19 November 2016
*deep, heavy sigh*
08 November 2016
Welp.
07 November 2016
Garden store breakdowns
06 November 2016
It's Sunday
(yesterday's lament)
04 November 2016
Blah
03 November 2016
Pretty sure this is a first draft
Sup?
I've got a kitchen to clean and maybe some clothes to wash and a baby (toddler) not to wake up with my typing, but today I am actually sitting at the computer to write something instead of tapping something out on my phone because I almost forgot at the end of the day. I mean, it's still the end of the day, but baby didn't take a nap today…and also I read a lot of books today. But today I actually have an idea to blog about!
I pre-ordered Ronnie Dunn's new CD today. I saw the tweet about the Hamilton mixtape—and I was excited about it—and Roy was excited about some of the names I read out to him of the artists on it. And then NPR had an early-listen to Ronnie Dunn's CD Tattooed Heart. And I listened to it, and…it was my music, and fortunately, thanks to my book buying habits back when we weren't um, downwardly mobile, we have Apple credits, so I could just get it.
When I started therapy back in college, one of the things I had the hardest time learning was that people could be different than me and I could still love them and they would still love me. I wanted my relationships to be all about affinities, and the right choices, together. (In theory, at least.) I'll never forget the look my campus minister gave me when I made a "yuck" face at …I think it was his choice of bagel. Obviously, there's like a novel's worth of backstory there, but thank God for therapy. Growing up is hard, y'all.
But what I'm trying to come around to is that when this rural-raised southern white girl started dating a urban-raised black man, there's a lot of stuff we didn't have in common. While we were dating, I think I watched almost every Spike Lee movie ever, because I hadn't seen a single one. Roy made me mix cds, and I listened to them over and over, trying to absorb the rhythm of the hip-hop he loves. (It's socially conscious hip hop [mostly]; don't worry mom.) I made him cds and introduced him to a few artists he now loves (including Sufjan Stevens of course). But I spent time immersing myself into his genres and not expecting him to listen to all my music, including of course, the country music I listened to on the radio during the two hour rides to see him [cough and full disclosure, also go to therapy]. I enjoyed his music and was fed by it but my music kinda twisted his soul. Not to mention that one song on Charlie Daniel's Greatest Hits I had to skip because it had the n-word in it, and all the nostalgic songs about better times back in the day.
I'm thirty-two years old now. I have four kids, six or seven clean baskets of laundry, and more gray hairs than I'm emotionally prepared to deal with. Our life is pretty stressful right now, and there's a lot of things out there stressing me out that I have no control over. The best I can do is to ask Jesus to step in on my behalf. (Which yes, is no small thing.) I'm getting pared down to essentials. And y'all, I'm a white girl from rural Mississippi. I may appreciate hiphop and even love some of the songs, but my mouth doesn't move fast enough to rap along with it. I need those plaintive melodies and the steel guitars and old dudes whose voices have so many things going on that even singing along to the melody sounds like harmony. I am who I am.
It's likely I'd be addicted to Twitter anyway, but a large part of my twitter experience has been following black voices, listening and learning. I'm raising four members of the black community, and I don't want my ignorance to impede their being able to fully enter into it. I can't model black womanhood for my girls, but I can sure as hell know what it looks like, sounds like, and what hair products to use. I think of it as a room full of people that really isn't for me, but I'm saving seats for these precious lives I'm raising. So I cared that Beyonce had a new album out even though I've never listened to it, but I saw the reactions of the black women and could see that it's significant. (Roy, as an actual black person, doesn't really care about Beyonce and didn't know. My life is weird.)
When I started dating Roy, I threw out my book of confederate poetry (even though I accidentally still have some bits memorized) and my dumb Canon Press apologia for slavery (that one I actually ripped up). I don't know what happened to the confederate flag I had on my wall in high school, but here's hoping someone burned it. Fighting white supremacy is easy, right? Just reject everything pre, oh say 1968? Later depending on where in the South you live.
I'm kinda jealous of the people who can wear those shirts that say "I love my blackness and yours." I know there's that white lady don't wanna feel left out struggle going on. I want to be in the same club as my husband kids, even though I know I have all this privilege they don't…when I'm all by myself. The other day I described our family as "a black family." And I don't know what our kids are gonna do with their identities when they get old and interact more with the outside world. We'll see. But I'm hoping I'm making space for them to be whoever they want to be, but with a solid understanding of how the world usually sees people that look like them, and of course also who they are in Christ.
We're definitely gonna get the Hamilton Mixtape, because it took months but my kids finally love Hamilton, but I'm too tired to be anything more than the white lady God made me to be, and so with great joy and delight I'm going to be wallowing in that Ronnie Dunn album as soon as it releases.
02 November 2016
Hashtag quotidian mysteries
01 November 2016
Blogvember
09 August 2016
that TGC post
My responses are in bold italics. The rest of this is from a post on The Gospel Coalition, the one with the title "When God sends your white daughter a black husband."
For years I prayed for a young man I had yet to meet: my daughter's husband. I asked the Lord to make him godly, kind, a great dad, and a good provider. I was proud of a wish list void of unrealistic expectations. After all, I knew not to ask for a college football quarterback who loved puppies, majored in nuclear rocket science, and wanted to take his expertise to the mission field. I was an open-minded mom.
But God called my bluff.
This white, 53-year-old mother hadn't counted on God sending an African American with dreads named Glenn.
Glenn came to Christ in college and served him passionately. He worked while attending classes and volunteered at church in an after-school program for urban kids. He graduated and found a job as an application developer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield. I noticed he opened doors for my daughter, Anna, even at the grocery store.
Godly. Kind. Well on his way to being a great dad and a good provider. I could only smile at God's plan and asked his forgiveness for my presumptions. Still, my impressive wish list for Anna's husband paled in comparison to her own: "He loves Jesus, Mom. That's it. That's my wish list. Jesus lover." Then a grin came across her face. "It's really awesome he's also cute, right?" Anna took a deep breath and with a sparkle in her eyes asked: "So, Mom, what do you think?"
It wasn't long ago that interracial marriage—particularly a black man like Glenn marrying a white girl like Anna—was considered the ultimate taboo in American white society. (In fact, it was illegal in 16 states until 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that race-based restrictions violated the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. Hence the film releasing this fall, Loving.) Though I never shared this prejudice, I never expected the issue to enter my life.
To the parent like me who never envisioned her daughter in an interracial marriage, here are eight things to remember when your white daughter brings a black man home for dinner.
***It's a PROBLEM that the author never thought of her daughter being in an interracial marriage. That means her life and her mindset is so segregated that she doesn't know any black people and/or she doesn't see black people as her social equal. And to a black reader of this article, it reads "I never thought you or your male relative is worthy of my daughter." This article is like a bandaid over a wound that really needs to be lanced, or maybe a bandaid over an artery. Because she never fully gets to the root issue and confesses her deep (unprocessed) racism, the article is hurtful to black people.
1. Remember your theology.
All ethnicities are made in the image of God, have one ancestor, and can trace their roots to the same parents, Adam and Eve.
As you pray for your daughter to choose well, pray for your eyes to see clearly, too. Glenn moved from being a black man to beloved son when I saw his true identity as an image bearer of God, a brother in Christ, and a fellow heir to God's promises.
***The problem with this is—her point is fine. But AS A BLACK MAN, Glenn (poor guy to have his name bandied about like this) is ALREADY the image of God and all those things. His true identity is a BLACK MAN who is all those things. I understand her point, but the way she wrote this erases how God made him by covering in it up in theological terms. A black man on the street is also an image bearer of God. Period.
2. Remember to rejoice in all things.
If your daughter has chosen a man who's in Christ, and assuming there are no serious objections to their union, loving her well means not only permitting an interracial marriage but also celebrating it. My daughter's question, "What do you think?" needed more than a tolerant shoulder shrug. She needed to know I loved Glenn too. I'm deeply grateful my daughter chose this particular man, and I try to tell him often.
***I don't even understand this point? I mean, having to state this means that this is a hard thing to rejoice in, without stating all the ways this makes it hard and asking why it's a terrible thing, makes this bad. "My daughter is marrying a godly man" shouldn't need a *command* to rejoice. If she had said "i struggle with my own inner racism and the racism of my community and it's hard" that would be one thing. But to act like any interracial marriage is a struggle and a trial… I mean, that hurts my feelings.
3. Remember no Christian marriage is promised a trial-free life.
One woman in church looked over at Anna and Glenn and gingerly asked, "Are they . . . dating?"
"Engaged!" I grinned and winked at them.
She gave a pained smile, and then sighed and shook her head. "It's just . . . their future children. They have no idea what's ahead of them!"
I nodded. "When Jim and I were married, we had no idea what was ahead of us either. I stopped believing the lie we could control our trials years ago."
John Piper said it well:
Christ does not call us to a prudent life, but to a God-centered, Christ-exalting, justice-advancing, counter-cultural, risk-taking life of love and courage. Will it be harder to be married to another race, and will it be harder for the kids? Maybe. Maybe not. But since when is that the way a Christian thinks? Life is hard. And the more you love, the harder it gets.
***My family is not an trial. THE WHITE SUPREMACY THAT CREATED A RACIST AND UNJUST SOCIETY IS THE TRIAL. Just thinking about this gets my blood pressure up.
4. Remember to be patient with family members.
Calling Uncle Fred a bigot because he doesn't want your daughter in an interracial marriage dehumanizes him and doesn't help your daughter either. Lovingly bear with others' fears, concerns, and objections while firmly supporting your daughter and son-in-law. Don't cut naysayers off if they aren't undermining the marriage. Pray for them.
***PLEASE DON'T TOLERATE RACISM. IT'S A SIN AND SHOULDN'T BE CONDONED. GOD CHANGES BIGOTS. BUT THE HUMANITY OF YOUR DAUGHTER AND HER FAMILY SHOULD MATTER MORE THAN PEACE IN THE FAMILY.
5. Remember your daughter's ultimate loyalty is not to you or your family, but to the Lord.
Several people asked Anna and Glenn, "Which world will you live in—black or white?" But it's not his world, her world, or even our world.
Interracial marriage in Christ is not about the joining of two races and cultures into one. It's not about a new ethnic heritage. It's about unwavering allegiance to the one true God and all he may require of the couple as soldiers of Jesus. After all, Christians are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9).
***Again, this ignores the problem of a racist society that would even cause people to have to choose, and it's weird.
6. Remember the groom's family.
Before the wedding I reached out to Glenn's mom, Felicia. As we sat and talked about our children, we realized we have similar hopes and dreams for them. As we share a common bond, I'm hopeful Felicia can become a friend.
How might Christ be honored if such relationships were being built alongside every interracial marriage?
***Surprise! Glenn, who is an actual human, has an actual human parent who has the same hopes and dreams as most human parents. I know the author doesn't mean to but she acts like his color, his differentness, makes him and his family aliens. That's pretty hurtful. I'm sure Felicia has put up with all sorts of crap in her life and can rise above it but :(
7. Remember heaven's demographics.
As Anna and Glenn stood before our pastor and joined their two lives into one, I realized their union was a foretaste of a glory yet to come: "After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes" (Rev. 7:9).
***Okay. It might be worth asking WHY you can't reconcile your human child's relationship with another human person without thinking about the end times.
8. Remember to die to your expectations.
As a nervous young man sat in my living room, I handed him the ring my deceased husband gave me the day he asked me to marry him. With a lump in my throat, I swallowed hard and said, "Glenn, have a jeweler put it in a new setting and make it your own. It's precious to me, but you and Anna are of far greater value than that."
Far greater value indeed.
Parents, teach your daughters early to choose well. Pray hard and often. Then trust her judgment to the sovereignty of God, and rejoice with her in the goodness of God.
***If your expectations are a white in-law, a white picket fence, and the white american dream, don't just die to them, REPENT of them. Continued racial segregation hurts every strata of our society, but especially minorities and the poor.
And please note that I'm not saying that I just jumped into an interracial marriage without having lots of my own racism to repent of, because I didn't. I'm still working through stuff, especially about how I model things for our children.