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Morning Devotion for the Season of Lent

February 16, 2024

Invitatory

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Reading-

Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity

The past few years, I have become deeply grateful to have been raised by parents who taught me to love a country even as I disdained its history and discovered its flaws. My father, a veteran and a Black man, had a special relationship to the flag that was perplexing to me as a teenager in the 1970s. He wore clothing emblazoned with red, white, and blue and placed little twelve-inch flags in the ground between the rosebushes alongside our house around Independence Day. He wore flag pins with pride decades before they became a performative staple….He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and despite all he saw and experienced, he decided to love a country that did not love him back. My mother, someone who had always loved books, was also patriotic in her own way, surrounding herself with Americana and filling our house with books about American history—embodying the spirit of Langston Hughes and his poem that so beautifully asserts in its opening line, “I, too, sing America.” I now see that they were practicing a special kind of patriotism, to see America for what it is with all its noxious disappointments and still believe in what it can and should be.

Meditation-Rebecca Northington

Our Hidden Conversations is written by Michele Norris and is based on the Race Card Project. I found it nearly impossible to select an excerpt that could even touch the purpose, depth, and totality of this book, or this project. So for those of you who are unfamiliar, allow me a moment to explain. In 2010, curious about how Americans talk about race, Norris embarked on a rather courageous task. She solicited responses to a simple prompt: Race. Your story. 6 words. Please Send. She left these prompts on cards all over America; in airports, restaurants, bookstores, hotels, really everywhere she traveled. Miraculously people followed the directions on the cards and responded-sending their cards via mail at first and ultimately through her website which she expanded to serve this growing project. Eventually she added a two word addition, “anything else”, and the photos, explanations and conversation starters poured in. People wanted to talk about race, and they wanted to hear what other people had to say about race, even if they didn’t always like or understand it.

“Taken together, this unique archive provides a window into America’s beating heart during a period bookended by the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump”, as well as the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, the election of 2020 and the January 6th event. What Norris found is that people actually want to talk about race-and with people who are, and are not, firmly entrenched in their own sense of racial identity. White people, black people, brown people, yellow people, and people who feel invisible – want to be seen and treated-or see and treat others– with dignity and love. Sound familiar? Treating strangers, or the “other” with dignity and love? We will come back to that. 

I wanted to bring the kids of RYG something valuable and different this Black History month, and I thought the parish in general might find this project compelling. The 6 word responses and additional summaries are surprising. Our kids did their own and they were not what I would have presumed. When you explore the Race Card Project you will gain a glimpse into a multitude of perspectives: of Vietnamese immigrants, children of sharecroppers, children of Japanese internment camps, white kids from rural northwestern towns who have never met anyone not white, grandchildren of slave owners and children of slaves, children and grandchildren who find out later in life that they have black ancestry, parents who are learning about racism through the eyes of their adopted children, black professional men who live in primarily white affluent neighborhoods, white people who the world has labeled racist or privileged when in fact they feel they have been climbing out of an abusive hole of poverty and neglect since birth. This book represents the voices of America and points towards the opportunity for healing when we listen to one another, when we are vulnerable with one another, when we root for our enemies, much less love our enemies. This project does what Jesus asks all of us to do. 

Michele Norris spoke in this excerpt about her parents' story and the hope that they have for the America that could and can be. In some ways this attitude of hope and faith in a new world directly reflects the hope and faith of Christ: the idea that we should try to build the kingdom while here on earth. Perhaps this Lent instead of “sacrificing” chocolate or caffeine, we should consider taking in a new perspective. Through this project or an alternative news source, a seemingly opposing political view in literature or journalism, or actually sitting down with someone whose background you know to be completely alien to your own and asking about their story. Maybe in opening up our own hearts and minds to the “other” around us we not only learn and grow, but we help to lessen the divides that ravage this country, and respond instead to the gospel story which urges us towards healing love, and the potential to build a united people, regardless of any construct of race.  

Prayers for the Social Order

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so

move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the

people of this land], that barriers which divide us may

crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our

divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.