Fire & Water, Bombs & Reconciliation

As we have journeyed this week, we have seen many images, many that to me are quite disturbing.  In conversations with our leader, I am still pondering how segregation remained so entrenched, with seemingly very little resistance from the white Church.  And with this lack of support, the black church continued pressing forward, essentially by themselves, for voting rights, for the right to sit at a lunch counter, to have the right to sit on the bus outside of their “normal” seats, to be able to live their lives without fear and to be equal within their own country.

How would you respond if your house was bombed?  What if it was your own church?  Imagine if it happend more than once?  Bombings were a common occurence in Burmingham, AL’s black community.  Yet, for those we have been blessed to hear from this week, there  is an underpinning of forgiveness that I do not know if I could (or want to) give.

Imagine that you are peacefully assembling (as guranteed by the Constitution) and you have fire hoses turned on and you get forced down the street by the sheer force of the water.  Think about police canine dogs, held on a leash, attacking your legs, arms, torso, etc.  Ponder that you speak at a public gathering, or for that matter attending, and having your church surrounded by angry people who do not like you, don’t see you as a true person, and are eagerly awaiting you to exit the building to beat you.  This was an ongoing set of circumstances of the blacks in Alabama in the 1950-60’s.  How would you respond?  How would I respond?  Even a more difficult question to ponder is how God would want us to respond.

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