What We Make For Ourselves

My family and I were driving back to our home in Pennsylvania having spent a two-week excursion through the south and the plains.  We had plans to meet some family for dinner in St. Louis when we got a troubling phone call from our family who live in the St. Louis area, telling us that violence had broken out in Fergusson and St. Louis following the 1 year anniversary of #MichaelBrown and #blacklivesmatter.  Not wanting to be mixed up in the violence that had been relayed as “gang violence” (and not necessarily related to the protests), we made alternate plans for dinner that would not take us downtown, and chose to drive around St. Louis, being sure to avoid Fergusson.  

I am actually frustrated and angry that my privilege and status afford me choices others cannot make.  I admit I have many opportunities to escape harm that others do not and cannot have, in part because people like me aren't willing to be vulnerable enough to give up our own safekeeping even in the face of trying to keep others safe.  And while I grieve the suffering, loss of  life, and hurting people must endure, I'm all the while grateful for my not having to bother.  This needs to change, not just for me, but for lots of us.  

But just a week earlier, when my family and I visited the Panhandle Plains Museum in Canyon, Texas, we encountered this banner and the quote from Ten Bears in the Museum’s lobby. 

It seems, we’ve been this way before. 

Sometimes called the “Smithsonian of the Plains,” the Panhandle Plains Museum did an excellent job of inviting reflection about the anthropology, sociology, religious beliefs, and the history of the Panhandle Plains.  It mapped out lifestyles and trading routes, revealed the harsh realities and joys of life for a number of different peoples over time. 

As a “white man,” It was particularly difficult coming face to face with history that recounted how “whites” not only destroyed natural resources—like the plains’ buffalo—but took for their own by means of violence, displacing native peoples violently.  Of course, it was all in the name of “getting rich,” and “keeping safe.”  As a last resort, it seems, native peoples fought back, having witnessed “white man” destroying resources and habitat—changing the landscape forever and making it no longer habitable. 

Then, with the natives gone, another group of immigrants moved in to continue “getting rich.”  Ranching and farming replaced native migrations and roaming.  The Texas oil rush added another chapter of “get rich” opportunities.  And today’s fracking adventures seem to me to just be the latest development. 

But, there are astonishing other “signs.”  All is not as it seems.  A drive through this landscape reveals unrivaled natural beauty, but alongside mostly forgotten towns with abandoned, unused buildings—standing as used hulks that if piled up, would look a lot like the piles of buffalo carcasses from back in the day.  No doubt.  The “White Man” has laid waste and decimated.  And it’s heartbreaking. 

But traveling north from Texas to Kansas, I was completely surprised to note the substantial shifts in peoples.  In the middle of “red state America” the number of small businesses and stores with Hispanic or Asian names and services is eye-opening.  It’s easy to notice how realities are shifting again. 

So, what is our inheritance?  Is it destined to be Greed?  Violence?  Suffering?  Death of every kind? 

But before we left Texas, we visited the Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, and discovered that the real historical evidence in the Panhandle Plains of the now United States began some 12,000 or even 15,000 years ago.  There’s plenty of evidence of tool-making and hunting activities involving now vanished prehistoric animals.  We learned about prehistoric stone knapping and tool-making; and, despite our U.S. History classes, learned that “native Americans” inhabited the plains thousands of years before what we now think of as “Native Americans.” 

The archeological evidence demonstrates that trade routes and trading happened at a distance of at least a thousand miles from the quarries, in what would appear to be more peace-filled times.  This is a surprising comparison to say, “Biblical history” that seems violence prone and nowhere seems to stretch as far back. 

I wish we could have inherited a history of relationships, trade, and respect rather than making for ourselves a world of exploitation and destruction. 

We can’t change history.  But we can change our future. 

I’ve been reminded that I am a privileged “white man” in today’s world, blessed both with opportunities to exploit and preserve; and I recognize that my privilege came at great cost to others who suffered violence and loss and exploitation to my benefit.  But I’m committed to a future of relationships, respect, and non-retributive justice.  I want to move from responding to acts of violence and exploitation to helping my community and my congregation build a space where mutual respect and love trump greed and power.  

It gives me hope that long before our more recent troubles, human beings enjoyed a least some times of peaceful existence with trade and cooperation being key parts.  It gives me hope and courage that our Lord Jesus pointed us continuously in the direction of peace, love, helping, and healing. What ways can we share that peace and love with those around it who seem so clearly absent from it?  It’s probably not just an invitation to show up on Sunday mornings and worship with us! 

People of Jesus, we have work to do.  We can do this.  The world not only can change, it does change.  But we can help it change for the better.