My city has been on fire this week.

The Scandinavian meat market that my mother grew up walking to — sawdust crunching under her feet once inside. A hard-worked-for Hmong market. Owned by a pair of brothers, a distillery that, due to COVID, began producing gallon jugs of hand sanitizer. A Mexican panadería, formerly a florist that my mom rode her bike to as a kid to peer in the display windows. Neighborhood gas stations and groceries. Post offices and banks. Hundreds of other businesses, buildings, cars, and restaurants — broken, damaged, destroyed, looted, burned. Flames licked the sky and feet hit the ground.

And while the fires raged, hearts burned.

Here in Minneapolis — where my mom lived her entire life, where I was born, grew up, and now near where I live and raise my family — our hearts are burning over a devastation that goes far beyond buildings. Last week we watched in horror as a local police officer knelt with the weight of his body on the neck of a black man. That man, named George Floyd, died under a knee.

Minnesota usually brings to mind immediate images of 10,000 lakes, subzero frozen winters and stunning autumn leaves, the expansive beauty of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, muggy summers. It’s hockey and farming, a vibrant theater and arts culture, slow small-town charm alongside the bustle of urban high-rises. It’s a giant cherry on a spoon, the haunting call of the loons on lakes of deep blue, and families of all cultures and makeup.

But this week, the scenes coming out of my beloved state were starkly, vastly, completely different. A life was taken. Stolen and broadcast on video. And while a building can be rebuilt, a life once lost is gone. We mourn and grieve the end of George Floyd’s life, and the lives taken before his.

As Minneapolis burns, it’s impossible not to also grieve the destruction of neighborhoods and a beloved city. There’s grief for both as these scenes showed a side of the city, and of people, that most would rather not acknowledge. Eugene Cho put it beautifully when he wrote, ” . . . some of us feel . . . Pain at the sight of chaos and violence but deeper pain behind what caused these actions.”

And at the root of the burning in our hearts and our city is the unresolved wounds of racism. Our hearts are burning with the fire of injustice, and it’s even appropriate liturgically, as today is Pentecost Sunday.

They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each one of them.
Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . .
Acts 2:3-4 (CSB)

More fire. This one, holy.

At (in)courage, we’ve long proclaimed that we are better together, that there is room for all at the table. But for too long, our sisters (and brothers) of color have had to fight for a seat. They have had to claw their way to being heard at all. They have been oppressed, persecuted, minimized, and ignored. As I’ve leaned in and listened to people who don’t share my same background, what I’ve learned to see and hear is that these actions are wrong. I’ve been made aware to declare them as evil, and not how God intended for His children to live.

Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
Romans 12:4-5 (CSB)

This isn’t just lip service, friends. This is design. We were literally made to function together with each other. When one part suffers, the rest of the body limps along. It doesn’t work properly.  What happens to one happens to us all — for real — and that’s how God intended it to be, on purpose.

And right now, across the country, our sisters of color are in pain and unrest.

We need to feel the pain of lives lost to the inhumanity of racism. We need to feel the tension of how our privilege can distance us from wanting to feel the pain. We need to lean into the fire and know the flame with our sisters. We need to do the hard work of listening, of learning, of loving well. We are many parts of One Body, connected in and by and for Christ.

Our hearts are on fire, and as on Pentecost, we need to let them burn so that we may be filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered by Him to come together as many parts of one body.

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At (in)courage, we are fortunate to have contributors from diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds. Behind the scenes, we’ve had the privilege of growing together through challenging, awkward at times, honest, grace-filled conversations on race, racism, and hopes for healing our collective and personal racial wounds. And one thing we’ve learned about ourselves is this: We don’t mind going first with our own messy stories so that you are empowered to grow and have your own challenging, awkward at times, honest, grace-filled conversations.

You’re invited to one such discussion.

Tune in as five (in)courage contributors and team members talk together about our experiences, offering their stories, insights and questions. We pray you’ll see yourself reflected in the conversation, and be inspired to look deeper into your own heart and those around you. Watch the video on Facebook (or here on Instagram) and add your voice to this ongoing conversation. Our prayer is that you would then be inspired to have additional conversations yourself with the people in your life.

For additional insight, here are a few resources from (in)courage contributors for you to dig into:

Brownicity, by Dr. Lucretia Berry

Being Asian American in the Midst of COVID-19 by Grace P. Cho

{Better Together} Week 7: How Do I Actually Love My Neighbor As Myself? by Alia Joy

{Better Together} Week 5: How to Nurture a Cross-Cultural Friendship by Deidra Riggs & Michelle DeRusha

How to Create a New Kind of Normal for Our Children by Deidra Riggs

 

[bctt tweet=”Our hearts are on fire, and as on Pentecost, we need to let them burn so that we may be filled with the Holy Spirit. – @annaerendell: ” username=”incourage”]

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