Ever had that one thing that just grates on your nerves?
That one thing for me is Buddy’s (one of our dogs) bark.
While I adore my dogs, Buddy has a bark that makes any sort of rational thought impossible. The only words I can think to describe it are shrill and mind-splitting. And he does it every single time he wants to be let back in the house. Which makes life at our home interesting, because our other dog, Lucy, always wants to be let OUT. So we have this revolving door of Lucy whining to be let out and then, not two minutes later, Buddy barking to be let back in.
Trying to pay the bills in this situation is challenging to say the least! And more than once I have leapt up from my seat in frustration and flung the door open for him to be let back in with a less-than-stellar attitude and much muttering about how I can’t think while he’s barking and that he can’t go out again for at least the next hour.
I’m fairly certain that describes the way some- if not many- of us feel right now when it comes to a couple of certain topics: COVID and race.
“We’re tired of talking about it.”
I’ve had that sentiment either expressed to me or passed along to me about both the pandemic and discussions about race. There is a significant chunk of the population that is ready to “move on” to the next thing and stop bringing up COVID and race.
Please understand: if that’s you, I’m not judging you. I get it. Especially if you’re staying glued to the news all the time where there is practically nothing positive being reported and it’s all drama or all downside all the time. That’s one of the reasons I have intentionally disconnected myself from the news over the past month or so. I was getting so overwhelmed with all the negativity that it was poisoning my own mood, and I just had to cut it off. Maybe that’s a step you need to take as well.
But that doesn’t mean you need to completely check out from the conversations regarding race or COVID. Why?
Because I suspect that it’s not really the subject matter that we’re tired of. It’s what lies underneath.
A Disgusting Illustration
One thing that unnerves me about pedicures (for the record, never have had one, don’t plan to get one) is this thing where you get the callouses of your feet practically grated off. That just makes my stomach turn, and not because of the removal of dead skin. It’s because I have this fear that the cheese grater they use (that’s what it sounds like to me anyway. Don’t judge) is going to past the callouses and start grating skin. No. Thank. You.
That may be a bit too much info for some of you, but there’s a point behind it:
Generally speaking, we are OK dealing with things on a relatively surface level. We’re OK talking about things that don’t really hit us in the gut. We’re OK with discussions that never become uncomfortable…until they do.
Once the callous, so to speak, is removed and we get to the actual part of us that can feel, we almost immediately pull back because it’s uncomfortable. And it’s uncomfortable because something has been exposed that has long been covered up.
And I believe there are two things in particular that the current matters at hand are uncovering in our own lives that we’ve long wanted to avoid…but COVID and the current discussions on race have brought screaming, painfully, to the surface: Our need for control and the illusion of calm.
Two sides of the same coin
Let’s face it: all of us have a little (or a lot) of control freak in us. We want to feel like we are in charge; like we run the ship, like we are the masters of our own lives. Even as followers of Jesus under Jesus Lordship, this is still an attitude that lies underneath the surface of all of our lives.
What we avoid is anything that makes us feel like we are out of control.
- This is why some of us don’t like the woods (me)- who knows what might jump out and get you?
- This is why many of us avoid roller coasters.
- This is why some of us run away from any discussion that brings up emotion, because we’re not sure what these things we are feeling are and we don’t like it and aren’t sure what will happen.
This is why many of us are tired of hearing the words “COVID” or “corona virus” or “pandemic”. It’s why many of us buck hard against the current order to wear a mask in public places. It’s simply due to the fact that it doesn’t feel like we are in control of our lives anymore. It feels like someone tossed us onto a ride we didn’t ask to go on, and there’s no stop button or off switch.
And tuning out any further discussion of it is our attempt at hitting the off switch.
Again, I think it’s probably wise to avoid a lot of the news these days (mainly because most of it isn’t news, but opinion about the news, which only serves to make everyone angry all the time). However, the problem with simply stating “I don’t want to talk about it anymore” is two-fold:
- It isn’t going away any time soon…so tuning it out completely is kind of like putting your head in the sand.
- Tuning it out completely deflects away from a pain point that God wants to deal with in our lives.
Rather than avoiding conversations about COVID, we need to lean in. But I’d actually go further than that. I’d say we need to go beyond the actual subject matter to the feelings that arise from the subject matter so that God can deal with issue of control in our lives.
And I believe the way God wants to deal with us is this: He wants us to realize that control is an illusion. We are not in control, and our efforts to control our lives are useless. But that’s not a reason to freak out. It’s a reason to be at rest. After all, this is what God says to us:
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”- Isaiah 41:10 (NIV)
As it turns out, the way to calm is not control. It’s looking at Christ.
Speaking of calm…the illusion of calm is the other side of the coin to our need to control things. We feel like we to control things because it makes us feel calm, and we feel we need the illusion of calm because it makes us feel like we are in control.
NOTE: The following is mostly speaking to my white brothers and sisters in Christ.
So…when matters of race come to the surface, particularly if you are white, it creates discomfort because it brings to light the fact that things are not as calm as we often lead ourselves to believe. Sure, things may be calm for us personally…but many times, for our non-white brothers and sisters, things are anything but calm.
That has become abundantly clear over the past month.
By the way, I get the desire to “move on.” No one that is following Jesus closely likes conflict, and I fully acknowledge that there appear to be certain parties to the conversation on race (many times those with very political agendas divorced from spiritual truths) that appear to be more invested in maintaining a conflict cycle than achieving true reconciliation and healing.
But just because those parties exist doesn’t mean we should ignore the conversation at hand. White Christians certainly shouldn’t ignore the pain of their fellow non-white brothers and sisters in Christ. And wanting to simply “move on” while our non-white brothers and sisters are in pain is the opposite of loving; it’s callous.
And to do it just so we can retain the illusion of calm is ultimately idolatry of what we feel is calm. We need to lean into that instead of checking out of the conversation, because when we lean into it, what we begin to see is that there is no true calm when part of the body of Christ is in pain. Paul puts it this way:
“…But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”- 2 Corinthians 12:24-26 (NIV), emphasis mine
What God wants to work in us through this conversation on race is, I believe, a move towards a biblical level of concern for all people in the body of Christ. He wants to move us away from the mindset that “As long as things are good for me, I’m OK.” We don’t find that attitude any where in Scripture. We are commanded to be concerned for the entire body, and if a part is in pain, then we can’t think things are calm; they aren’t. Where there’s pain, healing is needed, and we cannot simply go about our day-to-day lives as the “hand” of the body of Christ if the “foot” is broken.
If we stay tuned into the conversation about race instead of tuning out, I believe that what will develop in us over time is Christ-like love and concern for each other. And that will get the attention of the world.
At the end of the day, the bottom line is this: We aren’t in control, and things are not all calm within the body of Christ. At the same time, we aren’t called to pursue control because God is in control. What we are called to pursue, however, is biblical concern for each other. Then, as we love and serve each other- regardless of what happens around us- we show Jesus to the world.
And THAT is the goal. But we won’t grow to that point if we check out as soon as the conversation gets painful. It only happens as we lean in and listen up to what the Holy Spirit wants to teach us. And, as we persevere through the pain of change in our own hearts, Jesus will make us into something that will alleviate pain within the His family and in this world.