Dancing in the Minefields #1

Good morning! I am going to start something today that I haven't done in a while: introduce a series of blogs that will be a conversation continuing for weeks or maybe even months. Just like in our everyday lives, the pictures of smiling children and stories of our family will be interspersed with conversations about racial equity in our nation. With the make-up of our family and our geographic location, these are normal, on-going conversations for us. This series of posts, however, could possibly make everyone mad: my words not powerful enough for some people and annoying to others who don't feel the conversation is necessary.

That's okay.

I am not writing for either of those groups; I'm writing for me. I'm writing these thoughts to bring my whole self here and to give you a friend struggling through these conversations in real-time in our everyday lives. Maybe you'll read it and feel affirmed thinking, "I thought I was the only one...." or maybe you'll read it and think, "I don't agree, but I love the Matheny's so I'll keep showing up." No matter what your reaction, I'm honored to be having such a conversation with you.

When these racial topics come up, I get the sense it is an invitation from the Lord. Not a passive or sweet invitation, but something along the lines of dancing with Him in a minefield. Even though Andrew Peterson's lyrics are meant to describe marriage, their unintended meaning for me is this dance with the Lord in our nation's racial reckoning. How do these lyrics resonate with you and your experience of race in America?

So let's go dancing in the minefields

Let's go sailing in the storms

Oh, let's go dancing in the minefields

And kicking down the doors

'Cause we bear the light of the Son of Man

So there's nothing left to fear

So I'll walk with you in the shadowlands

Till the shadows disappear