If you want balance, stop tipping the scales!

I'm just getting over a nasty flu bug. (I'm still stuffy and worn out, so please bear with me if my thoughts don't come across as coherently as they sound in my head.) Over the weekend, I didn't feel like doing much, so I watched TV. I discovered a new (to me) station called UP. Timing was perfect! They were airing some of my favourite Christian movies, as well as a couple I hadn't had a chance to see.

First up was Lifted. This was one I hadn't heard of before, but the description sounded good. I bawled through the last 30 minutes. I won't say more, so as not to spoil it for anyone who might want to see it.

Next, The Grace Card. I've been wanting to order the DVD, but there are so many other things on the list that take priority right now. More tears were involved. And then, finally, I got to see Courageous. Tears, naturally.

As I was watching, I thought of other similar plot lines and/or character developments. And it occurred to me that, as is often the case when human nature is involved, we might have too much of a good thing. Now I know that even Christian filmmakers need to show a profit and a popular 'theme' is much repeated...

Let me pause here to clarify one important thing. I have no axe to grind on either side of the black/white issues that opportunistic hate-mongers insist on fueling. I'm lean quite heavily toward my Seminole/Cherokee heritage and have always been pretty much 'colourblind', anyhow. ('long story short') 

So, here's the thing. Every time I see one of these 'social awareness' movies, the character list is the same. There's the white heathen who is forced to work with the misunderstood, Godly black man. The white heathen learns his lesson, usually through a terrible ordeal in which the black man is the hero. That's great! And this same type of thing, most assuredly, to some degree, really happens every day. However, it's all so one-sided. Do we honestly believe that a role reversal never occurs?

If we really want to see racism end, we will never achieve that goal by doing a 180. If the scales have been tipped one way for years, we will accomplish nothing by throwing all the weights on the other side now.

First, we need to stop holding each other accountable for what our great-great-grandparents *might* have done. No one in  my family has ever been a slave owner. My white great-grandparents were dirt farmers, living on the poor side of town, too busy working to feed their children to even think about being offended by their equally hard-working black neighbours. And vice versa.

Second, we all need to stop allowing ourselves to be swept along with an emotional tide generated by people whose only desire is to fan the flames of hatred and watch it burn our great country to the ground once and for all. We must not assume that every person who is 'like us' is an innocent victim of every person who isn't. Not every black/white crime is racially motivated.

Human beings are proud and stubborn and have a self-destructive tendency to dig in our heels whenever anyone makes us question what we believe. Be brave enough to admit that you can be wrong. What will it cost you, really, to listen to another point of view? God's Word reminds us over and over that we must be willing to hear truth, no matter how much it might hurt our pride. (We all know the verse about pride.) 'Nuff said?

*The way of the foolish is right in his own eyes: but he that is wise hearkeneth unto counsel.Proverbs 12:15

*There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.Proverbs 14:12

*those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth; Proverbs 30:12

*Let no one deceive himself; if any one doth seem to be wise among you in this age -- let him become a fool, that he may become wise, 1 Corinthians 3:18

*And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. 1 Corinthians 8:2

I hope my words have made some sense. I'm very tired, but wanted to put them downo while they were relatively fresh. Be blessed, my dear friends! Have a JESUS-filled day! ^i^