It is a weird and unusual time at the moment…
First, there was the global pandemic and lockdown. Churches shut their doors, we couldn’t visit friends or family, going outside was discouraged. For me personally this hit in a strange place - we’d moved to a new country only a couple of months before (and had only briefly visited home from a different continent) so talking to family and friends solely by video call was not a new experience. I’m also an introvert who doesn’t like people touching me, so a limited social calendar and a reason not to hug made it seem like the world had been recreated to my own personal preferences. However, we’d only been here for two months and were just starting to feel like people from our church, our building and our language course were becoming friends rather than ‘people we knew’ and that was tough to navigate as our opportunities for bumping into people or getting to know them better vanished.
Then there is the belated and necessary uptake of interest in the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s meant that many of us are finally questioning the systems in which we live, how they need changing and what we can do to help, particularly in regards to race. It has probably made us all way more aware of our bubbles, our tendency to listen to people who are closer to us on any spectrum: racial, policitcal, age, even denominational.
There’s nothing new in what I’ve said here: any thoughtful commentary on our times is expressing the same things, and often doing that better.
But I was uploading a Sunday School lesson today that spoke to me particularly at this moment. John 4:1-42, Jesus talks to a Samaritan Woman at the Well.
It struck me anew how far out of his way Jesus goes to reach past the barriers that separate them from each other. He didn’t even need to be in Samaria in the first place! If I’m becoming more like Jesus, as I want to, I have to do all that I can to understand and to reach out to those who are different from me.
One of the ways I’ve looked at changing how I think, especially in seeking to understand, is by consuming content from people who are not like me. I’ve deliberately begun to seek out youtube channels, books, blogs and music from POC’s and not just those in the West. Not just on the topic of race or age or ability but on things I enjoy and have in common with them. I’ve also been educating myself on how systemic racism manifests in Britain in particular as that’s where I’m from. And thinking about where the money we donate goes in terms of supporting worldwide mission and aid agencies but also looking out for a tendancy to white saviourism.
I’m not going to make specific recommendations here as what you and I enjoy and are interested in will not be the same. But do check out my previous blog posts 5 Black Christians You Should Know and 5 Organisations Every Christian Should Know if you would like a place to start.