mlk day

This is the exact article I posted last year on MLK day (& the year before). you can go and read that post HERE (there are about 7 comments on that post) or just read it below. I wouldn't say anything different than I said a year ago. I just want to echo it today!

(his b-day was actually on the 15th, but today is the holiday.

.. hence the day for the post.)

I HATE racism... with a passion. There are few other things I hate as passionately as I hate racism - things like injustice (like the fact that some don't have access to clean water... or the GOSPEL), abortion, ignorance/complacency toward the poor & dying, people who would treat my wife or family bad...

I didn't really know what racism or prejudice was until I was probably 12. I grew up in a big neighborhood where I was 1 of 2 white kids. My BEST FRIEND in the whole world from the time I was born until around 13 or 14 was Colin Lomax. He was my next door neighbor for those 13 years. We did EVERYTHING together. Every day! Colin is an African American... but I didn't really know it. That's the great thing about kids... they're colorblind.

Colin and I have since drifted as we grew up, but still keep in touch. He was at my wedding and that was pretty awesome. My oldest friend in the whole world (since I was "zero") celebrating my wedding day with me.

So, in my mind, to think differently of people with a different color skin is the most ridiculous, ignorant, and craziest thing I've ever heard. Crazier than martians and flying pigs.

I celebrate anything that destroys racism and prejudice. God celebrates that too.

I never really knew that much about Martin Luther King, Jr. growing up. (My school didn't even take the day off.) But about 3 years ago I started paying attention and reading some stuff about him here and there. Last year on MLK day I posted about it too = HERE.

I would love to let MLK speak for himself... This is something he said when they were about to take action to bring about civil rights for African Americans & politicians were telling him to "wait... just wait and let us take care of it in due time..."

“We have waited three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. Perhaps it’s easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say ‘Wait,’ but when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters… when you have to concoct an answer for your five-year-old son’s question, ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored’; when your first name becomes ‘nigger’ and your middle name becomes ‘boy’… when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness,’ THEN you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” - MLK

WHOA. I hope that gives everyone a taste of the emotional background of a people with a different skin color than you. I don't think white folk can truly even imagine it.

*I was actually visiting my grandmother a few months ago in my dad's old hometown. We were driving down the main road through downtown (nothing luxurious, it's a TINY town) when I saw an old brick building (my dad later said it used to be the pool hall he used to hang out in & where he learned to be a pool shark). I was riding with my dad & yelled "STOP"... he pulled over wondering what was going on. I got out & took a picture of the building...

Yeah, no joke. Faded obviously because it hadn't been used in years, but nonetheless evidence of a HORRIBLE and INEXCUSABLE EVILwhere people who simply have a darker pigment in their skin were degraded and forced to use a different entrance to buildings! Are you kidding me???

Think this kind of racism and EVIL is only a thing of the past? Think again. I just had a conversation with my mom the other day about a white girl I grew up with marrying a man who happened to be black. The girl's parents can't talk about it without crying - they're so disappointed. They were going to refuse to go to the wedding... OF THEIR OWN DAUGHTER (but apparently changed their mind). I'm sorry, but that's freaking ridiculous!

This is as insane as hating people with blonde hair! so ridiculous... such an arbitrary thing. It's just color!

I mean even the "christian" (and yes, I use the term very loosely) Bob Jones University - peeps who claimed to love Jesus were full on racists. They didn't even admit black students until 1976! what in the world!? But they would expel anyone who even thought interracial dating/marriage was ok. In 1983 they LOST in the Supreme Court case Bob Jones University vs. The United States!!! for real!!!? They lost their tax exempt status (& still don't have it back) but stood firm that their "racial discrimination was what God intendedand founded in Scripture." That is SICK. I'm sure God is saying "LEAVE MY NAME OUT OF YOUR EVIL!" (To their meager credit the college lifted the interracial dating policy in 2000 because of intense media pressure and actually issued a public apology about 2 months ago. God can change anyone.)

From what I've read, I think MLK was a great man. I admire him greatly. I can't believe what he went through just so everyone could enjoy life without sanctioned hatred.

He had a vision and believed in it. Years later, I am behind his vision still:

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word." - MLK

Me too, Martin. Love Wins.

love always wins

i just happen to firmly believe that love wins.

no matter what. every single time. love wins.

i believe it even though it goes against my nature. sometimes i don't want to let love win. some days i wish revenge or hate or laziness or apathy could win.

but it never does... because love always wins.

i believe that if you extend your hand enough times... if you extend love enough times EVENTUALLY love will win.

but today this belief will be challenged. something will happen to you and to me TODAY that will challenge this belief. something will begin to make us think that some reaction other than love will win.

or maybe we know it cognitively, but we don't want to let love win. revenge would be more fun. doing nothing would be easier.

i know what they did to me. but love wins.
i know the injustice that is happening. love wins.

because we all live life with a ton of different people. our family, spouses, co-workers, friends, teammates, roommates, bosses, coaches, teachers, employees, neighbors, and fellow drivers on the road... and all these people challenge this idea that love wins.
because they will mock us, cuss at us, say mean things about us behind our back, hurt us, etc...

but ultimately, with every single one of these people love wins.

if we live this way people will definitely think we're weird. they'll probably laugh at us and say we're "weak". that we're just letting people walk all over us and not sticking up for ourselves.

but i still say love wins.

it's even harder to live this way because no one lives this way. this is so not normal. in fact it's opposite of how normal people live. it's revolutionary.
love wins.

it's hard to live that way

this week i've been writing about the idea that love wins.

no matter what is happening in the world, in your life, and no matter what is done to you... love wins.

but it's hard to live that way. and i believe that Jesus knows better than anyone how hard this is.
because Jesus was ridiculed, hated, mocked... and He had a choice of how He would respond to all this. He chose love every time.

He could have picked up a rock and fought back. He could have spit back in their face. but He never once became the evil that was thrown at Him. You never read about Jesus saying "just give me a little time and I'll get even." He never once responds back with what's been done to Him.

and Jesus changed the world.
people who live like this... like love wins... change the world!
because love defeated evil.

& love still beats evil. evil can never beat evil. only love wins.

every time. because love never fails. it can't fail. it is incapable of failing.

somebody has to LOVE to stop the madness. there's an evil cycle and we all contribute to it when we get revenge, fight back, etc... but when we love - love wins & the evil stops. the world changes.

so yes, it's hard. but isn't it worth it to change the world. the only other alternative is the same way everyone else lives. you see where that gets us.

is the world any different because of you?

you lose

love wins.

it's that simple.

but without love... you lose.

yesterday i was diving into what this guy, Paul, said love IS. you might be surprised at how BIG love is and all that it encompasses. you can read that HERE.

but 1st, Paul lets us know that pretty much anything else doesn't matter without love.

he could speak in other human or angelic tongues... but that's just annoying noise without love.
if he could tell the future and understand pretty much everything... that's nothing without love.

he could have enough faith to literally MOVE a mountain. that would be CRAZY. maybe a little freaky, but also crazy awesome... but as cool as that would be, without love he's still nothing.

he could literally give everything he owns to help the poor... even that, without love, is worthless.

wow. so love is a pretty big deal.

if we don't love we lose. but LOVE WINS.