A Mother's Blessing on the Ethnic Identity of Her Children

To my precious children,

Did you know that your birth is not an accident? 

Before you were born, the Lord chose the soil of your birth, the space which would hear your first cry. He knows all the lands on which your growing feet will leave footprints until the day your weary earthly body returns into the dust.

I bless your feet for the journeys the Lord takes you on and the lands in which you find yourself. I bless you with the knowledge that God hems you in behind and before and with the knowledge that, though you may feel like an alien and a stranger, your real home, your real citizenship is in heaven. I bless you with fellow journeyman, companions to travel alongside you as you wander, and to remind you of both the joy and the temporariness of the places you find yourself in. May you sow healing and blessing wherever your feet walk.

Did you know that your blood is not an accident? 

In you, God wove together two distinct bloodlines into one. Two peoples, two histories, two lineages, reaching incomprehensibly like tree roots into the past and now expertly woven together into the beautiful tapestry that is you. Your ancestors have made tragic mistakes and achieved great victories. Neither bloodline is superior to the other nor has achieved full perfection. Both make you who you are. God made your ancestors with the same care that He made you and He redeemed them with the same blood as was used to buy you out of slavery and into His glorious freedom.

I bless your blood with both acceptance and humility. I bless you with forgiveness for the mistakes your peoples have made, the sins they have committed, and the lies they have believed. I bless you with eyes that see more clearly how to live rightly in this generation. I bless you with the knowledge that your people are precious in His sight and have a unique purpose to make in His kingdom. And I bless you with the humility to know that your people are not the only people who are precious in His sight with a purpose in His Kingdom. I bless you and your children and your children’s children with hearts that long to see every tribe and tongue and nation worshiping the One True King. 

Did you know that the day of your birth is not an accident? 

The day, the time, the era you were born in was determined long before the day arrived. You have been chosen to perform good works in the expanse of time you walk this earth, works created in advance for you to do by the One who made you. On this day, stand firm and fight the battles God ordains for you so that your children may arise and call you blessed because their lives are better for your efforts.

People may look upon you and curse you for the lands which taint your feet or the blood that colors your veins or the stories that are spoken of your people. I bless you with the ability to forgive those who curse you because of you know who has called you His. May He speak the truth of who you are into the wounded caverns of your identity. Likewise, you must beg forgiveness for those you have similarly cursed and wounded. 

In the name of Jesus, the Jew from Nazareth, I bless you to be filled with the power of God knowing that your true identity comes from the Father. God has given you the gift of your land, your blood, your history and He can and will use it for His glory.

But these gifts are for His glory and not for yours. He has given you crowns for you to lay at His feet, not to lord over others or to deny them their crowns.

I bless you with lips that praise our King in your mother tongue and in the music of your heart language. I bless you with the freedom to walk and to eat and to dance and to rejoice and to mourn in the custom of your people. I bless you with the ability to reflect the image of God in the way only you can, that only your people can.

I bless you with love and honor for the families of the earth that are different from your own. I bless you with a heart that lays down your life for your neighbor, as the Good Samaritan did for the wounded Jew.

I bless you to be a bridge-builder, a force for peace, and an ambassador of Heaven in the corners of the earth in which you dwell. May you be used to tear down the wall of hostility between peoples and bring reconciliation to those far from God and at war with each other. May you find your place of belonging in His family even others reject you. 

My precious, precious children, you are His. Root yourself in that truth and let it bleed out into every aspect of your identity so He can then redeem all the other complex and beautiful pieces that make you so fearfully and wonderfully made.

May you join in the mission of God to bring healing to the nations, in every land, throughout all bloodlines, and throughout every era humans inhabit. May you join in with every nation, tribe, people and language in declaring that "salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (Revelation 7:9-10).

Amina.

Bridges

There is a Swahili proverb that says, “A bridge is not where you dwell[i].” 

It’s good advice.  But some of us try anyways. 

In the liminal walkway between places, the “Wood Between the Worlds”[ii], the place that is neither here nor there, we try to pitch our tents. 

I used to have both feet firmly rooted in one place.  The tan, sandy soils of decomposed limestone flavored with sage and old oaks gave me a solid place to stand, all in one, small, somehow comprehensible world. 

Now I look back over my shoulder and see dusty footprints leading back miles and miles away from where I once was to where I now am. 

I knew when I married my husband that I was not only marrying him, I was marrying the Alur culture, his extended family, his social network in Uganda, and the unique cultural context that created the spectacular being that is my husband. 

He knew when he married me that he was not only marrying me, but marrying the complicated red, white, and blue mess that is my American background and history, my messy family of origin, my social network sprawled across the concrete rivers of Los Angeles, and the unique cultural context that somehow forged me into being.  

But neither of us really knew what we were marrying into. 

It is impossible to walk through the fires of culture shock completely unscourged.  When uprooted and unanchored from all the myriad of relationships, symbols, and places that made you into who you are as a person and violently submerged into an alien world, one’s sense of self must be changed.  It has to.  And there is no way to predict who will come out of the other end. 

Our combined experiences taught us how to be Ugandan and how to be American.  Neither of our combined experiences prepared us for being Ugandan in America. 

It’s not the same thing…and my cultural context prefers Ugandans to stay in Uganda. 

Our marriage lashed two worlds together, but our nest making has added two more.  And we have both experienced the never ending, continually reoccurring cycles of culture shock.

 As the emotions ebb and flow, I am reminded again and again how similar the stages of culture shock are to the stages of grief-the denial, the anger, the grief, the depression, the small adjustments that can be made to accommodate one’s new reality. 

In a lot of ways, culture shock is a grief.  It’s learning to mourn for the loss of one’s world-physical and social, and the loss of one’s place in the world.  It’s learning to grieve that one’s natal identity and the deep, internal sense of self that has been buried in one’s native soil, to be reincarnated as something new and somehow both familiar and foreign.  That person who once was is no longer and will never fully be again.  They’ve been unworlded, unmade, untethered, uprooted, and cast adrift on the transnational reality that never quite feels like reality.  

“A bird may love a fish, but where will they live?”

 “Then we shall have to build you wings.[iii]” 

It’s not enough.  The bird also needs scuba gear.  And their children will need to be ducks or flying fish-creatures capable of traversing worlds and changing their identities with the same flurry of a two year old changing clothes.

But those are the ones who understand bridge-building-those who live it out on a daily basis.  They are intimately acquainted with the challenges of forging distinct elements into steel in the high heated pressure of daily life.[iv]  The end result is stronger than the original materials, but only after passing through the inferno.  And nobody likes to be burned and melted.  

Where would the world be without bridges?  They unite peoples and create vulnerable spaces for attack.  They are dangerous and they are powerful, as all liminal stages[v] and things are. 

It’s learning to live between worlds, belonging neither here nor there, and yet everywhere.  It’s trying to build one’s house on a bridge.  And there’s not a lot of other houses there. 

I would not exchange my small, comprehensible, hand-held world for this expanded, shattered, byzantine version.  Sometimes, brokenness is a gift.  

“Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

The bridge builders between God and people, people and each other, those who actively seek “shalom” or God’s full, holistic, all-encompassing kind of peace-these ones will always have a place of belonging. They are blessed even in their isolation from their worlds and when they make people crazy in their cries for the dissolution of injustice and conflict. They are claimed by God as His own. I find that comforting.

God knew a lot about bridges…and pitching of tents[vi] between worlds and peoples and the challenges of being both/and.

Sometimes, I look over the edge of the bridge on which I dwell and wonder what it would be like if I still lived in one place, with my sandaled feet all on one side.  Yet, here on my bridge, I can look out and see the waters beneath me glisten and reflect the sun’s golden rays in their turquoise depths.  My eyes can look to either side and show me the paths my footprints have taken me and the incredible views that can only be seen by someone who has decided to build a house on a bridge. 

So, I close my eyes, inhale deeply, and thank God again for the liminal space He’s currently called me to pitch my tent, with my feet stretched worlds. 

---

[i] Daraja si maskani

[ii] C.S. Lewis, the Magician’s Nephew

[iii] Lines from the movie Ever After-scene where “Cinderella” and Leonardo Da Vinci are discussing bringing her to the ball to meet the prince. 

[iv] Thanks to the Novo prophetic prayer team for the concept of bridges and steel and peacemaking.  It resonated. 

[v] The concept of liminality comes from anthropologist Victor Turner in his brilliant work on stages of ritual. 

[vi][vi] Incarnation-“taking on flesh” or “pitched his tent and dwelt among us”-the word choice is seen throughout the Bible.

Colorblind

Blindfold game 2 | by Lee Carson

I am colorblind. 

I am blind to your colors.

Your shades, your nuances, your reflection. 

I don’t see your color,

Because I don’t see you.

Invisible.

Erased.

Nothing to contribute, nothing to give.

Peoples without histories. 

Peoples without names.

Unseen because I am blind to other colors.

We are all the same. 

As you thrive and scratch and wrestle,

Gasping for air to breath, to exist.

Screaming that we are not all the same.

But I can’t hear you.

I can’t see our differences.

I am colorblind. 

I cannot see the crimson blood of the wounds on your soul. 

I cannot see the taupe scars left from still tender sores. 

Wounds inflicted because of your color do not exist. 

Because I am colorblind.

I am colorblind.

I cannot see my own blindness.

I cannot see my shades, nuances, and reflections. 

I cannot see my own history.

I’d rather stay colorblind.

American Blood American Soil

First generation American.

Spent your whole life overseas.

You married right.  You married well.

Happy wife, your land can be changed.

Now you have become an American.

First generation un-American

Spent your whole life in the States.

You married wrong.  What have you done?

Unhappy wife, your land can be changed.

You can no longer be an American.[1]

*************************************

First generation to come to America,

The unwanted refuse of the earth.

Spit out from your native land,

Came on ships as chattel.

We don’t want you here, you Irish,

Your blood won’t make this land American.

First generation to come to America,

The precious cargo of the earth.

Stolen from your native land,

Came on ships as chattel.

We want you here, in chains.

This land won’t make your blood American.[2]

**************************************

Second generation born overseas,

Your parents move and travel.

You’ve never lived on the land,

But blood is stronger.

You will remain an American.

Second generation born in America,

Your parents move and travel.

You’ve lived on the land all your life,

But blood is stronger.

You will never be an American.[3]

*******************************

Three generations born in Mexico,

Now you live in the U.S.A.

You’ve never once moved or shifted.

You’ll have to if you want to stay Mexican,

Your land has become American.

Three generations born in America,

Now you live in Mexico.

You’re always moving, always shifting.

Your blood expands, pours across borders,

Forcing this land to become American.[4]

*********************************

Four generations born in America,

Builders of the nation, built with your own two hands.

Architects of freedom, masterminds of democracy.

With your blood, sweat, and tears

You have made this land American

Four generations born in America

Builders of the nation, built with your own two hands.

Freedom and democracy aren’t your birthright.

Your blood, sweat, and tears,

Will not make you American.[5]

*******************************************

Five generations welcomed to America:

Dutch, German, English, Swedish

Welcome: Pure, unadulterated, Anglo-Saxon stock.

All others: Shut the door.  No more.

We want to keep our blood American.

Five generations shut out from America:

Italian, Jewish, Indian, Japanese.

Unwelcome: Impure, adulterated, tainted blood.

Our Nordic brothers, welcome!  Bring us more!

We want to keep our blood American. [6]

****************************************

Six generations born in Europe:

Germany, Ireland, England, Sweden.

Newly planted immigrants,

You are welcome here.

This land will make you American.

Land is stronger than blood

Six generations born in America:

Cherokee, Iroquois, Pottawatomi, Hopi.

You’ve been here long enough,

It’s time to go away.

This land does not make you American

Blood is stronger than land.[7]

*****************************

All generations to become American:

You write your story on this land,

You write your story through your children.

You redefine both blood and land.

You decide what it means to be an American. [8]

***********************************

Citizenship:

Jus soli:  Defined by the land you are born on.

Jus sanguinis:  Defined by your genes, your people, your blood.[9]

---

[1] 1940:  The year white American women could no longer lose their citizenship for marrying foreign men.

1855: the year white foreign women could gain citizenship by marrying an American man. https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-04/us-has-come-long-way-its-first-highly-restrictive-naturalization-law

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/stripping-naturalized-immigrants-their-citizenship-isnt-new-180969733/

[2] 1845: The Great Hunger-Potato famine begins in Ireland through both natural and man-made causes.  Half the population of Ireland died.  A quarter came as refugees to the U.S.  The U.S. fought vehemently against them because their religion, culture, and way of life was “incompatible with American values.”  By the 1890’s, Irish Americans were accepted into mainstream society and began to fight against “those immigrants” who flooding the U.S. from Southern and Eastern Europe.  https://www.history.com/news/when-america-despised-the-irish-the-19th-centurys-refugee-crisis

1868/1870:  Africans and those of African descent allowed birth citizenship and naturalization. 

https://americanhistory.si.edu/democracy-exhibition/creating-citizens/defining-citizenship

[3]1790: The year children born to Americans living outside of the U.S. also granted U.S. citizenship (unless their father is foreign) http://www.indiana.edu/~kdhist/H105-documents-web/week08/naturalization1790.html.

1898:  The year American-born people of Chinese descent could become American citizens.  Those born in China (Japan, Korea) could not become naturalized citizens until 1943.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/democracy-exhibition/creating-citizens/defining-citizenship

[4] 1848:  Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended Mexican-American War and Mexico gave states from Texas to California to the United States.  Current residents could choose to move to Mexico or take on American citizenship.  http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1141 

[5] 1868/1870:  Africans and those of African descent allowed birth citizenship and naturalization. 

https://americanhistory.si.edu/democracy-exhibition/creating-citizens/defining-citizenship

[6] 1924:  Wording taken from speech to congress by Ellison Durant Smith. Laws passed in 1921 and 1924 drastically limited immigration to ensure that 86% of immigrants came only from N/W Europe, 11% came from S/E Europe, and 2% came from the rest of the world.  Most Asians (and much of the rest of the world) were not allowed at all. 

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5080

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5078

http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/590-immigration-act-of-1924.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/

1923:  naturalized Indian citizens have citizenship revoked due to Supreme court deciding they are “not white”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind

[7] 1790/1795: The U.S. passes first laws on naturalization and defining citizenship.  Any “free white person” who has lived in the U.S. for two years, is of “good moral character”, and swears an oath to uphold the constitution can become a citizen.  Their children also automatically gained citizenship…unless their father was foreign.

http://www.indiana.edu/~kdhist/H105-documents-web/week08/naturalization1790.html

1924:  Native Americans granted U.S. citizenship.  https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-04/us-has-come-long-way-its-first-highly-restrictive-naturalization-law

[8] 1965:  New laws passed that allowed immigration to be determined on skills/family ties and not on race, religion, gender, or marital status.  By the 1990’s, only 16% of immigrants came from Europe.  The other 84% came from the rest of the world.  https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/us-immigration-since-1965

1967:  Interracial marriage allowed everywhere in the U.S. 

https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/immigration-united-states-timeline

[9] All countries use one, the other, or a combination to define citizenship.  Europe tends to go by blood.  The Americas tend to go by land.  https://www.history.com/news/birthright-citizenship-history-united-states

Dusty Feet

I asked the Lord to direct my path
And when He showed the way,
I looked and gasped and said,
"Dear Lord, can I go another way?"

That road stretched on through foggy mists,
And rough desert wasteland roads,
I looked and shook and begged Him
"Lord, please take away my load!"

When I looked down the other paths
I saw pure lush and gold
But down those easy, simple roads
Was not my Shepherd’s fold.

To go down those there may be green,
But I would be alone.
I'd not have my guide, my friend, my Lord,
And my map would be my own.

Could I ignore my Shepherd's voice
And go where I want to go,
Knowing that the moment I did,
I'd lose that voice I know?

Or could I throw off this load
Of heavy burdens on my soul?
In order to live as I want to live
Relieved from this weights’ heavy toll.

Then came His silent voice, it spoke,
"Child, you are mine
I have given you all you have.
And with me you'll be fine."

"Just trust in me to hold your hand,
As we climb this dusty road,
And follow my voice through the hazy mists
Until you reach my fold."

"And dig deeply for my water's springs
When through the deserts you go.
For I am there and with you though
Your hand I may let go."

"Child, I put that load you bear,
Upon your little back
And I do well know your strength
And the strength you lack."

"Stop and rest by my quiet streams,
Deeply and full draught,
For without those weights, you'd run too far

And lose the need to stop."

"You need those weights to make you strong
With a strength you cannot bear.
For it is when you tire and fall
It’s then you realize I'm there."

"To let you free would mean
I'd lose the chance for you to see
That I'm all you really need in life,
And all you have is me."

"So, come on, pickup and go!
Down this dusty road.
You've heard my voice and felt my push
Now take up your heavy load."

"The end is still beyond your eyes,
And you do not know the way.
But all you really need to know,
Is all I have to say."

"I have called you on this road,
And I will guide your feet.
I will catch each tear that falls,
And provide the streams you seek."

"Just follow and obey my voice,
And always come to me.
For I will help you carry on.
For all you need is me."

Evidence of Parenthood

In case you couldn't tell already, here are ten telltale signs that you may have committed parenthood:

1.)  Your mailbox is suddenly fuller than it used to be.

2.)  You find yourself walking with more caution (and reflection).

3.)  Your life is suddenly reorganized in new and creative ways.  

3.)  You feel the paradox of being both unwrapped and all wrapped up.

4.)  There's always a line waiting for your attention.

5.)  You seem to be carrying more weight.

6.)  You learn to think inside the box.  

7.)  You find that standing alone is precarious.  

8.)  Find yourself looking for more signs. 

9.)  You find that silence is sometimes not a good thing....

and other times, it is a very good thing.

10.) Finally, you find your sole is overflowing in ways you never anticipated. 

 

 If you find evidence that you may have committed parenthood, don't panic.

Don't try to hide the evidence or get yourself out of it.

It is only temporary, and will pass.  Much sooner than you anticipate.