Love Heals

A racial justice learning journey

When I started this newsletter nearly two years ago, I named it The Healers are Rising as an inclusive title and an encouragement that:

The healers are rising and are transforming the times we live in. The healers are rising, and you are one of them.

I want us all to recognize and own the fact that our personal learning and healing journeys are important. What we are doing as we leave behind the baggage of our past or the blindness of our present is transmuting darkness into light. Our struggles to heal, learn and grow matter. They matter not just to us, but to our loved ones and to society as a whole.

Like many writers, I write about what I need to hear and be reminded of. I write first to myself to reaffirm that the Spirit is with us, Emmanuel, in our moments guiding and loving us. I also write about what makes my spirit shimmer. Sometimes, I share words and resources from those with very large public platforms: published books, podcasts, artworks, recordings, etc. A lot of times, I share about lesser known people who've had a healing influence on my life.

Those of us who do not have a broad national platform have so much power regardless of our reach, our number of followers or our visibility. The biggest power we have is that of love, the Divine Love that provides our every breath and indwells our every moment. Love heals. We all know this in our personal lives. Love also heals in our collective lives.

There are many of us who've been on a learning journey regarding racial justice in our nation. Many of us white people who are from a Christian background have been challenged to confront our ignorance and assumptions and deal with them. We have also come to the necessary and painful conclusion that the white American Church has been complicit in the systematic racism that has oppressed our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) brothers and sisters. As my friend Rob said,

This is not Black peoples’ problem. This is white peoples’ problem. We have to be the biggest part of the solution.

Our longtime dear friends Rob and Lisa have been actively and organically involved in a healing work in the beautifully vibrant community of North Minneapolis, where the neighborhood erupted in grief and violence after the murder of George Floyd. Their story of how their white eyes were opened to the truth of racial injustice in the U.S. is an affecting one. They went from thinking several years ago that racial injustice was generally solved by the Civil Rights Era with only isolated incidents occurring — to a place of learning from and walking alongside the Black Church as they brought a healing coalition to the most volatile areas of Minneapolis from 2020 onward. A fully Black-led peace and love initiative, it swept Rob, Lisa and their five kids into the flow and transformed their hearts.

And it all started with two things: a guest speaker at their church who challenged their presuppositions about race relations in the U.S., and a challenge their daughter Rebecca was given in her college class to visit a church community that was different from hers. In early 2020 before the nation would plunge into the pandemic and deep grief after Floyd’s death, their family of seven chose the closest Historically Black Church and were welcomed, invited back and visited more frequently. They also began reading and educating themselves on the history of racial injustice in America. And the process continued, because of their willingness to be present with their Black brothers and sisters in times of learning, in times of sorrow, in times of prayer and in times of outreaching, healing love.

Rob and Lisa have been part of a Black Church-led coalition of prayer and presence on the streets in North Minneapolis. The result has been the building of meaningful relationships and confirmed statistics from the Minneapolis Police Department that crime rates are down in the specific areas where the coalition is showing their consistent, friendly support. Rob and Lisa have also been a bridge between their home church and the Black Church — bringing more people into the movement of support for the BIPOC community in North Minneapolis.

In the future, I will share more about their racial justice learning journey of understanding. For now I'll leave you with Rob’s soul-searching poem. Rob has always been willing to struggle with discomfort, doubt and truth, and I admire that about him. It would be easier to stay privileged and comfy in the white American church. But that's not the life that God has called us to. Thank you, Rob and Lisa, for your honest and shining example.

A Privileged Lament

Father God
I'm grieving
The loss of my illusions
My childish conclusions

I liked my little cocoon
Where I snuggled
For so many years
My cozy drawer of spoons
Stacked neat and tidy
With easy answers all ready in a row

Although

It was dark in there
And I was blind
And my world was
oh so very small

Still

It felt warm and safe
To pull up the covers
Over my head
And try to make it all

Go away

To paper over the gray
With black
And white
To pretend
that the world outside
Is not my problem
That the violation of

your

inalienable rights is

not

my

fight

I'm grieving the loss
Of my ready made excuses
Of Privilege that chooses
To win
On the power
Of my position
My gender
My family
My education
And the color of my skin

But am I really so blessed, Lord
With material wealth and comfort?
Or am I rather cursed?
Should I not rather grieve
to be the first of the first
Who shall yet be last
As our thirst grows worse?

You pronounced many woes
On the wealthy
Called us wretched, miserable
poor, blind, lost

and Filthy

Privilege
is what becomes of a Blessing
gripped tightly
tucked away
kept entirely
for me and mine

So if you have blessed me
Then this I know
That you have not blessed me
For me alone
But only in unity
Shared with you, my Lord
And your
Beloved Community

And so I thank you
That it's a big world
And that it's a good world
And that I can walk out into it

Because you are here
Jesus
In the face of my sister
And you are here
Lord
In the form of my brother

You're taller than I thought that you would be
And darker
And I was surprised to see you out here one day
With tattoos all up and down your arm
And I was afraid of you
But you called me brother
And embraced me

You're shorter than I thought that you would be
Mousy and blond
And I was surprised to see you out here one day
With two kids and no husband
and all your earthly possessions in your car

And it's not enough, Lord Jesus
Merely to give you a drink when you're thirsty
And something to eat
And being briefly warmed and filled
Then to send you off and wish you
Luck
in lieu of Prosperity

And scurry away
to my own warm home
In my safe neighborhood
Where I keep up just fine
with all of the Joneses

Lord Jesus
My God
Your Kingdom come
Your will be done
right here
in your Beloved Community


With respect to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the observance of his birthday.
Robert Compton
Jan 16, 2023