Tragic truths

I just finished the previously-mentioned Black Like Me, an eye-opening account of the absurdity of racial hatred in our nation's recent history. In the late 1950s, John Howard Griffin, a white journalist from Texas, is haunted persistently by these questions:

"If a white man became a Negro in the Deep South, what adjustments would he have to make? What is it like to experience discrimination based on skin color, something over which one has no control?" 

He decides one night to embark on a seven-week journey that would answer those questions by medically altering his skin color and experiencing the discrimination firsthand. The book is a series of journal entries, beginning the night he decides to pursue this project and ending with the world's reaction to his published work. Griffin's strength as a journalist in documenting his experience lies in his observation skills and his commitment to include details that powerfully evoke these situations for the reader.

In an afterword, Griffin's biographer Robert Bonazzi explains:

The book's evocation of naked experience, of what is being done to the narrator rather than what he does, draws us toward the center, engages our emotions and all of our senses. We view scenes in vivid detail, hear precise tones in the dialogue and interior monologue, smell fear, and taste dread ...

The power of the book is rooted in the uncomfortable truth that many people who were impacted by it would not have listened to its revelations if they were not written by a white man. If he had not been a part of a privileged class and documented the respect and dignity he was freely given before changing only his appearance, his experience would have been written off.

The flaw of the book springs from the same place of its power. While Griffin as a black man relearns social conditioning to act according to societal expectations, and while he approaches each situation with the methodology of a sociologist, he never fully relinquishes his white perspective. There are passages that, though well-intended, come across sounding racially paternalistic. He also has the luxury of being able to escape the despair of the ghetto when it begins to close in on him by asking to stay with a friend in the white area of town.

That being said, the book is still one motivated by a rare sense of humanity and courage, given the time period. Despite its weaknesses, I will echo the back cover's recommendation that this "chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity every American must read."

Detour to Truth

I've struggled this season with letting the joy in. I had difficulty reconciling the airbrushed reality of Christmas carols with the headlines I face each day -- 112 murdered in an instant in Iraq; the vulnerable dying on our streets under our noses. "Peace on Earth," "Goodwill to men" rang hollow to me, as if we've allowed ourselves all a few weeks of denial.

I began to pray, but the words were heavy and clung to my tongue. They felt irritatingly earthbound, unable to defy gravity as I looked up to Heaven frustrated by the perceived distance between my once-faithful heart and God. I asked Him to help me truly "get" the season, to take a detour around the distractions and arrive at the meaning.

My prayer was answered. While reading Advent reflections by Fulton Sheen, I found this: "If there is no peace in the world today, it is not because Christ did not come; it is because we did not let Him in." Twenty hours later, I was driving home from work covered in goosebumps, hearing this song for the first time.



From the haunting piano, string and choral parts to the masterfully written lyrics, the song captivated me. Here was a Christmas song that sprang from zeitgeist, resonating with my struggling soul, but comes to encouraging conclusions. The heavy lifting has been done already. Christ came in the least intimidating form possible: an infant, swaddled in humility, completely dependent upon a human mother. God began His time on earth the way we all do. He came, saw our reality with human eyes (and a divine heart) and then conquered death with incomprehensible love. If there's two things we can take away from this, they're (a) we are so loved, and (b) the awesome power beneath the surface of our fragile lives.

Christmas is not about slipping into denial, but rather awakening to the potential packed into each individual and our ability to impact the world around us. "You must be the change you wish to see in the world," Gandhi said. I don't have the power to deactivate a suicide bomber's vest or to feed and warm every homeless person around the world. But I do have the ability to choose how I react to the people surrounding me and to be loving even in the moments that try my patience.

I've learned that Christmas is about the power of presence (over presents). The thing that has meant the most to me as a growing believer in Christ is the fact that He came in the first place. Any struggle I bring to Him is not a distant reality, but one that He understands with a divine heart and has seen with human eyes. It is up to us to hear the bells ringing and the hopeful message He's brought, and also, to carry that tune to the rest of the world -- whether that be a smile, listening to someone who's hurting, offering our time to serve someone, or speaking truth when someone needs to hear it. Unwrapping this season's trimmings reveals what's inside the box and presents this surprise: Christmas is a time to comfort us, but also to challenge us out of complacency and cowardice. It is up to us to shape the world we live in. To hang back and lose hope because we cannot solve every problem creates a vacuum, leaving space for evil to gain ground. We must beat back daily the decay of our hearts and our society by being that change we wish to see in the world and being content that "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do." (Helen Keller)