Just recently we were all celebrating Mother’s Day, celebrating the powerful women in our lives who accepted the gift and responsibility of motherhood. I thought of all of the categories of engagement that these women would fill; their homes, their careers, their dreams, and in their communities. Each one of those roles has what Ecclesiastes 3:1 describes and “a time and season”. In fact, many of those roles have overlapping seasons, that demanded choices to be made about the priorities that would be pursued in their own time. Each time…..
I thought of my own dear mother who, with my father, gave birth to and raised 11 children. I often wondered now how she did it. We only have three in our house, and the times that it has brought for my wife and I were and are challenging to say the least. We learned to be sensitive enough to know that you cannot do the same thing the same way every time, for every child, for every circumstance, despite any apparent similarities.
The verse in Ecclesiastes 3:1 is properly rendered, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” This verse seems to be so powerful in this season of awakening. The conversations that we are having around the many social issues that have long needed the truthful dialogue that we are now experiencing. If those who have gone on before us could be at the table now, speaking their truths, I can only imagine what they would say to us.
It is troubling to see the level of engagement from some places that I never expected, while there is a lack of engagement from places and people who I thought would be the most vocal, the most vigilant, and the most expressive. In the years gone by people sacrificed life and limb for purposes that were greater than themselves. I cannot read the historical accounts of icons of social leadership without noticing that none of them had the luxury of only one issue at a time. So often the issues were multiple, they had to decide which one to give their time to.
We live in a world that is full of instant information. In my mother’s days, what happened in India was not known to us in America until many days had passed. Today, we see it when it happens. The distance of time and space has been reduced by the internet, satellite television, and the swift coverage of 24 hour news. What is even more important is how quickly what happens in another part of the world can affect what we experience in our city, and in our personal lives.
We were in the throes of a contentious political election, which had been cast as the “most important election of our lifetime”, when the world was overwhelmed by a pandemic that within months would cause a world wide shutdown. This changed the process of everything that we were doing, but the “thing” had what we hoped would be a brief season. The lesson was learned quickly that we were not in an abbreviated season of pandemic, but an extended one. All of our norms were affected so that we had no norm. In times past, we could refer to previous experiences like this one and figure out how to manage, but this time…..
While we were adjusting to the new norms and the lifestyle changes that it caused, we began to understand the weight of the loss due to the pandemic. The numbers of sick and hospitalized was staggering, but even more staggering was the toll of the deaths that were being experienced around the world. It was so much more impacting because it wasn’t just happening in foreign places, but in our own communities, in our own families. We have had death and sickness to deal with before, but this time…..
As an African American man growing up in this country, there are certain experiences that were not foreign to me or any of my family and friends, things that African American men experience regardless of their social or economic status. Just being black influences the way that we are treated, while working, while studying, while driving, while living. This season of “pandemic” influenced more than just the physical health of people, but the mental and social health as well. It created an unexpected sensitivity and empathy of exposure so that when the world witnessed an occurrence that was not unique by its nature, but by its timing, there was a totally unexpected reaction.
George Floyd was not the first black man to die at the hand of what seemed to be a callous white police officer, but in this season of exposure, his death was more brutal, more heinous, and more personal. What was truly amazing was that these sentiments were felt by much more than just his family, his immediate community, and his neighborhood. It was felt around the world. There were marches and protests against this visual brutality in countries and among people who had no immediate connection to George Floyd, black people in America, or even America. Around the globe there were Black Lives Matter protests, often with no one black in the crowd. There was an empathy, and an experience; a moment of exposure this time.
The presidential campaign kept going. The pandemic kept going. The governmental divisiveness continued. The news and social media kept going. Everything kept going, but this time there was something else happening. This time…..
I would often watch my mother multitasking in our home with the dinner on the stove, the clothes washer humming-Shaka Shaka Shaka! My siblings and I would be playing and the normal conflict would come up that only she could solve. The phone would ring and one of the church members would have an emergency that only she could address. How did she have the time to do all of those things? How could she manage all those priorities, and never drop the ball?
I thought the other day about all of this. I was thinking about Mom. If she was here, what would she focus on this time…..
I’m just thinking………
