Division

Division is the word that keeps coming to mind when I look around me these days. It is every which way I turn. I've had several sad division encounters lately, but will choose one to share now.

A few days ago, a neighbor’s car pulled into my drive. I was excited because a) we seldom have visitors, b) this was a neighbor I had been trying to meet for months and c) phase one of our new porch had just been completed. So I eagerly ran out to the front yard in my bare feet, something I wouldn’t have done if I’d been thinking. Red ants abound here in east Texas.

I greeted him and his wife, who I hadn’t met before. I had only met him once briefly and hoped we’d get to visit again. He said he had only stopped by to ask me a couple of questions, which I answered. Then, I invited them to come up and sit on my new porch. "Could you come up to the porch and sit?" I asked. "I’m standing in an ant pile getting eaten alive!" I hoped they’d stay for a glass of tea and a chat. But, he declined quickly and said he didn’t want to bother me. He was gone rather abruptly.

Sometimes in a conversation you get a very strong feeling of how the person feels or what they may be thinking, even if they don’t say a word to that effect. I had a very strong impression that he was thinking, "I’m black. You’re white. There is a wall between us and so I’m not going to bother you."

I came back inside, started washing dishes, and found myself in tears before I knew it. I stopped what I was doing and just sat at the table and buried my head in my arms and cried. I was crying because I was disappointed, crying because I was excited that someone might sit on my porch and it hadn’t happened. I was crying in frustration at seeing that tiresome old dividing wall of racism between us. But other times in my life, none of this would have upset me so much or brought me to tears. I think the division he sees between people for a whole host of reasons, must be making Father cry extra hard right now for me to have that reaction.

This election has been like an earthquake. No one was indifferent or unaffected. One black lady I know said this election is the craziest thing she ever saw. Her black friends told her if she didn’t vote for Obama she isn’t black. Her white friends said if she did vote for Obama, she isn’t Christian. If I were her I might have wanted to leave the country for about a month, two weeks before and after the election, to maintain my sanity. I’ve certainly been rattled by all the doomsaying, the anger, the hysteria, the name-calling, the racism issues, the hand-wringing… the division. I have had to remind myself that God isn’t surprised nor unprepared for the days to come.

A hundred years ago, a black man couldn’t be invited to the White House without a scandal. Now we will have a black man and his family living in the White House. People say we’ve come a long way, and in some ways we have. But, I still wonder if the man and his wife down the road will ever come sit on my porch and feel comfortable.

Well, one day in heaven if not here on earth, I hope to have a beautiful porch with a variety of friends sitting on it. We will all hold hands…black and white and brown and all shades in between laced together, noticing no difference except how uniquely beautiful each one is.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28