Portrait of Jesus {it happened on a sunday} Day 4

When I was in elementary school, my family switched churches.  It was something that would continue to happen every few years, precipitated by some sort of divisive policy or personal affront.  We began to spend our Sundays at a Nazarene church, and I would only later realize, due to our brief time there, that my parents were using it as a place to hide out and rest before finding a community they genuinely liked.

This church was different from the last.  The smells of wooden pews and musty carpets were replaced by air fresheners and fresh paint.  There was a modern-looking auditorium in place of a stained-glass sanctuary.  And what stands out in my memory so many years later is the portrait hanging in the hall where we lined up to use the bathroom during Sunday School.

I can't remember if someone told me it was a picture of Jesus or if I somehow intuited it, but it was the first time I'd seen a visual representation of the man who told Zaccheus to come out of his tree, who walked on water, who died so we could have candy on Easter.  And it blew my poor literal 7 year old mind.

There were so many questions.  If Jesus lived thousands of years ago, did that mean the portrait was thousands of years old?  If so, how did our church acquire it?  Who painted it?  How had it been preserved for so long?  And, even more disconcerting, if it wasn't thousands of years old, if the Son of God hadn't spent part of his time on earth posing for oil paintings, then how did the artist know what he looked like?  How could we be sure that was Jesus?

I can remember staring so hard at the painting each week, hoping to gain some insight.  I hoped that I could solve the great mysteries that this artwork initiated.  Instead, it joined a growing list of things that confused me about church.  Why did we call Communion "the blood of Jesus"?  Imagine my surprise the first Sunday I was allowed to partake of the sacrament, holding the tiny plastic cup and hearing the pastor announce what we were all about to drink!  My eyes popped open, despite the solemn prayer that was coming from the front of the room.  I checked the grown ups' faces, freaking out that none of them seemed even the least bit concerned that we were apparently part of a vampiric cult.  This produced more questions.  The human body only contains so much blood, right?  And Jesus has been gone for a long, long time.  So where did this blood come from?  I couldn't wait for the prayer to conclude, I had to know right away what was in this cup, and so I drank it with a tentative sip and exclaimed, "OH!  It's just grape juice!"  Why didn't the pastor just say that?

It was probably about 10 years after I first saw the Jesus portrait that I learned a few things.  One, that artists create likenesses, that in painting historic figures for whom there is no recorded image they will often use their friends, family, even themselves as the model.  This is certainly what had happened in the image that my youth group friends referred to as "Swedish Jesus".  He looked so European and suave, like someone on his way to pick up Haagen Daaz wearing a thick cable knit sweater.

Medical artist Richard Neave drew this
image of Jesus based on forensic
anthropological research

I also learned the general physical characteristics of different racial groups, that hair texture and nose shape and skin color varied across a huge spectrum among human beings, and the Jesus born in Bethlehem under the authority of the Roman Empire probably looked more like the guys flying planes into buildings on September 11th than the man smiling benevolently outside my church's bathrooms.

All my previous questions were replaced by one pretty big concern.  Since the Bible tells us that Jesus is the physical representation of an invisible God, that those who saw Jesus in the flesh saw the glory of God revealed, why did Christian churches in the Western world (and maybe just the USA) choose to display portraits that were so obviously made in their own image, instead of the image of God?  If God created each of us, red, yellow, black, and white, and we were precious in his sight, then why were we so uncomfortable looking at a Jewish guy from the Middle East when we went to worship him?

Unlike my previous questions, whose answers had eluded me for years, this one seemed pretty obvious.  All I had to do was look around the auditorium, or sanctuary, or sancti-nasium (yes, that's a thing) on a Sunday morning to realize that very few people, if any at all, were painted with a darker shade of skin pigment than Sun-Kissed Honey.  The white men and women who made up the churches of my youth, and, sadly, still make up the churches I've been to as an adult, weren't interested in cultural diversity or ethnic accuracy.

Why is this?  Why in North America is Sunday the most segregated day of the week?  Why haven't we figured out how to integrate black and white and Latino and Asian and everything in between?  Why have we allowed the cultural institution of race to infiltrate our spiritual institution?  And what are we doing today, this very Sunday, to correct it?

**I feel the need to add that the second image from medical artist Richard Neave lends more truth to the prophecy from Isaiah 53: "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him."  If Jesus looked like the white dude in a crowd of Israelites, I'm pretty sure they would have found his appearance both surprising and note-worthy.

Picking Up and Laying Down

I don't think I will ever forget this conversation I had with my husband when I was in my final trimester of my first pregnancy.  We were at our home, probably eating a slow-paced meal or reading books or one of the other leisurely activities we enjoyed Before Kids.  My husband gazed at the ever-growing basketball under my shirt and said, "Do you know, when I go to work sometimes I forget we're having a baby?"  He said it in a voice of bemused wonder, so casual.  And inside my hormone-fueled, aching body, my blood boiled.

My son was almost born fatherless.

I entertained the thought of murdering my husband for a moment before deciding instead to yell at him.  (I'm not sure he ever got used to Pregnant Rachel.  He never could seem to tell what would make me angry, make me cry, or what I would shrug off or ignore.)  "It must be nice to walk out the door and completely forget about this baby," I shouted.  "It must be nice to get busy with something and have it just fall out of your head.  It must be nice to focus on something else, anything else, because the evidence of this kid's impending birth is not sitting on your bladder."

My husband had the privilege of forgetting what was going on inside my body.  I did not.  Even before I took the test that confirmed we were having a baby, my body was under assault.  I was exhausted, nauseous, flatulent, clumsy, then ravenously hungry, constipated, achy, emotional, and sometimes I was terrified, manically cleaning, wishing I could undo what was happening and go back to my old life.  I never got a break from my experience, from my feelings, from the
knowledge that my life was changing and would never be the same.

Now, let's all agree on one thing:  when a man and woman who love each other get pregnant and have a beautiful baby that they raise together, this is a good thing.  Although pregnancy is not fun in many ways, the outcome is amazing.  It's why I did it again, why I would do it again tomorrow if I could.  But there are many experiences and feelings that are not great, that we would love to be able to put an end-date on.  Like racism.  I'll bet black people in America, if they were told that yes, your lives are hard right now, and this is a difficult thing you all are going through, but in nine months you will be able to shed the burden of hundreds of years of judgment and oppression and experience true equality in every area of life...well, I'll bet they would take a collective deep breath and get through the next nine months.

Except there is no expiration date.  Muslims will still be Muslims next year, provided they don't get murdered by ignorant nationalist jerks.  Black men will still look like scary big dudes to people who see a threat where there isn't one.  Mexicans (and really, all people of Latin descent, whose skin is just a shade too brown) will still get told to go back where they came from, even if here is where they came from.  The others, the minorities, the different looking will never get a break from discrimination, which can be as simple as being followed around a convenience store or being placed in remedial classes at school, all the way to being shot while standing unarmed next to their broken down car.  I get why people are angry.

And, while I mourn with those who mourn, and I long to see change in our country, I cannot deny that I get the privilege daily to decide how much to care.  I can choose to pick up my grief, to offer words of comfort and compassion, to walk with protesters and write a blog post and rant at whoever will listen that This is not right.  Or I can sit with my kids and read Pete the Cat and sigh about how messy their rooms are and feel disappointed that I have to drink water because someone else drank my Coke and get excited about a new episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.  I can look around at all that I have:  a house, three healthy children, a good husband, enough money to keep the lights on and food on the table, a big yard to play in, schools where my kids are learning and thriving.  I can see a police car and only feel worried if my speedometer says I'm going too fast, I can let my kids run around the playground and ride their bikes and my biggest concern is that they'll be kind to others.  The people in government and starring in movies and advertising shampoo look like me.  I don't feel judged at my bank or when I apply for jobs or when I walk in somewhere unfamiliar.

In many ways, the world is a safe place for me.  Does that mean that it's a safe place for everyone?  Absolutely not.  In fact, my own experiences as a vulnerable child tell me that this world is not a good place to be isolated and defenseless.  It is only the powerful and the privileged who will thrive here.  My white skin and my suburban address cushion me from the harsh experiences of the larger world.  I don't have to think about it if I don't want to.  I can shut my door and forget about all of it.

So, people who look like me, people who have this privilege of ignoring the experiences and hardships of others, what choice will you make today?  How will you choose to see the world tomorrow?  What are you going to do about the outcry across our country that there is not freedom and justice for all?

It is time to pick up the burden.  It is time to care about our brothers and sisters who are dying while we go to Target and soccer practice and remodel our kitchens.  It is time to change the system from the inside out, and it is time that we all feel uncomfortable about what is happening in our streets.

It is time to mourn.

On Racial Tension

Well, here it goes.  This is my attempt to write about something that has become a very big issue in our country right now, something that I haven't felt able or qualified to write about before (and let's face it, that hasn't changed) for a few reasons.  One is that I'm white.  I've followed the news a little and every time I see an article about white privilege, I find myself nodding along in agreement.  Yep, that's me, someone who has lived her whole life privileged enough not to have to think about race.  I would rather listen to others share their experiences than try to jump on my platform and tell anyone what is going on with race in America.  The other is that this topic is so HUGE.  It is not only what is happening now, how different cities and states and sectors of society are handling issues of race, but it encompasses everything that has led to this moment.  We are reaping the consequences of decisions made by our parents, our grandparents, and so on and so on all the way back to our nation's founders, 16th century conquistadors, Greek philosophers, and Hebrew kings.  People hating other people because of superficial differences in appearance, religious practice, eating habits, or dress code is one of the only constants we can point to in history.  No matter where, no matter when, somebody was prejudiced against somebody else because human beings just love to break complicated issues down into us vs. them.

The truth is, I am a spectator.  I am not involved in much that happens beyond my front yard.  I am a commentator at best, enjoying a good discussion about what is going on without really doing anything about it.  So this is not me taking a stand; quite literally, I am reclined in bed as I type this.  All I am really hoping to accomplish is to make public the words that I have spoken in private, and, if I may be so bold, talk about the future.

It began tonight at dinner.  My husband and I were trying to have a conversation over the children's chatter, and the topic focused on the issue of race.  My husband (and I should perhaps point out that he and I see things differently from time to time, and so I will express my own opinion and please don't ever assume that he speaks for me or that I speak for him unless we explicitly make that claim) said that racism seems to be getting worse lately for some reason.  But I disagree.  I think racism is honestly making a slow but steady loser's retreat.  However, in the past year or so (because the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner occurred last summer), racial tension has increased dramatically. And I see that as progress.

While I am not qualified to speak about race, I am qualified to speak about history, being a long-time student and lover of it.  There is a word that comes up time and time again as we look back, and that word is revolution.  Now here is the thing I find most interesting about revolutions.  Do you know when they happen?  Do you know what precipitates and provides catalyst for them?  You would think it is when things are at their worst, when people are horribly oppressed and voiceless and they just. can't. take. anymore.  But that isn't when revolution happens.  A revolution comes about when things are getting better.  There is futility in being voiceless and oppressed; only when a light begins to shine at some far off point do people seize their weapons and storm the palaces of their oppressors, demanding equality and justice and demanding blood as recompense.

And so I skim the news and I listen to people talk and I can feel the tension building.  There is anger in America right now, there are mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers demanding that their voices be heard and refusing to accept the status quo.  And I feel a revolution coming.  If you disagree, if you think we have gone backwards and black lives don't matter to the ones holding the guns, ask yourself if anyone would have cared if this happened 30 years ago.  Would anyone have known?  And if you think the police are just doing their jobs and this is all being blown out of proportion and media bias and all that, ask yourself if a cop has ever pointed a gun at you.  In my younger, wilder days (which were quite honestly very tame, but I'm a mom now and speeding seems like a thrill ride for a reckless woman) I got pulled over quite a bit.  I was caught speeding or running a red light, and even though my parents taught me to be polite to the police, I really started to get irritated with them.  And one night (let me emphasize that it was completely dark) I was cruising on home (too fast) and got pulled over a block from my house.  Instead of being appropriately contrite with the officer, I got an attitude.  I said something along the lines of "C'mon man, I live right over there, can you go bother someone else?"  And he let me go with a warning.  So you will excuse me when I say that Darren Wilson overstepped his duties when he shot an unarmed teenager dead in the street right in front of his house because the kid gave him a little lip.  In my story, the guy actually saw me break the law, and the conclusion I am forced to draw is that police treat white and black people differently.

So about that coming revolution.  The tension is building, the protestors have taken to the streets, and I say Don't let up.  Because when was the last time a Congressman sat down to meet with his fellow Congressional leaders and said, "Hey guys, apropos of nothing, I think we should give women the right to vote.  It just occurred to me that it's rather silly that we make all the decisions just because we're men and because we've just always done it that way, and you know our wives and daughters and their friends are actually quite smart and probably capable of making an informed decision at the polls."  Rather, it took more than 70 years of suffragettes marching and petitioning and getting arrested (yay Susan B. Anthony, you go girl!) and storming the institutions of government until they got what they wanted.  Similarly, the Supreme Court justices did not meet in an empty chamber and say, "You know what I just thought of?  We have actual laws in this country that prevent homosexual couples from getting married, and yet we don't have anything that prevents consenting adult heterosexual couples from doing it.  Doesn't that strike you as strange, and even a little illegal?  Why, we should just write a ruling now before anyone realizes what's happened so that if any gay dudes want to put a ring on it, they can?"  Of course they didn't!  Change came about because of focused, intentional efforts to promote gay rights as being something that should be equal to straight rights. (Is that a thing? Is that what we call it?  And btw gays, I watched that How to Survive a Plague documentary and may I just say, you guys and ladies practically wrote the book on civil unrest.  Well done.)

Those in power will always uphold the status quo until it becomes unbearable for them to continue doing so.  And pressure and tension and raging against the machine are the only proven ways to make the powerful pay attention.  So media, keep talking about the cases of excessive use of force by police.  Black people, keep your concerns front and center.  Ordinary citizens, keep an eye (and a camera phone) out for injustice.  All lives should matter, but Justice Department investigations have shown that they don't in actual practice.  I see a revolution coming against the institutionalized racism of our police departments and our courts and I welcome it.  I would like to stress, at this point, the importance of nonviolent protest, the success of both Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr (and yes, I realize they both died for what they believed in and Nelson Mandela smuggled weapons into South Africa and lived to a ripe old age but hear me out).  I think we need action and we need tension and we need pressure on those in power, but I don't think we need armed chaos in our streets and in our cities.  I think the message gets diluted when authorities can claim that both sides have blood on their hands, when righteous anger gives way to mindless vengeance.

Let me conclude with a few things that I believe.  I believe in people.  I believe in a better future.  I believe in making the world a better place, in teaching children love rather than hate, peace rather than war.  I believe that light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.  I believe we are better than our prejudices.  I believe our founding fathers gave us the framework to pursue liberty and justice for all, even if they didn't practice it.  I believe that good wins out in the end.

Chocolate Hair/Vanilla Care: A Rant

It took six months, but it finally happened: I was accosted at the store by two black ladies who criticized the way my foster daughter's hair looked.  It is hard to be the one being judged, and especially I take criticism of my parenting extremely personally, and I'm having a hard time just letting this one go.  So here is my rant, all the things I wish time and circumstance had allotted for, and I hope that people will read this and try to adjust how they speak to others about such issues.  (I find myself REALLY wishing that I had a huge black woman following, but sadly, I fear that this blog might not be read by any.  Let me know if I'm wrong.)

Let me start by saying that I understand that hair care is part of the whole caregiver repertoire.  To that end, I have taken classes, researched styles and products, asked my black friends (and a few strangers who had the misfortune of being in the hair care aisle with me) for help.  It is a learning process, especially for someone who does very little with her own hair, and was blessed with three sons who require very little maintenance in that respect.  I am definitely still learning, trying to understand what healthy hair looks like, and it's not easy when there are differences of opinion and conflicting advice.  I am trying to do what is best for my Girl.

Because, secondly, she is not in foster care because her hair was jacked up.  She was taken from her mother because her physical safety, her very tender precious LIFE was in danger.  And because of that, my priorities in her care are first to keep her safe, to help maintain her health, second to tend to her broken heart and be a source of comfort since she is going through a very difficult time.  The way her hair looks comes at the bottom of a long list that includes positive life experiences, educational opportunities, spiritual development, having enough food to eat, a safe place to sleep, and teaching her rules and boundaries.  In these areas, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job, and her caseworker AND biological mother agree.

Another reason her hair doesn't look great is that she is three, and a bit of a tomboy.  She tolerates medicine better than she tolerates hair care, whether it is me running a comb and some product through or getting braids done by my new best friend Shaquana.  She rubs her hair on the couch, pulls out beads and barrettes, rolls around in leaves and dirt and grass.  Her hair gets messy, dirty sometimes, and styles come out.  If given a choice between letting her be a kid and keeping her hair looking nice, I will let her be a kid EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.  She has witnessed too much for her young age, and I refuse to hurry her childhood any more than it already has been.

Finally, I'd like to address what was said to me, and what ultimately turned this into a negative experience.  I was pushing Girl in a grocery cart, along with my son James, when a woman approached me and told me I needed to get a specific product to put in her hair.  I stopped because, as I mentioned before, I am trying to learn and do better.  I'd never heard of the product she mentioned, so I asked more about it.  Another woman was walking by and joined in the conversation, and what I had thought would be a conversation turned into a verbal assault.  The two of them went back and forth on either side of my cart, RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CHILD, and the advice about getting this hair product gave way to a general admonishment of how her hair looked.  "You shouldn't have brought her out looking like that," the woman told me.  Without giving me a chance to speak, she went on, "You're a foster parent right?" I nodded.  "They give you money, take her somewhere and spend some of that money on her," was her response.  At this point, I was shocked, and the other woman began to back away, saying, "No offense intended," but the first woman, the one who stopped me in the first place, the one who worked at the store I had just spent money at, went on.  "Put a hat on her or something.  You wouldn't take your own children out like that," were her final words as she turned away and left me face to face with a little Girl who was patting her hair and looking confused.

This is where we come face to face with Assumption and Humiliation.  Because yes, I am a foster mom and yes, "they" do give me money, and hey, guess what?  I do spend that money on her.  I pay a woman (remember, my new best friend?) to braid her hair every couple of weeks.  I buy fancy shampoo and conditioner from the health food store, not to mention a variety of detangling and moisturizing products.  She has her own set of combs, barrettes, beads, rubber bands, and headbands that we have purchased for her.  Not to mention the money we spend to clothe her, feed her, transport her to school, the activities that we do, like swimming and gymnastics.  As for my "own" kids (which is a whole other thing, because, um yeah, she IS one of "my" kids now), just ask my mom how nice their hair looks.  She will be the first to tell you the only times my boys' hair gets combed is at her house or at the barber shop.  They walk around with bedhead, they go too long between cuts, they suffer terrible hack jobs when they get gum or burrs stuck in their hair.  I spend more time, energy, and money on Girl's hair than my entire family COMBINED.  And if you've been paying attention, she doesn't keep pretty things in her hair.  She pulls out twists and braids, accessories (we've lost all the headbands we got for her), and the scarf she wears to bed is almost always on the floor when she wakes up in the morning.  So putting a hat or some other item on her head is no solution at all, but thanks for suggesting it.  What was going on yesterday then, if I'm putting all this effort into her hair?  It's been hard to make time to get new braids, since she's in school four days a week, has doctor's appointments and family visits every week, and, you know, I have three other kids to take care of.  Her hair was loose, and I hadn't had a chance to comb through it that day.  It was looking a little tight and kinky, I guess, maybe it looked too dry?  The ladies never did tell me what exactly was wrong with it, except that I needed to give her an oil treatment (which I do) and have someone put it in braids (which is happening in a few days, on the one morning we are available).  What upsets me most is that all of this was said right in front of my Girl, that she heard every word.  That I have spent the past six months earning her trust and taking care of her, and that was undone in about five minutes.  That we got home and she went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror and asked, "Mommy, can you do my hair?"  Up until that moment, she hadn't paid any attention to her appearance; just that morning, a friend at church smiled at her and told her she was beautiful.

I will always try to avoid the confrontation, especially in front of my children.  And so I didn't answer the charges those women leveled at me.  I didn't pass some of the blame onto Girl's birth mother, who certainly has the opportunity to style and care for her daughter's hair during their visits, because I have a personal conviction to never criticize a child's parent to their face (going back to that trust I'm trying to build with her).  I didn't offer up the figures that prove I do indeed spend money on her care.  And I can't help but wonder if they would have said any of it if my husband were the one pushing the cart.  Why is it that we applaud men just for spending time with their children, but we criticize mothers no matter what they do?

 I wish this wouldn't have happened at all.  I wish those women would have either stayed civil and conversed with me, or just kept walking and minding their own business.  But ultimately, if they think black children in our community are suffering at the hands of their white caregivers, I wish they would head downtown and get licensed to be foster parents themselves.  All they've done is make me angry and make my Girl ashamed of her appearance.  Why not do something positive instead?