{"id":19211,"date":"2020-08-18T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19211"},"modified":"2020-08-18T07:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T11:30:00","slug":"order-disorder-reorder-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19211","title":{"rendered":"Order, Disorder, Reorder: Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/haLkLDfLBok\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Disorder of Dismantling Racism<\/strong><br>Tuesday, \u202fAugust 18, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The universal pattern of transformation I\u2019m writing about these three weeks is not limited to religious or spiritual growth. Nor is it only individuals that are invited to make the journey. Whole churches and even cultures experience times of disorder and disruption. In the United States, many of us are discovering that a large number of things we believed to be true\u2014about our nation and ourselves\u2014are not entirely true. I believe this is a necessary step that we must take for the sake of healing and justice in our nation and our world\u2014no matter how \u201cdisordering\u201d and even disorienting it may be. Perhaps I can only say this because I believe so completely in the possibility of Reorder! Author Austin Channing Brown, who teaches on issues of racial justice, was raised in a devoutly Christian home and has worked in and with churches for most of her professional life. I hope you can read her words with the openness they deserve.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I learned about whiteness up close. In its classrooms and hallways, in its offices and sanctuaries. At the same time, I was also learning about Blackness, about myself and about my faith. My story is not about condemning white people but about rejecting the assumption\u2014sometimes spoken, sometimes not\u2014that white is right: closer to God, holy, chosen, the epitome of being. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort.<\/strong> It\u2019s not a comfortable conversation for any of us. It is risky and messy. It is haunting work to recall the sins of our past. But is this not the work we\u00a0have been called to anyway? Is this not the work of the Holy Spirit to illuminate truth and inspire transformation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s haunting. But it\u2019s also holy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And when we talk about race today, with all the pain packed into that conversation, the Holy Spirit remains in the room. This doesn\u2019t mean the conversations aren\u2019t painful, aren\u2019t personal, aren\u2019t charged with emotion. But it does mean we can survive. We can survive honest discussions about slavery, about convict leasing, about stolen land, deportation, discrimination, and exclusion. We can identify the harmful politics of gerrymandering, voter suppression, criminal justice laws, and policies that disproportionately affect people of color negatively. And we can expose the actions of white institutions\u2014the history of segregation and white flight, the real impact of all-white leadership, the racial disparity in wages, and opportunities for advancement. We can lament and mourn. We can be livid and enraged. We can be honest. We can tell the truth. We can trust that the Holy Spirit is here. We must.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For only by being truthful about how we got here can we begin to imagine another way.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Story from Our Community:\u200b<\/strong><br><em>I recently made the trip to my family&#8217;s old cottage on a remote lake. As I settled in [to the cottage] on an unusually clear night, my eyes began to adjust to the lack of ambient light from car headlights and shopping centers. I looked up at the very same sky I had left at my suburban home and saw not just a few stars, but constellations, then clouds of stars, until the night sky seemed more light than darkness. It&#8217;s times like these when I&#8217;m startled by how close and abundant God&#8217;s love really is, whether my eyes and heart are open or not.<\/em>\u00a0\u2014James M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"317\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-17-at-9.48.06-AM-1-500x317.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-17-at-9.48.06-AM-1-500x317.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-17-at-9.48.06-AM-1-300x190.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-17-at-9.48.06-AM-1-768x487.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-17-at-9.48.06-AM-1.png 1936w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Disorder of Dismantling RacismTuesday, \u202fAugust 18, 2020 The universal pattern of transformation I\u2019m writing about these three weeks is not limited to religious or spiritual growth. Nor is it only individuals that are invited to make the journey. Whole churches and even cultures experience times of disorder and disruption. In the United States, many [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19213,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19211\/revisions\/19213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}