My daughter ran across pictures on the internet depicting violent scenes and other disturbing images. These images shook her. Images of firefighters with firehoses blasting people on the streets and policemen with their attack dogs unleashed on women and children. The two very professions that she recalls from September 11th who sacrificed themselves for others. She asked over and over why are police and firefighters trying to hurt those people.... why are the white people so angry?"
My daughter had no idea that when I grew up there existed whites only water fountains, and whites only restrooms. These things are beyond her comprehension, alien to her very being .... she could not believe that human beings would visit such horrific acts upon other human beings just because of skin color! She had not experienced this ugliness personally until the Sunday following the election of President Obama.
On that Sunday she overheard some older men in the congregation using graphically racist epithets to express their feelings about our new President and his heritage. Those words drove her to tears, for you see this was in church, she was sitting in the Pastor's Office, these men did not know she was there, they were speaking freely. She ran to her Mom and through her tears she cried they are supposed to be Christians, why do they say such hateful things.
This kind of hatred that, not so long ago, led to public lynchings does not just go away on its own accord as evidenced by the conversation my daughter overheard in church! It remains. Individuals have to make life choices and change beliefs and behaviors. Nevertheless, this kind of vile hatred will always exist, and we as Christians know that evil exists and that humans are capable of anything under the sun. We do have hope...and that hope is in the renewing work of God in and through each of us. And so, I look forward to the day our children's children come of age and say "Never Again"!
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