To be drawn towards a people group or country doesn’t mean you swoop in to fix their problems, or try and make them assimilate to your culture, but to listen and adapt yourself to their culture. It is to open your eyes to the weaknesses and arrogance of your own culture, and to change not the people but yourself. True mission is not so much about giving as learning to receive; not so much about speaking as listening.
The best way I know to combat racism is to start where I can – by listening to the stories and wisdom of people who’ve experienced racism and xenophobia.
We weren’t made to be the stars of our own shows, to think that we are the only people that exist; but to play out this thing called life with the rest of the humans on the planet. Not just the ones we like, the ones that are like us, or the ones who are nearby. We can’t let distance rob us of our humanity.
It is a natural response to want to creep back into the safety of our tribes, to draw lines about what makes us ‘us’, and them ‘them’, but it is not the way of love. Love crosses boundaries and borders; it dares to stare people in the eye and love them for their personhood, their humanity.
God is love, through and through – daring, defiant, powerful love. God calls us to love others in the way that God alone loves: seeing them truly, loving them entirely.
All I can do is hold your hand, my brother, my sister. I will shout and scream with you. I will curse this day for you. I will bear with you, for the Glory, for the newness. Until we get home.
We think we can buy healing. People of faith do it with earnest prayer; others of us do it with private doctors or alternative healers, fitness regimes and juicing. Of course, sometimes, for some people, it works, and their stories persuade us that it will work for all. Whether by prayer or our own efforts, we want to believe healing is within our control.
We knew that the refugee crisis was bad – the people drowning in the seas, the ‘jungle church’ at Calais, but sometimes it takes the death of one person, one beautiful child, to remind us of our common humanity, to turn the ‘Them’ into ‘Us’. Some images still have the power to change the world.
There are times when life is a whirlwind and we are whirling within it. Our days had been full of flurry and preparation and whirlwind and now we sat, waiting.
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]