Luis C.K. has this really hilarious bit where he shares his appreciation
for being white. His witty rant includes the admission that he can safely enter
a time machine and go back to any place in history, only to be treated like a
king. Really, he says, a white man – how much better can it get?
I may not be a white man, but I have certainly had a similar
realization in my life; I am not just white, I am middle-class to boot, and
American! Schweet. I fear some of my constant pokes at the white middle-class (I
often choose to refer to this culture as, “suburban” for the sheer typing convenience
of one word, rather than three) has wrongly offended folks who believe I have
some sort of inaccurately placed hatred towards anyone living in the outskirts
of Denver. Not so. Much in the way folks refer to black people as “thugs”, I
like to refer to white folks as “shallow” and “ignorant”; simple syntax and we
all know I don’t really mean it that
way, so why would anyone be offended? After all, I had a white person in my
wedding …
Here is the thing: yes, sometimes I feel ashamed of what
other people in my culture do or say, but I don’t know what it means to have a
deep confliction with what I am or what
I represent. I have never had to come home and think, “If I weren’t black, my
teachers would respect me.” I have never looked in the mirror and thought, “If
I weren’t gay, my parents would respect me.” I have never walked out of store
and realized if I weren’t Hispanic, the clerks wouldn’t have followed me so
closely. And I have certainly never struggled with what I presume breeds guilt
as all these thoughts run through my mind when I know I should be proud of who
I am.
Or have I? White? Check. Female? Check (some resent this, I
don’t … turns out being pretty can get you places, I embrace it). Middle-Class?
Check. College Educated? Check. American? Check? Good to go, right?
Not so. Not so, because I have spent the last few months
starring in the mirror and wrestling over by very being, my very soul, my
personhood, my heritage, by culture, my core.
I felt, suddenly, that ping of guilt as I realized I didn’t want to be
who I am and who my parents raised me to be. I didn’t want to embrace my
culture and the very fibers that made me who I am. That feeling of not wanting
to let my parents and my friends and those who share my culture and my heritage
know that I secretly wished I wasn’t one of them. That feeling of thinking, “Things
would be so different if …”
Things would be so different if I didn’t know Christ. There
it is, for the world and the entire internet to read. Yea, there it is. I have
been facing life decisions that cause people to remind me of what I can’t do
and what I am limited to do, because of
who I am, because of my lineage and a piece of me that cannot change. There are
many who understand us to be a religion, but those of us who know … well, we
know. We are a people, a culture, and an identity. And no more can a person
hide ethnic features than I can hide the markings of a loving God who has
chosen me for His purpose.
I can’t hide them, but I can resent them, just as an individual
might find herself wanting to change the very features that make her unique and
yet part of a distinct ethnic or cultural community. The hope, though, for that young person with “black
people hair”, with a “Jewish nose”, or with the traditional sari her mother is
making her wear, is that as she grows and matures, she begins to not only
accept herself, but find pride in what both sets her apart and makes her part
of that community. We hope for her that she eventually shares the thoughts of
India Aire, “I’m not the average girl in the video …”
Certainly, in the case of my faith community, we hope the
same for our own. As a person matures in her faith, she begins not only to
accept that this is not simply a lifestyle but an identity, but she begins to
embrace it and celebrate it. And yet, here is what I know: in those deep
moments, in the quiet and the dark moments when I stared at the wall thinking, “How
can I get out of being who I am?”, I was as close to the heart of Christ as I
have ever been.
I do not serve a God who needs me. He continues to function,
to love, to create, and to write histories through all my insults and my anger
and my resentment. Just as we have drawn pictures of earthly tribe-leaders,
patiently allowing young students to test the boundaries of their traditions, so
we serve a God who lets us try and remove our cultural dresses and war paint,
lovingly promoting us to adulthood as we come back, embarrassed that we failed to
see the value of our customs.
And suddenly this realization: that there is a level of spiritual
awakening that occurs when God is clearly and certainly your burden. He is not
simply your Healer, your Friend, your Father, your Savior – but the heavy cross
cutting deeply into the frame of who you are. And then you get it – that He
asks you to bring Him all your hurt and to place it at His feet, yes – but that
He also assures us that He is a stumbling block. And He takes all your sin on
the cross and becomes all the filth that you are, but then assures us we will
be persecuted in His name. If we only experience one side of His promises, do
we see Him fully?
Father, I am sorry that there are days I am ashamed to be
Yours. I ask forgiveness for the days I
wish I couldn’t see You. I ask for guidance on the days I wish I was not
chosen. Please cleanse me of the moments I resent my inability to run from the
One that owns me. But Lord, thank you for the struggle. “For many are called,
but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:14
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