Easter Fishing

 

Occasionally I make some very important realizations about my life.  Sometimes someone says something to me that sets off some line of thought that seems completely random at the time, but turns into something significant to me. 

There are other times when it seems like a boulder just gets dropped on me out of a clear blue sky, and I have no choice but to drop whatever I’m doing and deal with it.  Regardless of how they come to me they are usually things that in retrospect are pretty obvious.  They were there all along but I simply never noticed them.  This was one of those things.

I realized one day that even the mere presence of Christ will change anything.

 

I think the apostle Peter was familiar with what I am talking about.

In John chapter 21 Peter is dealing with the aftermath of the Crucifixion.  He has no hope.  The one he gave everything to is dead.  With the death of his future he returns to his past. 

“I am going out to fish.”

He trudges down the beach and begins to run the strands of the nets he hasn’t touched for three years listlessly through his fingers.  Before Christ (B.C.) this was what he always did.  Up until he’d heard those two fateful words “Follow me.” these nets had been the source of his well being, his sustenance, his pride, his provision for his family and his heritage.  He knew little else.

In the intervening years he saw the dead raised to life, water turned to wine, and lepers healed.  One miracle after another had been performed in his presence.  The Pharisees and Sadducees, the powers of his society, had been repeatedly challenged and shown to be the greatest of hypocrites.  The foundations of his life have been completely changed.  But even with all these things the greatest change is what has happened within.  

Peter made the sacrifice of believing in someone other than himself. 

In moving the focus of his belief he had done things at the request of He in whom he believed, and he did it regardless of his own agreement.  In so many ways his motivation has been to satisfy his own dreams, but now he comes to understand the root of his problem.  Belief in someone other than yourself is only half of the process.  The other half demands blind dependence.  Peter believed in someone else, but he believed in Him because he thought the other would accomplish Peter’s own desires.  So belief is one thing, but devotion requires taking on the beliefs and desires of the object of your belief as your own.  Peter, as is often the case in my own life, had not done this.

Now, without Christ, he seems to have lost it all.  Having believed in someone else, yet still applying his own conditions for believing, making Jesus merely a vehicle to reach his own goals, he has not only lost everything, but he has failed himself as well as Jesus.

Imagine climbing in the boat and setting the oars, using muscles gone stiff after years of inactivity and thinking all I can do is fish. 

Without purpose, without Jesus, he simply went back to what he knew.  The problem was that now, having known the ultimate reason for existence, this basic fundamental task could no longer provide any meaning to what was left of his life.

Into this situation Jesus becomes Present to him.

He becomes the Truth.

“Throw your nets on the other side of the boat.”

Only a slight change from what he’d been doing just moments before.  At this point he hadn’t yet realized that it was Jesus who was speaking to him, but he did it anyway.  What do you suppose he thought at that moment?  The local fishing industry hadn’t changed in the time he had been away from it.  He knew what he was doing, but there on the shore is some side-line fisherman who tells him to throw the net on the other side of the boat?  He knows there aren’t going to be any more fish on one side than the other.  Still, he does it.  His pain is such that he needs something to fill the time.  He needs something to fill the hole left by the absence of his Rabbi. 

What did he have to lose?  He was just fishing after all.  When the nets began to fill and as the individual strands began to break as one fish upon another threw themselves into the net he realized something had changed.  It was the change that caused him to realize that the voice he’d heard just a moment ago was the same one he’d heard agonizing in prayer in the garden at Gethsemane.

It was then that he realized just how much the presence of Christ changes the meaning of everything we do. 

He was only doing what he had always done, but it would never be the same for him again.

As a result of Christ’s birth, the properties of giving birth changed.  When a baby entered into the world from the womb it was something that had happened countless times before.  Christ was born as every child had been born, and yet His birth was the one that negated the cause of the mother’s pain.  His birth gave meaning to it.  The betrayal of trust that occurred in Eden was now surmountable as a result of His birth in this world.

Even the act of crucifixion was changed.

The Romans had been crucifying criminals for quite some time before Christ walked the Via Dolorosa, and they continued for a long time afterwards.  But with Christ involved it was more than merely a form of painful execution.

Christ gave it purpose.

His impact and influence was so complete when it happened to Him that even to unbelievers it was forever after known as The Crucifixion.  It is no longer spoken of even in our day without summoning to our thoughts the name of Jesus Christ.  Pilate would never have given a second thought to nailing another set of hands to that beam, and in fact would have willingly given the mob its desire if they had asked for Barabbas to be killed. 

Even Pilate knew somehow that Christ changes everything. 

Even he knew that crucifying Christ would have unimaginable ramifications.

Christ was not the first person to be resurrected either.  He himself raised several people from the dead, but as extraordinary as any resurrection should be considered, no one ever thinks of them when we say The Resurrection. 

No one else was sacrificed first.

Two travelers on the road to Emmaus were just traveling together until Jesus joined them.  When He spoke they knew He was someone who knew what He was talking about.  That simple journey completely altered the course of their lives, not because of the journey, but because of the One on the road beside them.

Sad to say that knowing it is not the same as living it, but I think Peter, when he made it to shore, had finally figured out the difference between what he had been doing for the previous three years and what he was doing now, dripping wet on the shore in front of the living Christ.  I think he stood before Christ re-examining every thought or action he had taken during the last three years knowing that all of his previous ideas were utterly wrong.

It is one thing to nod your head and smile when someone says, “I will rise again on the third day after my death.”  It is a completely different matter when you meet Him after He has indeed done what He said He would do. 

The thought, “You mean you were serious?!” must have crossed his mind at some point.  Peter suddenly had to believe everything he had only paid lip service to previously.  All of the things that he had believed for his own benefit now had a completely different meaning that was no longer based on his own needs and desires.  Overthrown oppressors were no longer an issue when the living Christ was sitting in front of him frying fish on the seashore!  Come to think of it I’ll bet He even fried fish better!  I wonder if he understood then that after three years with Jesus Christ, without Him Peter was not after all a better fisherman than before.  Without Jesus he was merely the same, but now he understood what he longed for. 

Now he knew what he was missing.

I want to know how Peter remembered that day.

What did the rest of the world look like to him after he realized that all that Christ said was true?  Could the truth of anything Christ said be doubted if He could overcome the worst enemy of humanity? 

Nope.

Suddenly, he needs to worship Him; to give Him something.

But what do you give to the One who has everything? 

Everything. 

Everything you are, everything you will be. 

Everything you have, and everything you ever had. 

Every desire, and every dislike. 

Every relationship, and every preconceived notion.

Everything good, and everything bad. 

All of it.

Everything. 

Because it’s all changed, and He’s the one who did it.

It doesn’t matter whether you want the change or not, because the creation itself has been fundamentally changed by awaiting His return.  The Expectation with which my very soul trembles changes how I look at Everything. 

And at what cost?

A virgin birth, a crucifixion, a death, a stone rolled away, a resurrection.

Replace the “A” in the previous sentence with “The” and you know exactly who is being spoken of without ever saying His name, but then we say it anyway, because the name of Jesus Christ sounds so much better than any other words that ever passed our lips before. 

And the fact that He lives changes….

Everything!

©Dan Bode 2007

Christmas Day of His Appearing

 This was the day of His appearance in this world.

Pain,

Water,

Blood,

Relief

Joy.

But He had really been here for nine months already.

Listening.

I wonder what the reaction of Creation must have looked like at the moment He was born,

looking like us!

Did the stars dim as He filled His lungs for His first cry?

Did the wind sigh with relief and welcome?

Did every blade of grass long to bear the weight of His first step?

Did the hay in the manger conform to His shape as though it was made just to cradle this babe?

Whenever I think of Him physically present in our world I am wracked with wonder.

My questions are endless,

But those answers have to wait,

Because He came first to answer all the others that saved my life.

So, I am sustained by my wonder and awe,

And if the creation itself sings for joy at His presence,

Who am I to remain silent?

REJOICE!

©Dan Bode 2022

Colors

 

I made some discoveries about colors recently.  It kind of freaks me out a little.

A few years ago, when we first bought our home, we were in the process of making it ours. One aspect of that process was painting.  A sub-category of painting is choosing the colors.

The concept of color selection has taken on a whole new meaning for me since we started perusing the countless color swatches at the home improvement stores.  To put this in perspective I need you to understand that I grew up with the primary color range that I used to identify every color.  It didn’t matter if it was light green or dark green, it was just green to me.  Then Crayola came out with the BIG box of 64 crayons with the built-in sharpener and I was overwhelmed.  To top it all off they changed the names of the colors!!  

Blue was blueberry, red was strawberry, and yellow was lemon, and I became convinced that they were edible since fruit was the major theme in the naming convention.  I’d heard of kids eating crayons before, and I think this is how it started.  I’m willing to bet when they changed “flesh” to “peach” the child Hannibal Lecter was pretty upset.  

Then they started mixing them and I was exposed to “taupe”, and “mauve”, and others that I couldn’t describe because I was too much of a purist to understand the concept!  I was just trying to stay in the lines!!  Why did I have to coordinate?!

I remember an incident as a child when my family was going to Las Vegas to visit my godparents.  I had a plastic container of about 20 crayons which I put on the rear dashboard.  

Inside the window.  

As we drove through the desert.  

Now crayons, being wax, have certain well-defined shapes when they are kept in the proper environment.  This was a questionable environment for crayons.

As we drove through the Nevada desert with the sun beating down on the rear window, as though Lucifer’s eyeball was having a staring contest with our car, I got bored.  I got out my coloring book and reached for the container of crayons.

In a word it was “psychedelic”.  All the crayons had melted and mixed together!  This was the 60’s and the term “psychedelic” had a very particular meaning for some people then, but this was the first time I was able to apply it to any situation that occurred in my world.  I think it was about this time that when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I started saying, “I want to be a hippy!”  My dad didn’t seem pleased.

Now I’m finding out things about colors that never occurred to me.  We wanted the walls in our new home to be a certain color, and have one wall another color as an accent.  I knew about, and understood, this concept, but had never really done anything with it in the past.  

Off we went to the hardware emporium of the world to get the samples we needed.  First, you stop at the “Walls of Colors”.  There are little paper swatches of colors, and then there are bigger swatches with multiple colors, and then there are little booklets that show different color combinations, and then there are even BIGGER booklets with pages of little color boxes that show you the whole range of colors!  And of course, each paint manufacturer has a wall all to themselves, AND they rename all the same colors to something different because of course they can’t match the same color name as their competitor, can they?!  I bet there’s actually a department in each company devoted to coming up with color names!  And I’ll also bet they hired them from the crayon company!

Once we found a suitable collection of choices, we went to the counter to have samples made.  “Sample” is a word that has very different meanings depending on the product in question.  I was looking at countertops several years ago at a stonecutter’s shop and he asked if I needed samples.  When I said yes, he went over to this huge slab of granite and broke a piece off!  Paint samples are a small jar of paint that could probably cover half a wall!  So anyway, we take the samples home and start painting different colored squares on various walls.

My wife has a very well-developed skill in decorating.  When she says something will look good I have long since ceased to question her choices no matter how weird they may sound to me.  It always works no matter what she does.  I don’t really understand it, but I really don’t have to understand it because I trust her implicitly since she hasn’t tried to dress me in funny clothes.  Not yet anyway.

She painted a color that seemed like “white” to me on the wall.  The wall she painted it on looked “white” as well.  Until she painted the sample on it.  Now the white wall looked “more white”.  Then she painted some of the sample paint on the darker accent wall and the “white” sample looked yellow!!!

“Hey!  Now it’s yellow!”  I cried in amazement.

“No, it's still white.  You just see it as yellow next to the other color.  It’s all about perception honey.”  She replied. 

Then she put other samples on other walls and they looked different because of the way the light hit them at different times of the day!  

Consider my mind blown.  

But now I, being me, couldn’t just leave it alone.  I started applying it to myself.

I started to wonder how my life is perceived in relation to my environment.  (Stop with the metaphors!!  Stop it now!)  I can’t help it. Sorry.  (I often argue with myself in my head.  It’s the only place where I always win.)

Anyway, I started to look at myself in a different way.  I began to wonder what I look like or how I am perceived by other people.  If I’m always the “real me” in different environments then I will sometimes provide a contrast to my surroundings.  If I become a people pleaser then no one sees me any differently because I change to match everyone else’s viewpoint.  I become a chameleon.

The problems with this are legion.  

Eventually I wind up lying to someone about who I am.  Maybe not straight out lying, but often by agreeing with someone just so they feel good about me even though I may actually oppose their view is actually a lie.  The real kicker here is that while I want to be everyone’s friend, I am assuming that to be their friend we must agree on everything, but true friendship needs to be based on truth, so by falsely agreeing with someone I become a false friend.  I have dishonored that person by allowing them to become friends with a mask I wore.

It usually begins with an effort to avoid conflict.  In my desire to create a friendship I neglect my need to be myself rather than being myself to satisfy my need for friendship.  I can’t be a true friend unless I can do it honestly.  That means that I can’t always be someone’s friend if they require my constant agreement.  

I discovered some time ago that “agreement” and “understanding” are not interchangeable concepts.

There is no way to be a true friend by always agreeing with everyone.  Others have to be able to know who I really am, if I’m going to be their friend.  

Sometimes, when I tell someone about the events of my life, they respond emotionally and say something like, “You’re such a good man!” or “You’re so strong now!” or some other praise.  I often hesitate to say anything anymore because I don’t want people to think I’m saying it as some kind of proof of my stalwartness or something.  The honest fact of the matter is that I’m just a guy who this stuff happened to.  I’m not special for it, or better than anyone else, just because it happened to me.  I don’t have any greater authority than I ever did before.  What I do have is experience in survival, which, while valuable, still does not add to my intrinsic value as a person. I tried the whole “bitterness and depression” thing, but I can tell you honestly that it didn’t give me anything good.  It took years to claw my way out of that pit.  No, the only qualities I have in anyone else’s life are whatever that person perceives me to have for themselves.  I can only be myself, but what they do with it is up to them.  

My real value does not change, like colors, based on someone else’s perspective.  I have chosen to acknowledge the authority of my Creator, and listen to Him express His opinion of my worth.  His opinion of me never changes, regardless of what I do or the situation I get myself into.  I daily fail to live up to His standards of me in some way, but He never stops loving me nor does my value in His eyes decrease.  Unlike the patches of color on our walls, that seemed to change in different light, He sees me the same all the time regardless of any mask I wear.

When I start to acknowledge and appreciate His love for me, I am forced to examine my life to see if I’m treating others the same way He treats me.  I have discovered too many moments where His love for me is not reflected in my treatment of others at all.  I now realize that we all have the ability to care for other people and still be ourselves, but we have to make the choice to exercise that ability.  

So, I’m making that choice.  I choose to seek in you what there is to love, and not to hate.

What you do with that is up to you.

©Dan Bode 2022

Doubt

I think about Thomas sometimes.

What do we really know about him?  All I was ever taught was that he was the “doubter”.  “Doubting Thomas” were his first and last names as far as I knew for most of my life.

We love labels don’t we?  I suppose humans always have.  We tend to categorize everything in some way.  Maybe it just helps us remember. 

It seems odd though, doesn’t it, that we would label a man’s entire life based on one event out of all his days?  Granted, the fact that he was doubting God has something to do with the importance of the event.

I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating – I have often wondered if, after three years of Jesus teaching the disciples through parable and allegory, that after He died and rose again – I have to wonder if at least one of the disciples didn’t think, “You mean you were serious?!”

But here’s the thing: Thomas wasn’t the only doubter.  In fact, when Thomas finally saw the resurrected Jesus, the others had already seen Him a week earlier, and they were still locking the doors!  He was in a locked room full of people who were scared to go out into the world because they were doubtful of God as well. 

Go figure.

And, of course, now that I think about it, I doubt Him too sometimes.  Every day in fact. 

Every moment of worry I experience is a moment of doubt, because I’m choosing not to apply the belief that He actually cares so much for me that He will keep me close to Him.  Every time I choose not to forgive someone, or accept forgiveness, is a refusal to accept His sacrifice for me.   

And He forgives me for it every stinking time. 

Thomas was a man who was willing to die with Jesus.  In one instance he urges all of the disciples to go with Jesus so “we may die with Him.”  That sounds like a devoted man to me.

So yes, Thomas doubted, and it was his doubt which Jesus used to point out that the importance of belief in Him without seeing Him.  Jesus was pointing out the level of faith required to trust Him based on the word of those who know Him. 

Sure, Thomas doubted, but he also believed. 

This wasn’t the first time they had witnessed a resurrection either.  The most famous was Lazarus, but there were others as well.  The obvious difference was that those were things Jesus had done for others.  He was the source.  They all doubted that He could, or would, do it for Himself.  They had walked into this with the idea that Jesus was there to liberate them from an oppressive government.  Their understanding of the role of the Messiah was limited to their current circumstances, much as it is today.  All they saw up to this point was their loss of a leader.  The fact that He was there among them was proof that He didn’t come to do what we want the way we want it done. 

So, Thomas was there to voice my own doubts.  Thomas was there to touch the unhealed wounds of a physically resurrected Jesus for me.  Thomas was there to hear Him say,

“Oh yes.  I was most definitely serious.”

©Dan Bode 2021

 

Wake up Calls

 

Every once in a while, I get a piece of information that gives me reason to pause. 

I hear about someone I know who is seriously ill, died, or has had some serious life event occur.  It makes me re-examine my own life and values.  It jars me out of any ruts I find myself in, and offers me a way to view everything in my life, and the world in general, from an altered perspective.

The thing is, up to now, my reaction has always been to the events that occur in the lives of others.

This time it’s me.

Several months ago, I walked into my doctor’s office, and he told me I have cancer.

This was not what I wanted to hear.

Then he said, “If you’re going to have cancer, then this is the one you want.”

Hmm.  Ok.  Not quite sure how to deal with that, but in dealing with friends who have had more aggressive forms of cancer I have to say this is a better statement than the alternatives.  It turns out that this is the slowest growing of cancers you can come up with, but the treatment for it is to remove my thyroid gland and be done with it.  I guess I should be ok with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy it’s not worse.  I truly feel that God was in on how they found it by “accident” on another scan.  This is not a death sentence by any means.

As I have told people about it, I’ve made a point of quickly letting them know that I’m going to be ok, and there’s nothing to worry about.  Keep in mind that I can say this because I’ve already processed all the initial fear, shock, and bottom-dropping-out-from-under-me feelings, and found that I understand the truth of my situation.  I know this is not like what family and friends of mine have dealt with.

But. 

It makes me pause.

Cancer is not as much of a threat as it was, even 20 years ago, however, the affect it had on so many of those I have loved in my lifetime has shaped my initial reaction to hearing about it.  This is not to minimize the seriousness of being diagnosed with it, by any means.  I’m merely pointing out that in many cases we have reached a point where a cure is possible in more cases than previously, and it took me a while to get to that point in my own case because of how it was defined in my life.

My first reaction was, “How am I going to tell my wife and kids?  They’ll start crying because of something I said!”  I really can’t stand the thought of something I do or say causing someone pain (unless it’s someone who hurts someone I love – I have no problem causing them pain).

As I began to delve deeper into this, I started to think about all the people I have known who have been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.  I thought about how they reacted to their diagnosis, and the difference in how I reacted to it.  The difference in perspective between us was profound, but now I am beginning to see the “how” and “why” of the difference.  Now I see the staggering need to bring the two perspectives together as one.

Upon discovering that a family member or friend was dying, my initial reaction has been a form of denial based on my overconfidence in medical science. 

“Ok, but there’s a treatment for it right?  Sure, you’ll have some problems, but then you’ll get through it and everything will be back to some kind of normal right?  There’s something I can do to fix this isn’t there?”

I also attribute this reaction to basic human selfishness that wonders, “How will this affect me?  What will I do without you?  How do I fill the hole you leave?”  It’s sadly difficult to miss all the “I” and “me” statements there. 

Eventually I would reach a point where I shifted my focus off of myself and listened to them.  They would start to talk about the things that are “really” important, and all these “really” important things are not the things I “really” care about.  They would talk about loving others, forgiving others, and resolving conflicts.  All the things I didn’t have time for and would get to “someday”, when I wouldn’t have to live with the idea of giving up my own desire for “one upping” the other in order to forgive.    

But they were at peace, and I was not.  It was always easier to follow the crowd, and have the same need to hold on to things.  It was always easier to put my faith in tangibles, or worldly concepts like “rights” or “fairness” or “justice”, while ignoring their opposites of “mercy”, “forgiveness” and “grace”.  So, when I got my own diagnostic “gift”, I began to examine the reason I could hear them all talk about what was really important, and agree with them in the moment, yet go back to living my life the mediocre way I always had. 

There are consequences to forgiveness, and they are usually peaceful.  Why was I so set to avoid that?  Why was I always so desperate to hold on to my own ambition?

I remember an incident many years ago, when there was a division in the church I was attending.  It was having a profound effect on the congregation, and I was in the midst of it.  At the same time there was a young woman there who had died of cancer, leaving behind a loving husband and a couple of children.  I remember her as being one of the kindest people I knew, and her husband was the same.  At her memorial service her husband shared some thoughts that she had wanted him to convey to everyone, and at one point he said words to this effect, “Sandy knew there is a big conflict going on in the church right now, and she wanted to say that we need to forgive each other, and that it’s really not the important thing.”

I remember that moment thinking, “It’s not that simple.  There is more at stake here.”  I was so caught up in my own pride and anger that I refused to see the deeper meaning that God kept trying to point out to me in my life.  I was so caught up in the “mundanity” and societal anger of the moment that I actually refused to consider any viewpoint other than my own.  I assumed that God agreed with me, and did not need to consult Him about it. 

As time went on, we left the church, the division ran its course, and the pastor involved left.  We eventually came back to that church under a different pastor.  The division had been healed, but I never shook the feeling that I was wrong in my participation in the problem.  I eventually came to understand where I had gone wrong, and years later I contacted the pastor.  I submitted myself to him and asked his forgiveness, and he was incredibly gracious to me in granting it.  We restored our fellowship and became friends again.  It wasn’t until I had been forgiven – which, by the way, he had granted to me long before I had asked – that I thought back to Sandy’s plea to see what was really important.  Finally, I caught a glimpse of what she saw.  All of my anger at the time of the division had accomplished nothing.  All of the blinders I wore at the time kept me from living a peaceful life 

Sandy saw what was needed.  It was love.

I believe there is beauty to be seen in everyone.  God created our very eyes to be cognizant of the beauty He placed all around us, in the people and things of His creation.  I had largely chosen to ignore His view, and opted for the myopic sight of my own. 

I believe that hate is not the opposite of love.  I would posit to you that hate is more accurately defined as the desire to contain, consume and damage the beauty found in another, due to my failure to admit that God created each of us with inherent beauty which in turn inspires His love for me. 

I believe that love is a product of the recognition of God’s beauty in each other.

Beauty is found in every life, and in how I choose to spend mine. 

It is found in the joy of a child.

In the compassion of an adult.

In the grace of an athlete or artist.

In the life, and sometimes death, of a soldier, or anyone else, who lays down their life to save another.

In forgiving others who don’t want my forgiveness.

I have cancer, but it is not going to kill me.  However, it did shift the axis on which my world spins.  For most of us I think it is fairly reasonable to say that when we hear “cancer”, we first think of it as a death sentence.  I have known others who have been diagnosed with drastically worse forms of cancer.  I have watched many of them die.  Almost without fail they have each discovered something in the process that I now realize I only gave lip service to.  I never, until now, began to understand the depth of the knowledge they gained. 

The lesson they all seemed to point to was this:  Nothing I ever wanted, or thought I needed, or that the world told me I need to believe, or anything (or anyone) I sought to control or possess, was ever worth more than being able to see the beauty in the life of another.  This sight gives me the opportunity to find something to love in everyone.  Each of them said they wished they would have lived their lives as though that were the greatest truth.

Someone told me I had cancer, and I started to let go of my own needs, wants, desires, and conceptions.  I went back and started looking with my new eyes at what God was really saying, and I found it was very different from what the politicians and many church leaders were telling me. 

The difference now is that since I’m not dying, but truly choosing to look at my life as though I am, I have a greater awareness of, and a more effective idea of how, I should spend that one life I’ve been given.

I was asleep, and now… I’m awake.

©Dan Bode 2021

Say His Name

What does it mean when a man says, “I can’t breathe”?

The air that sustains all of us cannot reach his lungs.  They cannot inflate to extract the infusion of oxygen that we are all created to live on.  When he says, “I can’t breathe” he is expressing a longing to live.

Then I see why he can’t breathe.  Another man has his knee bearing most of his weight on the neck of the man on the ground.  The man on the ground is black, the man with his knee on his neck is white.

The man on top is a police officer.

The man on the ground is black.

That’s all.  Just black.

Now he’s dead.  Because of a white man’s knee.  Because he’s black.

That picture is the epitome of the relationship between the white and black races in America.  Oppression due to perceived difference, based on fear, because of perceived difference.  If the picture was black and white, and I had been told it was 100 years ago I would probably have said something to the effect that, “Fortunately we’ve come a long way from that.”

It isn’t from 100 years ago.  It’s less than a month old as I write this.  If I made that statement in front of a black man he would have laughed in my face, and rightly so.

This man wasn’t doing anything at all that warranted him being arrested or detained, let alone killed.  

There is extensive video evidence of the entire episode that clearly shows his lack of resistance.

It should never be acceptable that any person feels a threat to his or her life for simply walking out the front door of their home.  

To fill up the car at a gas station.  

To drive down any street.  

To jog in the evening.  

To stand in their own driveway talking.

Because he or she is black.

I’m white, and while I am not specifically responsible for the way the black man is treated based on the behaviors of my forefathers, I am present now.  This makes me responsible for seeking change in the society of the present.  

My crime is my silence.

Since this man died, I’ve read and heard countless stories of what a kind and peaceful man he became, and how he did so much to work with the youth in violent neighborhoods teaching them to live better lives.  I’ve also seen stories of his criminal record, and that he had drugs in his system.

 

But I have a question:  Why is it even necessary that he should have to have a “good life story” to make this a horrifying event?  Why do we feel it necessary to justify his life?  On the other side of that, how does showing a past criminal record have anything to do with the events leading up to, and the moment of, his death.  This would have been just as horrifying if it had been someone else - “just a normal guy” – because he’s black.

No, George Floyd was not a saint, and neither is anyone else.  Yes, he did some things very wrong in the past, like many of us.  But none of that mattered one way or the other in the moment that he should not have died.  George Floyd did not resist, right up to the moment of his death.  He didn’t struggle violently.  He didn’t even curse.  I keep wondering what he was thinking in this whole process.  As he struggled to move in a way that would allow any breath at all, and as I watched the police officer dig his knee even harder into his neck.  I watched again as they taunted him to get up while he was pinned down by three officers while he did not struggle.  Was he thinking, “I keep telling these kids they need to seek change peacefully, so I have to keep it together.”  Then as the situation progressed, with his lungs demanding oxygen, “Keep it together, everyone is watching.  Be the example.”  Then again as he faded out and died, “Please make it worth it.”, and finally, “Mama, Mama.”

I’m white.  I feel relatively safe in my world.  I know there are those out there that might threaten my life at any random time.  When I think about them, I don’t think about the color of their skin, and I never have to imagine that it might be a police officer.

Because I’m white. 

Through this event many other events and processes have been triggered.

Protests have swept the country, many with riots where property was destroyed.  Ironically, most of the rioters appear to be white.  Some from Antifa, some from white supremacist groups, but all simply trying to sow more violence for their own ends.  The protestors have, for the most part, been peaceful and are honestly trying to take this opportunity to help us see the need for change from their perspective.

Police across the country have sought to support the Black community, sometimes even marching with them as they protest.  They detest what the officers involved did, and they have promised change.

They always walk a very fine line, but more so right now.  Under threat for something they didn’t collectively do, but nonetheless having to deal with the responsibility for it.  Doing their jobs and wondering if they will die for it.

It seems ironic as I look at that statement that it may be a similar situation for the average black man in America.  They walk a fine line as well.  They are under threat when they walk out of their house.  Some, like Breonna Taylor, didn’t even have to get out of bed.  So, a black person has to wonder on a daily basis if they will die for being black. 

All this because their skin is a different color.  Being black is not a chosen profession.  They don’t have a choice in the color of their skin, but again, why should that even make a difference?  More disturbing to me is the way many people I know have defended these deaths as legitimate.  

When they try to deflect the response by saying, “Where’s the outrage because this other person died?” I just want to say, “Because no one cared enough for him or her in their own community to be outraged about it.”  That is the fault of the community that didn’t care enough for them to say something.

The black community cares for themselves, and that is not wrong.  They are rightly outraged when they lose a member of their community whether they were a criminal or a saint.  We in the white community could stand to learn something of that attitude.

But in the meantime, George Floyd is still just as dead as he was yesterday, and somehow, all of us need to come together into a peaceful union of hearts and minds.   We need to acknowledge the sins of our forefathers, and make this society of ours right.  Change has to occur, and it is never comfortable.  It is easier to identify needed change in others, than it is to see the need in ourselves. 

There’s a great deal more to say about this, but I’ll save it for the next post. 

There are an inordinate number of people who respond to posts about this incident saying something like, “You need to take the log out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of someone else’s eye!”  I honestly don’t see how that applies here, but whenever I hear something like that (which, for the record, just makes you sound incoherent) I just go back and watch George Floyd die again. 

And again.

And again.

No logs there.

Say his name!

George Floyd.

©Dan Bode 2020