One of my first experiences as a practicing “Christian” was a college mission trip I took to “the single greatest little place in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic. I love it!”* I’d really never come face to face with poverty before. I spent the entire summer there having my eyes opened and mind blown: I met Haitians living bateyes who were stateless because their grandfathers and mothers had been brought over as slaves to work the sugar cane. I encountered a young Dominican boy (around my ten-year-old son’s age) named Antonio, whose only possession after running away was one pair of shorts and who made his bed under a park bench near the police station so he might have a spot to retreat if his abusive father came searching for him in the middle of the night. And, I watched from our hotel room-slash-bunker as rioters burned tires and threatened police with machetes.
*Cheeky reference to In the Heights
That experience changed me. I wanted a different life for those people. What I now – many years later – would call justice. And I acted on that. I went again the next year. And did other mission trips. And eventually began work in the church doing “missions” full time. And I followed the lead of “mission-minded” folks who went before me. I followed their lead – believing the VBS we did with some emerging world kids would change their lives forever. And don’t get me wrong – amazing things happened. God was definitely at work. But justice? I’m not sure that I really helped anyone progress down the road of justice.
The tension was that I didn’t have the tools. And that I wasn’t in contexts that would provide them for me. The church wasn’t giving me tools towards peacemaking – but tools towards evangelism and church growth. It has just been over the past 5 or 6 years that I’ve started to discover some of those tools. What I’ve found helpful is – unfortunately – to look outside the church and towards others who are making headways towards justice. It is nonprofits and such that seem to be doing peacemaking these days.
And then there’s personal transformation. Well, I’ve been transformed along the way. But its been slow and painful at times. I’m still learning now how to begin to accept my belovedness. For without it I’m not too good for anyone else. The tension of how to take time to realize my belovedness when there is so much need for justice is still one I’m trying to figure out.
4 comments
Brandon, You and I share a lot of background and current identities that the clarity with which you wrote resonate deeply with my mind and heart. Thank you for you honesty, (and for the Lin Manuel-Miranda reference). I appreciate your distinction of “evangelicalism and church growth” from “justice”. I’ve been thinking of the search for tools, that I so often feel are sparse in my proverbial toolbox. How do you find the relationship between tool building and belovedness-claiming in your life? One is an external search for what in my life is a feeling of inadequacy, while the other whispers an “enough-ness” of belonging that changes me when I lean into it. On the other hand, yeah, tools, workshops, education about the needs of those in circumstances unlike my own are ever a humbling reorientation of my identity of Christian laced White supremacy. We are beloved of God. You are beloved, and I see you seeing the belovedness of others restoring its Truth in you.
Brandon. Thank you for this. It takes courage to look back and take a critical analysis of the “justice” work that we’ve been a part of that may have, in fact, been perpetuating the unjust status quo. As you transform forward into a more righteous understanding of justice, how do you do so in a way that is fueled by your belovedness rather than your desire to do it correctly? It seems that the work of justice is at its best when it’s fueled by love (belovedness) rather than a reaction to a former (& contemporary) practice.
Brandon, I appreciate your honesty in the struggle with the church and its relationship to true mission work and the how to focus on your own belovedness while there are so many problems around you. It really is our reconciliation to Christ that allows for reconciliation to others. That takes a level of surrender that is everyday work. It is such a gift for me to meet like minded people, like you, that are honest about the struggle
Brandon, I identify with the tension between personal growth and transformation and the urgency of justice- it can almost feel selfish to focus on myself when there truly is so much need for justice. Still working on figuring out how those two concepts can work together.