I love the picture above. I love where I found that sweet butterfly. I long for the day to go back to those flowers, the mountains, everything that was there. That picture, though, is so much better in color. Color brings the beauty of the flower out.
Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to some authors. One of these authors spoke on her two books about racism in America. Look, I'm no dummy. I am more than aware of racist humans in this country. I am more than aware of the terrible tragedies that have occurred both past and present. To ignore these issues is ignorant. Still, listening to this woman was a mixture of emotions. She experienced first hand the desegregation of schools in a deep southern state. She watched tragedy, and felt the pain, fear, anger, confusion, frustration, and so much more. Her story, and her family's story, is quite remarkable. I was proud to be close to such a strong woman. Then as she continued, she read passages that displayed more hurt and pain. Her point is to open the eyes of people and get them to both question and discuss. I greatly enjoyed the process. Well, until I began to realize how deeply she discriminated against me. We are still battling the on the lines of discrimination in this country. When it has come to race discrimination, I am not your girl. I don't care what your skin tone is, I care what your heart, mind, and actions are about. Yet, I have been lumped in with the crowd. "You're white, therefore you..." People have asked me if I was a racist and I reply, "No, I ended up marrying Charlie. He's quite white." I dated black guys growing up. Trust me, I'm still surprised my children are white. So I become hurt when I get thrown into the group of a-white-person-in-the-south. This isn't a whiny pity party, but look, I've had discrimination thrown at me in a variety of ways. Jock= dumb and only cares about sports. Band= nerd alert. Honors/AP classes= more nerdom. Christian= bigot, ignorant, careless. White=easy life, racist, doesn't understand. Female= less reliable than a man. Youth= not experienced enough to do a good job. Diagnosed with Fibro=looking for attention. People - WAKE UP AND SHUT UP. We all have things that we have been discriminated for. We all treat each other horribly!! We are a nation, no, a world, of hurtful words and actions against people groups just because we aren't them or we don't understand them. Holy crap. Can we please for one second just stop thinking about the way we have been hurt and start looking at the way we have hurt people. Maybe we could just apologize for stupid crap we've said. Oh, wait, that requires a humble attitude. Humble - putting others above yourself. People are different. People will have things you like and don't like about them. Instead of lumping them into a group, look at the person. Talk to a person, not a people group. I'm not saying we make judgments on them, but that will happen on a minor level. The people you have chosen to be your friends or not, were based on judgments of character, lifestyle, things we have in common or not. Just because they don't fall into our friends list, doesn't mean we have to hate them. When did things become so black and white. I don't want you to be my friend, therefore, I must hate you. I have no words for this idiocrocy. That picture above is still pretty in black and white, but I only see the butterfly. I isolate that butterfly in the black and white. I'm missing out on beautiful yellow wild flowers. I'm missing out on the green leaves and stems. I'm missing out on everything else that picture has to offer me when I only look at black and white. Have I made my point? Do I need to dissect this analogy for you? I will say this. The devil is out to kill, seek, and destroy. Destroy relationships. Destroy nations. Destroy communities. Separation of people from each other and God is his main goal. Why do we keep letting him win? I will never understand racism. I'm sorry. I'm not ignorant of it, or deny it. I just can't comprehend it. I can't understand why someone doesn't choose to like someone based on their nationality. I wish to find more people like me that just don't see what the big deal is. Things aren't just black and white. Life is filled with an array of colors that only the God above could have designed himself. I don't want to miss a single shade.
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May 2023
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