I walk around and teach peace and insist on kids showing respect and not being violent and yet I still have a fairly short fuse and am eagerly angered. Race is still a touchy subject for me and I'm easily on edge about being white, even though I'm finally pretty comfortable with it and don't live out of white guilt. I hate reading all these articles about how white people are going to vote for Obama because of white guilt. Are people really that sad? I'm voting for him b/c I believe in most of his policies and John McCain's "summer of love" in Vietnam was far from anything resembling love. Anyhow, that's a whole different story for another day.
Love is sacrifice and love is obedience. Focus on love, not on anger, fear, jealousy, bitterness or lust. These are the things that God has been drilling into me from a variety of angles. I love the picture of Christ absorbing pain and taking joy in it. It's rather crazy when you think about it. I take in a lot of stuff in my neighborhood and for the most part I feel that I'm a presence of peace and live my life seeking to be a presence of peace and not trying to have a movie made about my life or write my own book.
I'm glad that I can somewhat laugh at things sometimes. I've had an awful run of luck/providence or whatever you call it, lately. It all started with a rough phone call from California that was putting a serious hurting on me that didn't need any assistance from the 18th Police who thought I looked suspicious or didn't realize that I was in a "dangerous neighborhood." They start asking me questions and I'm sweating b/c it's blazing out, and I give them my speil about working for a non-profit helping single parents and how I've lived in this neighborhood for three years. Well, this meant absolutely nothing to them. They ran my license and made me empty my pockets.
Looking back I wish my head hadn't been so spinning b/c I would have given them a piece of my mind and made them feel bad for stopping me, or that would have been my goal. I mean, i wanted them to feel guilty. In my mind, I built up this self-righteous indignant biting reaction to them, "I have a f-ing aerospace engineering degree, I voluntarily moved here b/c I love God and His love is expressed through peace and justice, I spend my free time mentoring kids, my house is always open to anyone, I work to help formerly homeless single parents get housing and earn a bachelors degree, I've dealt with a lot of shit from kids, strangers, how dare you stop me, what because I'm white? I work with the community relations officers from your district, next time this happens I'm going to go off on someone. I want your badge number." That filth is inside me. I suppose it's good for me to get it out on paper and realize that I have to be active in my fight against that nature in me. I don't know what makes me want to make someone feel like that. It's like I want someone to give me a medal or something.
Yesterday I took Buddha, my six year old brother to the projects to play basketball with his friends. There were about ten little munchkins running around the Fischer Price hoop. On top of everything, they were randomly playing with a Duke miniball. My goal whenever I play with little kids is to make them pass the ball and play teamball. I'm talking Hoosiers style with no shots counting until at least 3 passes are made. Kinda ironic for those of you who know me to be a reformed/reforming ball hog. Some kid ran his mouth about how I like playing with little kids and so I moved over to the real hoop. Kaya, who is in fifth grade goes to my chess club and has a deeper voice than I do was shooting and she is so mature and said something profound about the immaturity of boys that encouraged me.
I was playing three on three, me and two girls against three hotshot gunners. We were tearing them up and I wasn't even really shooting. I love helping girls beat the kind of little boy I used to be. Jamal kept saying things to Rafike, who's very light skinned about him being white and horrible at basketball and other derogatory things about our people. I look over at him, and he's like, oh i wasn't talking about you, Pete. Well he quickly progressed and started talking about me, and I'm like, Mal, you're next. Just me and you. He keeps running his mouth and he's about my height and I haven't played much ball recently, so I'm a touch anxious. It's our turn to play and he wants to put money on the game. I say no, but I said that the loser buys water ice for the other.
He agreed and we started playing and I start knocking down jimmies and just crush him 22-8. Well, I tell him, Jamal, I want mango water ice. He starts saying that he doesn't have any money right now, so I'm like, Oh ok, that's cool, I'll just hold onto the ball until you get my water ice. He protests saying that it's Hakeem's and not his, and I tell him Hakeem owes me too. He interjects saying that I'm treating him that way because he's black, and I got in the same self-righteous mode the police evoked a few days earlier. I wanted to be like, Um... how about your brother broke in my house, stole my friends cell phone, took inappropriate pictures of himself, and the list goes on. Hakeem was there when he broke in too. I seriously thought about taking the ball, but didn't. All throughout the basketball game play middleschool Mein was taunting me about my recent relationship woes. Kids can really hurt you. I mean I don't care about what people say about me, but let's be decent and show some respect.
Today I was out running after work along the trails in Cobbs Creek Park. The path is gorgeous and it calmed me down after Ma Linda and I had a bit of an argument. Sometimes she goes off on me b/c other people really treat her poorly. I was cooling down, and settling into my running groove. I've been meditating a lot while I'm running, mainly Psalm 139, I love the part that says God hems us in from the front and behind, and that his hands are upon us always.
It reminds me of running Bull Run at Hereford with 300 people running Braveheart style until the pack streams into a tightly knit multicellular organism where maneuvering is virtually impossible. The runners around you dictate your pace and your path and there is a comfort and a simple peace in that. Running in the woods always reminds me that love is freedom and that love goes beyond the law, that the law is good, but love is the best. I think it's the combination of Robert Frosts road less traveled imagery and David's longings in the Psalms that are tied to nature and streams of water and life.
I was really loosening up when I came up to a pack of highschoolers walking back from the public pool which is accessible from the path. I announced my arrival with what I thought was a friendly, "Coming through." Well they didn't really get out of my way and I did slightly brush someone's shoulder, but I didn't have much choice and I flashed my customary friendly chill peace sign. I kept moving, picking it up like I always do when I run past people, and the next thing I notice, there are rocks being thrown at my feet. I'm like, seriously? are you serious? I wish you would do that? You're picking on the wrong person. I don't tolerate ignorance, except my own, I wasn't going to do anything to them other than talk things out.
Now I unfortunately turned around and yelled something that involved both them being assholes and needing to show respect. I felt pretty bad about it and on my way back, I was kinda hoping to run into them and have a conversation about respect and dignity. It was exciting, I had no legs so it would have either gone well or I would have gotten my ass kicked. I'm really not afraid of bodily harm done to me. I know that when I'm on edge, I can be snippy and then I usually feel pretty awful immediately afterwards.
This mainly ended up being a gripe session. It's kinda crazy when you sit back and realize how much stuff builds up inside you that we often internalize without really knowing. I think that's how neighborhoods like mine get so rough and desensitized. Tomorrow I will write about the lessons I've learned on forgiveness.I guess anyone who reads this will have to forgive me too, haha...hmm. I have a big mouth and quick moving fingers, sorry yall
Ciao
No comments:
Post a Comment