, but a wealth of rich and beautiful ones. I left a wonderful neighborhood. The roots were much more dense and deep.  And today there's some wilt showing up.

This wilting is visible in different ways. There is a general wilt of the glazed eyes and melting skin sort,  likely having more to do with scant hours of sleep interrupted by every creak and bump, and the game of Survivor Midwest humidity and old farm houses without the newfangled contraptions such as air conditioners seem to have concocted; who will be the last one standing under the humidity suffocation?? (Bonus points challenge, who of the sweating contestants will best cope with having two showers, neither of which currently have usable shower curtains?)

The wilting also shows up in regression of behaviors- certain people assuming a new pad means all household rules are now open to negotiation, and certain bigger people forgetting to use calm words when both sets of car keys are missing.

Unfamiliar sounds and smells and chaos everywhere sets the whole family on edge, even the canines. And some canines with their pacing and moaning and bouts of IBS are more sensitive (and frighteningly similar to their owners) than others.

This afternoon I stood quiet and watched the movement of the pasture. The wind waved the tall grass, swallows dipped and sored, and six butterflies danced in formation, a fluttering kite tail of white over the creek. The robin songs were the happiest loud.

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But then I saw the pasture grasses thrashing and loudly stirring and brown heads surfaced over the weeds before ducking down again at the fence nearest the house. I screamed at Ebby to get inside, because while my rationale was telling me it was only stray dogs, my much more persuasive panic was yelling, "Wolverines! They probably have a den under the old tree and are set to consume whatever is disturbing their pack!"

Suddenly all the beauty I'd observed seemed unworth the risks of this place. The wilting just happens, even in the loveliest conditions.

I've spent much time resisting this move, denying it, trying to talk my way out of it, resenting it, most of all fearing it- this uninhibated space feels isolating and so far from my ideals and dreams.

But the thing about a transplant is, the gardner always does it with purpose. More sun, more space, better soil, all lead towards more potential to thrive. Even though at first, regardless of the better light or richer nutrients, the uprooting gives it a temporary set back.

I believe I know good plans for my flowers, so I surely have to believe my Creator knows me and us and our best potential for thriving, and it must include being here.

We're all wilting a little today, feeling uprooted and vulnerable. But I'm looking for the signs: the new color, the fresh spark, the signs of settled roots and thriving life.