credit \u00a9 2012 Mike Baird , Flickr (Wylio)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAfrican-American girl who lives a few blocks from us. A few years older than Ella, she can be found most days at the park, playing and making friends. She was the first friend that Ella made all by herself. Her other friends have been \u201cintroduced,\u201d by us\u2013children of our adult friends and colleagues. Yesterday, when we left the park, as Ella and Sharlene hugged and blew kisses, a few thoughts went through my mind.<\/p>\n
In my Protestant, Baptist context, we hear a great deal about \u201coriginal sin.\u201d Childhood is often held up as the prime time for selfishness, anger, narcissism, thoughtlessness. I remember a seminary professor once suggesting that God was merciful to keep children small, because if they were large, they would destroy the earth and everything in it\u2013crying all the while. A bit like \u201cPlanet of the Apes\u201d gone mad. There are other more obvious (biological) reasons for children being small, but we can leave that for another day.<\/p>\n
The ease with which Ella and Sharlene made fast friends and the lack of any sense of social awkwardness or hesitancy, even as they mingled across their families and their own sets of friends, struck me as a powerful counterpoint to the Protestant emphasis on original sin and \u201ctotal depravity.\u201d (Now don\u2019t get me wrong\u2013we see evidences of that too, on occasion). But it also struck me as an object lesson. Why does it seem so much more difficult for us adults? Why does it seem so hard to move beyond the racist, prejudice impulses that run so deep within us\u2013if buried under a veneer of cordiality and\u00a0niceties?<\/p>\n
It then occurred to me that it won\u2019t always be so easy. As they grow up and are socialized in their various segments of life, voices will chime in from all corners. Some will tell them that it shouldn\u2019t<\/em> be so easy. Whether at school, at play, or perhaps even at church, at some point they will be confronted with a message which tells them it\u2019s better\u2013simpler\u2013and less troublesome to stick closest to those who look like them, talk like them, and dress like them. That\u2019s a message they will hear. It won\u2019t be nearly as explicit or as institutionalized as it once was. It will be subtle, but it will be there, nonetheless. It will be built into the system somewhere, at some point. And the message will attempt to socialize them in accordance with its values of separation and division in relation to difference, inequality and privilege.<\/p>\nNeither of them will be growing up in Eden. The world they are entering is post-Fall. Sin is pervasive. Satan is lurking. It chills me now even to write those words. But it\u2019s true. It\u2019s also very likely true that Ella will have an easier trek. Knowing just a little of Sharlene\u2019s home life, it\u2019s safe to say that more obstacles will stand in her way. More voices will tell her certain things can\u2019t be done. That certain things can\u2019t be accomplished. That certain opportunities aren\u2019t available to her. It\u2019s sad to write those words, but it feels too true to leave unsaid. These inequalities will compound the challenge of relationships\u2013not just across \u201cracial\u201d bounds, but socio-economic ones as well.<\/p>\n
In Genesis 3, what tradition calls the \u201cFall\u201d story, Adam and Eve take of the fruit of the\u201d tree of the knowledge of good and evil.\u201d They want to be like God,\u00a0knowing good from evil.\u00a0<\/em>I wonder if that\u2019s something of an ironic phrase. What\u2019s wrong with knowing good from evil? Aren\u2019t we supposed to seek wisdom? To do what is right rather than what is wrong? Perhaps the \u201cknowledge of good and evil,\u201d at least that which Adam and Eve grabbed after, isn\u2019t true knowledge at all\u2013but pseudo-knowledge? The sense that we think\u00a0<\/em>we know good from evil, when we really don\u2019t. We think we\u2019ve carved up the world just right: into the pure and impure, the good and the bad, what\u2019s possible and what\u2019s not. And so we operate on the basis of that pseudo-knowledge, and on that basis we structure society, pass on culture, and shape our relational lives.<\/p>\nPerhaps the job of the church is, in large part, to spurn that pseudo-knowledge and instead, to \u201chave the mind of Christ,\u201d living on that basis, as \u201ccommunities of obedience\u201d (Walter Brueggemann) in the light of our advent hope.<\/p>\n
Maybe for just a moment\u2013or even for a season\u2013we could mute the voices of our politicians, our intellectuals,\u00a0our church leaders, and listen to our children.<\/p>\n
And Jesus said, \u201cLet the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs\u00a0to such as these.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(Matt 19:14)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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One of the highlights of my summer and early fall \u00a0has been regular trips to the neighborhood park, with our two-year old daughter, Ella. Just yesterday, she had a great time playing with her best friend at the park, Sharlene (Ella calls her \u201cSha-Lee\u201d). Sharlene is a fun, African-American girl who lives a few blocks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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