A Way Forward

One of the things that is difficult about writing is that it is so personal.  An author pours part of himself/herself into every work.  This is especially true when dealing with the kind of stuff I often post.  I have tried to be open and vulnerable and honest in my writings.  This is a risk that I take because I am a teacher at heart.  I always assume that if I’m going through something, there is a good chance a bunch of other people are as well.  If I am driving along and realize that Two Notch Road is jacked up more than usual, I would want others to know so they don’t take that road.  That same consideration applies to my writing: if I can stop others from making my mistakes or help others to free themselves from something - it is my responsibility to raise awareness.  I mean, when I am ranting about LeBron James or my greatest injuries, I clearly am not offering life lessons.  But there is a type of post that anyone who remotely follows me at all will recognize.  This is going to be one of them.  It is highly personal.  If you wonder what is going on with me, then this will be a good resource.  If something stirs in you as you read, cool.  If not, cool.

I’ve been on a winding journey for a little while now.  In college, I studied to become a history teacher.  This is a job that I have never actually held.  I went into church ministry out of college and worked doing that off and on with several changes of roles for about fifteen years.  When Heather went to medical school, I switched to staying home with our kids.  I kept up with ministry for a few years, but eventually I ended up working for Kaplan Test Prep.  I’ve been doing that for almost eight years now.  I have enjoyed my time at KTP.  It has provided me great freedom in helping my family financially while staying at home and helping the kids.  I made some great friends and have been able to do what I love as I taught thousands of students.  I’m not leaving Kaplan, but there has been a change in me recently that needed to be dealt with.

In my last post, I talked some about my personal history and experiences with issues of race.  (I am sure that I will write more about this as we move along.)  For far too long, I was what I call a “casual racist” who would never identify as a racist, but who harbored many prejudiced and racist thoughts and beliefs.  It has taken a long time for that to be broken and torn out of me.  I have read books, heard sermons, talked to friends, prayed a lot.  Things in me shattered as I realized how much sin I harbored.  As I became more aware of the truth of life in America, the truth of what blacks go through on a daily basis, my heart was devastated.  I began to realize what the history that I had learned really showed.  The pain that so many have been forced to suffer through in the name of America’s advancement?  It is hard to even fathom. 

I am a big believer that God will put us in situations in order to prepare us for things later.  While Heather has been going through med training, we have lived in Tallahassee, Columbia, and Houston.  There is something unique about those cities, aside from being major cities in their respective states.  They all have a large percentage of minorities.  Tallahassee and Columbia are state capitals with large percentages of blacks.  My kids go to school in districts where white is the minority.  We live in neighborhoods that are predominantly black.  I grew up in South Florida, where Hispanics were a large portion of the population.  Houston was a wonderfully blended area.  Our city was in the most ethnically diverse county in America.  There my kids were constantly around Asians and Hispanics and blacks.  What this all has done is force me to observe and learn and open my mind and heart.  And I have changed so much.  There was a day, especially in college, when I would have described myself as an arrogant jerk.  I wasn’t nice to other people.  I thought more of myself due to my intelligence.  I judged people constantly.  I was easily devoured by rage and would have explosive episodes.  

On the other side of 45, I hardly recognize that other David.  Now, I aim to be calmer and more helpful.  I embrace those brought across my path.  I try to serve more than elevate myself.  I am quieter and more thoughtful.  I am more humble.  It has taken a lot to get to that point.  It hasn’t been easy; it has actually been quite painful.  But I wouldn’t change a thing.  I prefer this person.  Yes, it makes me more vulnerable and I feel a lot more, which isn’t always a great thing.  But I seemore.  I see those people who I wouldn’t have seen before.  I want to help people who need help.  I am not devoted to intellectual pursuits or pointless arguments.  God has been softening and preparing me for something.  For a long time, I had no idea what it was.  Finally, though, I understand.  

Heather is done with her training and now she has a position in town using her skills to change lives.  My kids are older.  Josiah is going to University of South Carolina.  The others are in 11th and 7th grade.  Two of them can drive.  They don’t need me like they used to.  They can (mostly) function without me.  So what am I going to do?  I want to write, and I have been exploring what that looks like.  But even in those endeavors, I don’t feel fulfilled if I’m not trying to teach or make a difference.  I thought that maybe Kaplan would be a long-term answer, but that really doesn’t seem the right thing.  I’ve considered being a media specialist or a guidance counselor or a college counselor.  Those all have their attractive qualities, but they also bring complications that I do not want to take on.

The recent racial unrest in our country again pulled at my heartstrings.  This is something that has been burning for several years now.  I believe that our country, and the Church, are guilty of harboring a horrible sin.  The sin of racism is too prevalent in our land, from the outspoken white supremacists to the casual racists.  Growing up and living in the South my whole life, I have been inundated with it.  This is a rift that strikes at the very foundations of both America and the Church.  Liberty, which is the founding principle of the USA, is shattered when it comes to black people.  Blacks do not enjoy the same freedoms as whites here.  My 18 year old son can walk around town, drive around town, shop, wear whatever he wants and not have to worry about a thing.  That is not true for the 18 year old black boy down the street.  If you do not realize that, then you are intentionally blinding yourself to reality.  We have seen enough examples of this, but those are just the ones that end tragically and that are caught on tape.  What about the countless daily ones that don’t get covered?  The blacks followed in the grocery store, the black family turned down for a home, the black workers forced to work in unsafe conditions, the black mom who has to feed her children subpar food, the black student who has no chance to go to college, the black man who will be pulled over and threatened in front of his children.  This is the reality of being black in America.  As far as the Church goes, it has staked its identity on the value of life.  Between abortion and euthanasia, the Church has spent a lot of capital on insisting that life is valuable.  I completely agree.  One of my favorite sayings is “you will never lock eyes with someone who doesn’t matter deeply to God.”  Human lives matter; human souls matter more.  It doesn’t matter what color that life is, the soul is the same.  Racism violates everything about that belief.  It states that some lives matter more, some souls matter more.  Sorry, that is not compatible with Christianity.  It is not compatible with the BIble.  It is not compatible with love.  It is not compatible with God.

This is what has been simmering inside of me, waiting for the right moment.  Lately, it has been boiling.  I have tried to figure out what I can do to make a difference.  How can I use my position in this world as a white male Christian to change this putrid cancer tearing both our country and Church apart?  I found a guiding verse in a book called Love Kindness by Barry Corey.  Micah 6:8 says, “He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”  Those three things will dictate how I spend the rest of my life.  

DO JUSTICE

I mentioned earlier how I have struggled at times with anger issues.  I was always taught that anger was wrong and should be dismissed altogether.  But through a lot of studying, I finally understood what “righteous anger” was all about.  You know, how Jesus went off in the Temple and then pastors tried to tell us He wasn’t angry.  Yes he was.  He was righteously angry.  Righteous anger, correct anger, is the feeling we get when we see injustice happening.  Jesus looked at the people who were being oppressed and wounded by the very people who were supposed to protect them and He was ANGRY.  He didn’t sin.  But he stood up against the injustice.  He also stood up against the injustice being visited on Samaritans and women and the disabled and lepers and tax collectors and so many others.  THAT is the feeling that I have when I watch another black man shot and killed by police, a child being shot by a rubber bullet, a peaceful crowd being gassed, and old man being shoved onto the pavement.  So my first step is to DO JUSTICE.  How?  I am going to go to Law School.  My goal is to go to the University of South Carolina, because we aren’t moving.  They offer a dual degree: Master of Social Work with a JD (law degree).  I hope to enroll in August 2021.  It will take a few years, but after that I will put that training to good use and fight injustice.  I don’t know what exactly that will look like yet.  I have been meeting with people about options, and I know that it will become clear as I move closer to that point.  It could be working at a college or school district, working with a nonprofit, working with a religious group.  I’m open to whatever it looks like.  I feel having the legitimacy of a law degree will provide me with more opportunities to bring about change than just being a regular dude with a sign.

LOVE KINDNESS

For all of the things that my dad did wrong, one thing he did well (when he wanted) was show kindness to strangers. I remember so clearly him chatting with every worker he passed in Publix.  He would chat up customers in the store.  He would joke with other diners in restaurants.  Sure, he could also be petty and cruel to those same people.  But I loved watching him as he would make friends anywhere.  It obviously made a huge impact on me, because I am the exact same way.  I have a friend at Kaplan who is named Ged.  One time we were working an event and I told him, “The manager at Hot Topic is named Jad.  I think of you every time I’m talking to him.”  His natural response was, “Why in the heck do you know the name of the manager at Hot Topic.”  I said, “We go in there a lot.  The other manager is Greg.  The manager over at Think Geek is Jeff.  His mother in law recently got in an accident and broke her pelvis, so she had to move in with them.  They only have one car.  It makes things tough.”  When I see someone in a Houston Astros clothing item, I say,“Hey, I’m proud of you for wearing that in public.  Has the ban on liking them been lifted?”  Then we talk about the 2017 World Series.  UCF hat?  Oh forget about it.  I’m such a dork with that person.  The other day I was picking up our dog from the vet and the person in front of me in line had the last name Staples.  We weren’t related, but it looked like we were by the time we left.  That is what I think of when I think of kindness.  It is treating people like they matter, because they do.  I’m not perfect at it.  There is one guy that works at our Publix that I try to avoid every time we are there.  I hope to get better.  In the book Love Kindness, the author talks about how kindness is something that is so foreign in our country and churches that it can be seen as offensive - fraternizing with the enemy.  What enemy?  They are people.  We are supposed to love our enemies.  Corey describes it as “hard in the center and soft on the edges.”  You know exactly what you stand for at your center, but you are approachable and willing to receive people who come to you.  You recognize how everybody hurts (cue REM song) and are vulnerable and transparent so they know it is ok.  That is my goal.  I want to be kind to others because, I am quite sure, that it is not something they have experienced often.  The things that go through my mind, the echoes of voices, they are never kind.  It took a long time before I realized God is kind.  That’s pretty sad.  It is about time for people to know what kindness looks like and feels like.  

WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD

For a long time, I saw my intelligence as something to hang my hat on.  It made me proud.  It made me mean.  But God has a funny way of humbling the proud.  I married someone who is smarter than me.  She has gotten farther and knows more things than I ever could.  Then I had three children who all are probably smarter than me.  Then I started working at a company where most of my coworkers are smarter than me.  It was uncomfortable at first, but now I am fine not thinking I’m the smartest in the room.  There is a lot of pressure when your entire worth hangs on if you can outsmart everyone.  I’m not dumb; it would be insulting to pretend that.  But I’m much more humble about my brain.  I remember when I worked at Apple Store, one of the younger girls there was asking some of our co-workers where they finished in their class.  I’m easily 15 years older than all of them.  They asked me and I said, “I graduated first.”  They were floored.  Then I said, “And now I’m working here and you’re my supervisor.  Trust me, it doesn’t matter at all.”  It’s true.  I am old enough now to know that I don’t know everything.  And that’s okay.  I don’t get into arguments any more with people, trying to prove I’m right.  It doesn’t help.  Especially with the arrival of social media, no one is going to change their mind thanks to my well crafted argument.  I fell into this trap a few years ago on Facebook and got into some squabbles about one of my newfound stances.  It predictably went awry.  You know.  Mean words, assumptions, me being called a Tool of Satan a few times, me shutting my Facebook down.  Good stuff.  That ended up being a good reminder of the whole “walk humbly” point.  I get angry about things I see and hear, but I don’t follow my old tactics any more.  What good is getting in a big fight going to do?  I lose that friendship and nothing changes.  Plus, there have been times in the past where I have stood somewhere and planted a flag and dared all comers.  And now I realize that place was on the wrong side of the fight.  That is a humbling realization.  

So there is my very lengthy story of where I am heading.  It is both exciting and terrifying.  

I am in the process of gathering information.  I’m having good conversations with people to keep educating myself.  I’m reading books and watching movies to learn more.  I’m taking stands where I can.  And I’m trying to be kinder to those around me.  And I’m aiming to remember that I don’t know everything.  After law school, maybe I will.  But not yet.  

Some good verses on how to be a good Christian and person

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Mark 12:30-31

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

James 1:27

Religion that is pure and undefined before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

1 Peter 2:17

Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood.  Fear God.  Honor the emperor.