Portland Glass

My experience of "race" - a ramble

Irvington Covenant Church is attempting to step into a dialogue re: "racial righteousness" - stressing honesty and humility in the process. It's gotten me musing. Here's the current product of that musing.

Part 1, one white man's response to racial tension / conflict:

1. Simpleness. As a child, though I grew up in rural Wyoming, I had a few friends who were not white (I believe they were hispanic and black). I realise I didn't clue into any racial dynamics at the time. A friend was a friend. A sweet time, but like a sweet wine, lacking in depth and complexity.

2. Avoidance. Getting older, I found racial tension uncomfortable, as such, a thing to avoid. Add that to fear of "other," and it made life easier to avoid people who weren't white. This wasn't difficult in Wyoming / Colorado, but became harder in college. I note, I had the luxury of being able to make that choice. Some can't.

2. Guilt. In college, I found racial tension unavoidable. I was struck by the intensity of anger coming from my non-white classmates. My immediate reaction was to duck. Avoidance didn't work, so if I took on a supplicating attitude, it made it more difficult for the anger to stick. "I'm sorry for what my people did to your people." is not a bad place to start. But it's not a good place to end. Also "I deserve whatever anger you have for my race, because of the awful things my people have done to yours." - not true.

The Christian fellowship I was part of at that time stressed Race Reconciliation as a major emphasis of scripture. That was trendy. They've moved on to other trends. Nonetheless, I left school with the impression that to follow Christ I would need to enter the inner city to live and reconcile with non-white people. Forth I went.

3. Capitulation. After college, I entered the workplace - human services. To start with, Residence Life at my alma mater. Then to Portland. First, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps - working with people with serious mental illnesses. Then into social work - focusing on an impoverished (white) neighborhood. Then into Neighborhood Mediation - a city-run, albeit black-focused, mediation program. I should clarify that - my understanding is that this program was the brainchild of black leaders, had been predominantly staffed by black staff, and was considered one of few city programs which actually benefited the black community to a notable degree (in contrast with many city programs). In becoming part of this program, I found capitulation as my next tool to attempt to leverage myself out from under a constant mist of racial tension / anger. I made choices to enter into, and stay in this tension, but had few skills to work around it. So many times in my life I just wanted a card - something to pin on my chest so I could fast-forward the whole racial tension / anger part of building relationships with my non-white community. Non-existent. In this stage I would choose one person to align myself with, and use that position as a shield against anger from other individuals.

4. Talk. About that same time, I initiated a reconciliation group at Irvington Covenant - invited black friends over to my house to meet with my white housemates and talk about race and reconciliation. I have much love for the black friends who came over, they did not merely humor me, rather, they honored me by coming and attempting this. We lacked what it took to expand this process into anything larger than the 8 of us, though we did grow closer as friends. Talk, open and honest, is good. But there's no way that we can talk, or hug, this out.

5. Listen. Talk has limited effect. Among friends, assuming good of each other, it can be affirming. Among acquaintances, where trust isn't established, it has potential to lessen that trust - bringing harm. Listening is a position of receiving. It can honor, and it has little potential to harm. It's a great tool in mediation. And it is effective, to a degree, in navigating racial tension. It can dampen racial anger. Though, I have found that silence, in the face of some racial anger, only infuriates, as there is a perception that white silence means dismissing or patronizing or simply ignoring.

6. Earnestness. So, I decided to simply attempt to honor my own state / heart, and speak out of that place as best as I can. Is there a single culture that doesn't respect that? I've found myself entering into fewer conversations about race and race tension though. But when I do, the results have more often been positive.

7. Genuineness. Humility and honesty. A shade different from earnestness. And I have fewer words to describe it since it's really more an ideal for me at this point. Speaking with honesty and humility, listening to, not my thoughts, but my spirit as it looks lovingly toward Christ, who leads me to love my neighbor.

And so, I enter this phase with my community with a mixture of trepidation and hope.

Fiction and Solomon

King Solomon is attributed with having said "there is nothing new under the sun."

What if he's right?

In the final chapter of Cities of the Plain (Cormac McCarthy, 1998), One of McCarthy's characters (Billy) has a dream. Another character then talks about how when someone exists in a dream, they weren't just created at that moment, but they existed before that. In fact, it's quite egotistical to think that we could actually create a person just like that, just for that moment, for our own purposes. He proceeded to describe how that dream person must have existed before that dream, in other dreams perhaps, and went on to walk through other dreamers' dreams as well.

Jung, on the other hand, simply described these characters and events as aspects of our interior life. Again, no creation there, just what's inside us taking on various forms.

How about fiction? or art? innovation?

Previously existing elements placed together in ways and relationships they've never been in before? What about those ways and relationships? aren't they new? Did they exist somewhere before? I've got a handful of windows which are original work. That is, no one's done it exactly like I did it. But maybe the only difference is in the details. Are those inconsequential? ... I prattle.

I'm a reductionist. In that sense. I am compelled to agree with Solomon (and Plato?). There's only one story. There's only one work of art. There's only one anything - and we're just working to try to get as close to re-creating that "anything" as we can. And hopefully having fun doing it.

Christ the eternal tao - book preview

as I haven't finished reading it (barely begun), I can't offer a review, so I'll make it a preview - for it's a book I've been looking forward to digesting for quite some time. It starts with a bang (bigger than the big bang) and approaches its subject from the disposition of one involved in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Among other things, the author catches my attention again and again. Here's a sampler so far.

- making it clear that this is not a syncretistic writing - which reminds me of a speaker I heard many many years ago (Ajith Fernando) who made sure we understood his point, being that there is no religion that contains the truth; All religions POINT to the truth though, and that truth is Christ.

- The Gospel of John begins powerfully, talking about the Logos (word) being God and with God and all things were created through the Logos. An Eastern Orthodox translation of this uses Tao (way) instead of Logos, and they do seem to be quite interchangeable. In as much as Heraclitus recognized Christ as he spoke of the mystery of the Logos, Lao Tzu recognized Christ as he spoke of the mystery of the Tao.

- the author speaks of how seekers in america are leaving the teachings of the churches and studying eastern thought. His interpretation of this movement (certainly resonates with me) is that the image of Christ is seriously obscured in the grossly tarnished image the american christian church puts forth. Whereas, though in Lao Tzu's writing, and still in Taoism, though as a dim reflection, a purer image of Christ can be found. It is easier to be pointed to Christ via Taoism than by the american christian establishment.

- that even after immersing oneself in Taoism, there still exists the seed that Christ planted that draws you further into faith in Christ - which is what drew the author back into the Eastern Orthodox tradition. (Though it seems that Orthodox tradition already has a fair openness to Taoist thought if only for its strong presence in and proximity to China.)

here's a few links:

A short bio on the author (Hieromonk Damascene)

and the Amazon link to the book