Dear racialized people, as we go through the process of healing, I want to share that we will encounter the energy of White Supremacy with which we have had a contemptuous relationship for all of our lives.

In order to heal and fully experience the love in our world, we will have to confront and purge ourselves of this contempt.

Healing in spaces with Euro-descended people will provide the opportunity to deal with the unconscious presence of this energy. It’s exposure therapy. Lean in to it. It’s worth it.

I continue to be sorely grieved that we need to see some grisly evidence of racism instead of believing the plainly obvious truths shared by those of us who are most grievously affected by it. The every day abuses of racism are perpetuated because we are blinded by shame and shame’s shroud blame, which makes it deeply painful for us to look up. If we looked up, we would see the love, compassion, and significance that we seek standing right there in front of us. We would recognize that we just need to stand up and throw off the weight of shame and blame and work through the grief of all that we have lost while buried and blinded by the system of White Supremacy.

As a person raised in Christianity, I can only speak about the disinformation attached to Christianity which has hidden the true freedom of God and Jesus from us. I can’t speak to this from any other religious perspective. This disinformation has caused real trauma to us as it is intentionally mingled with the pillars of White Supremacy.

Hopefully we can allow ourselves to be distentangled and healed in real relationship with God instead of relationship with religion.

Dear You,

I see You with your hopes and dreams and longing for change. And I see you in this “Not Yet” space with the world banging on your back and throwing shame at what they think is a delay. We hold such toxic stressful ideas of time that did not start with us. That is why there is such anxiety around the timing of your growth and development. It didn’t start with us, and it can begin to change with us.

And so Dear You, I send you the gift of peace from God’s heart to my heart to yours. Rest. And in perfect time all of the moments will lead to THE moment where you rise and with power declare, It IS finished; peace; be still.

And in the meantime I wish for you hope, as you wait for the coming of beautiful neighbours who will be for you with acceptance, and not against with supremacy, superiority, fear, and anxiety.

Make no mistake that many racialized people who are sensitive to the reality of White Supremacy are in deep pain today, consciously or unconsciously.

For those of us who are unconsciously in pain, I pray for an awakening to the pain, so that the necessary treatment can begin.

For those of us who are consciously in pain I pray for support through the pain and sadness, and hope that treatment is close at hand.

Today, some people will be celebrating and others will be sitting in disappointed disbelief.

And I guarantee that we think that here in Canada, and wherever you read from in this world today we are better, or you may think that we are doing just fine.

And in the midst of all of that I just want to say that I can so clearly see that we are not okay.

We are not okay.

White supremacy and its pillars patriarchy, racism, and xenophobia are being given new life because we are choosing to pretend that it is not a virus which is deeply embedded in us. We keep blaming “those people” without stopping to look at ourselves. If we could see the disease in ourselves, we would work towards healing, and then we would be more compassionate and less contemptuous, and there would be change as we worked together to build a better world NOW on Earth as it is in heaven.

In 2020, we watched the horrific personification of White Supremacy as Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck refusing to believe that he was robbing a human being of life.

We blamed the police as if the police were not living by the same policies which run the whole world. I did too. Until I recognized that I was blaming and scapegoating which meant that I was not really looking at the truth.

We flocked together to create scapegoats of police, and Derek Chauvin. We othered and othered instead of looking at ourselves to try to understand how this injustice could continue to be perpetuated.

We continue to turn our faces away in shame from the traumatic core injuries that allow the every day racist abuses that deplete our mental and emotional health and rob us all of healthy neighbourly connection.

I know that what we really want is to be in kind loving neighbourly connection with each other.

I wish that when we saw an ill in others we would pause to check in to see if that ill is also present in us. I wish that we would get curious about why.

I am still hopeful as I observe exactly what I expected to be. I am also sad that what I expected to happen has happened.

Contempt has never elevated our world.

I hope that this time around we will humanize and analyze, instead of demonize so that we can get to the path of healing which we so deeply need, so that we can have the energy and focus to be a part of the power that smashes the poisonous thrones of supremacy to bits, to create a new and loving world together.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1HEZpbWtCX/?mibextid=UalRPS

The creator of the content in the link above did a great job of showcasing the absurdity of forceful guidance. And this is what many think great leadership looks like.

Our world is in trauma expecting freedom to come through violence.

This shows why we think that name-calling is effective therapy.

This shows why we lean towards harsh coaching and think that it is effective.

This is how we think God is.

This is sad.

We deeply underestimate how much power God has packed into the rare moments of connection to counteract our deeply flawed harsh ways.

Can we even fathom how much more effective healing spaces would be if we intentionally incorporated gentleness?

I’m so grateful that God sees our hearts and compassionately brings Their glory to the room even when we think that barbarous rivers of blood literally or figuratively are what we need to be successful.

From Solomon’s forced labour and barbarous sacrifice, to parents fear tactics to force good behaviour, to hell-fire threatening religious beliefs, to neutral disconnecting aloofness, we are deeply misinformed about how to work together to mine for the gold of love.

But God shows up anyway and magnifies our 30% best.

What if we consciously moved through the struggle to get to gentleness the other 70% of the time?

Black lives cannot matter as long as the lives are Black.

Whiteness will always wield a colonizer’s whip and carry the harshness of supremacy.

BIPOC will be inferior as long as they are BIPOC.

Because there is great power in names.

When we become people again we will rise.

When we grow into being our real selves, just beautiful people, we will collectively finally be free.

This might seem like an obvious or a foolish statement depending on who reads and their perspective or experience.

Nevertheless let me also state that in order for us to become simply people again we will individually and collectively have to face and weed out the racist supremacist ideas that have been planted in us which have made us take on the functional identity of White and then other – BIPOC.

Good day, family. May peace, health, and every branch of lovingkindness be known to be ours.

Let me clearly state that in order for us to become simply people again we will individually and collectively have to face and weed out the racist supremacist ideas that have been planted in us which have made us ALL take on the unconsciously functional identity of White and then other – BIPOC.

When we begin to see each other as PEOPLE there will be zero concern about being minority or majority. We will finally be able to work together without anxiety.

I will continue to speak and work FOR this to become reality.

A public speaker once invited anyone who wanted to engage in conversation about racism in North America to converse with them. They were focused on sharing the idea that Euro-descended people were in danger of being marginalized because of Affirmative Action, and social justice movements for equity.

They became very angry when I insisted that Western wealth was built on the backs of Afro-descended people. They were happy to hear that I did not support Affirmative Action although we had different reasons for not supporting Affirmative Action. I believe that it is a policy which whitewashes the reality of ongoing inequity. He believed that it was putting Euro-descended people at a disadvantage which was jeopardizing his children’s future.

Another person associated with them suggested that it was their experience that Afro-descended people could not be trusted to manage funding in their communities because they misused and misappropriated funds.

When I was operating a nonprofit organization on my own and seeking funding they continued to suggest that I was failing to live within my means because I was looking for funding to operate.

They remain staunch in these beliefs even though the nonprofit work to which they are connected operated by seeking funding through donations to function while I was raising all my funding by working WHILE operating.

Although in many ways they were kind and neighbourly and once considered friends they fail to see how their various beliefs informed our interactions, their idea of whom I SHOULD be, and how they could save me.

We need to understand that the sick system of White Supremacy feeds this fear and hero mentality because they do not see us all as equals who are equally capable of living well when investments are made in us all.

The paternalism of White Supremacy sees Whites as providers and managers and stewards while the rest of us are labourers to support the system.

Therefore in relationships with non-Whites there is huge fear of being unable to provide which creates perpetual anxiety, fear, and a deeply held unconscious scarcity mindset.

This all creates significant barriers to being consistently good neighbours and friends with the ability to see each other as just people working together to build and maintain a thriving ecosystem.

It is even worse when immersed in Christianity in the Western World which is also deeply rooted in paternalism and supremacy.

In addition to clearly naming intimate partner violence we need to be clear that this is FEMICIDE.

Femicide has increased in Canada since 2020. We know this because a group of women became curious as they observed the happenings in the world and began to track and do research to find out if their observations had value. What they discovered is disturbing and is the reason that feminism is important and essential work. It frees women from the harmful ideas attached to womanhood that rob women of the right to exist and to LIVE as autonomous free beings who bring equitable value to the world as WOMEN.

The femicide watch does not include the data for women who continue to live with intimate partner violence. Each victim named is a woman who was murdered by their partner or another male because of our systemic unhealthy ideas of women’s obligation to submit to male rulership which is subliminally translated as ownership.

I love it when the Spirit of God blows my mind, as He breathes life into my character with simple words through someone else. We all matter. God loves when His community of believers grow together, with authenticity.

On April 5, she paused during a meeting, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Don’t throw your pearls before swine.” I heard her. You know, the kind of hearing where time seems suspended as rainbows, stars, and love-tinged promises bathe your mind. I heard her. I heard Him. My Father spoke through her, and when later I would tell her how that the third yime that she had unknowingly profoundly affected my thought process, my outlook, and my character, she was in awe of how our Father loves His daughters.

“Don’t throw your pearls before swine.” Jesus first said those words thousands of years ago. In that moment, when she spoke those words, He was advising me to be careful with whom I shared my dreams and my vision. Not everyone has an eye for pearls of great price. I heard Him, and right there in that space, and in other spheres, some minor clouds were lifted. I saw what He needed me to see, and my heart rested.

But somehow it rested with a tinge of arrogance. Because of course, I was not “the swine”. And so He took me in hand again. One day, I expressed a thought out loud, fortunately, only to myself, and immediately felt as I imagine Peter might have felt as the rooster crowed, and his eyes met Jesus’ knowing compassionate gaze. Oh the shame. Yes child, sometimes we each are “the swine”. We don’t see the value in the person in front of us, and we therefore miss the opportunity to make connections, to build community, to show love, that could literally be world-changing.

So while you must be careful not to throw your pearls to swine, check your nose, and be sure that it’s not a snout. Love wins.

https://youtu.be/IG6QIoF3Frc?si=1lM-UhCo0kcV1Gu0
God recently reminded me that I have always continued to try to show up as a neighbour even while wrestling with the wounds inflicted and wielding weapons of destruction in this experience of good and evil.

Often rearranging our home and life to make space for someone, investing in equipment to make their stay as comfortable as possible, sleep-deprived nights supporting people in and outside of our home, showing up when they needed help, adjusting our days to support them, jumping into their vehicle or taking mine for the ride into the city, or to some appointment so that they would have company and extra hands and eyes to handle their little people, and extra ears to hear, interpret, and advocate while continuing to work on my handy dandy little pocket warrior which the rest of the world calls a phone, listening to hopes and fears, celebrating wins and being available to listen to fears and anxieties day and night, sometimes very late at night, investing time and money in challenging my norms and moving towards healing etc. etc. etc.

Because when a barrage of major storms hit our family back to back and I had to ask for help it cut me so very deeply that some people expected an apology because they showed up for us and I was so battered while trying to keep our ship afloat that I did not do things exactly as they wanted or expected.

It’s been eye-opening to see how many people have been willing to take liberally while seemingly counting and keeping a tally of every second that they give.

It’s been incredible to see how many people think that giving means that the receiver has no right to use their voice to express their perspective about the experience.

It’s been more incredible and deeply saddening to see how many of us don’t even know that we have received, because we so misguidedly use money as the measure of giving.

God needed to remind me that I am a good neighbour because I was really struggling with depression at losing whom I thought were friends, and depressed with the thought that I must really not have much to offer at all.

God needed to remind me that I am a good neighbour because I have been unapologetically fighting this fight as a human being living in the experience of good and evil, consistently fighting to love through the experience of good and evil, continuing to seek to honour freedom in this experience of good and evil, consistently sharing the message that we win when we wrestle with openness and honesty to feel and heal the wounds made in this experience of good and evil.

God needed to remind me so that I could keep being a good neighbour who was open to having God scold me when I was forgetting to show up with love.

God needed to remind me that there were periods of my life where I enjoyed pinning a fellow wrestler mercilessly to the wall with my tongue and relished keeping them pinned to that wall in my mind.

God needed to remind me of all of this so that I could keep loving people since we are all wrestling to figure out how to consistently be neighbours, because we are all people worth fighting for.

And while I strive to be a good neighbour, I get to be human worth fighting for too.