Another Pebble?
Occasionally a pebble finds its way into your shoe.
The pebble is a nuisance so you do a little dance in a desperate effort to move that nasty little pebble to a less annoying spot.
The pebble, being stubborn, will not go away and it starts to really infuriate and annoy you. What shall we do?
Well . . . You could ignore the pebble! You know what I mean --- you could keep strolling along, doing your thing, walking in discomfort wishing the pain away. Who knows, if you ignore the pebble long enough maybe you'll forget all about it, right?
Not!
You could seek some serious mood alteration; macchiato, anyone? Why not, masking the pain means that it's not really there anymore, right?
Or . . . you could just take off your shoe and dump out the pebble.*
All of us are confronted with the destructive effects of racism on a daily basis yet, for some reason, instead of dealing with the root cause of the problem we go to incredible lengths to ignore it.
----Think about that. Go ahead I'll wait for you to finish thinking.
Did you process how far we will go to ignore the problem of racism?
Did you notice how we ignore the effects of racism on all of us?
It should seriously make you cringe as you become aware of the mind-blowing realization that we, all of us, try to ignore racism away?
----Notice the emphasis on try?
That is because try as we might to ignore racism; to search for that magic elixir that will dull or mask the pain of racism, racism does not, racism will not, go away.
Once more for those who missed it: racism does not, racism will not, go away simply because we ignore it! So, why not try a radical new alternative; a paradigm shift if you will.
Let us --- all of us, you and me, our neighbors and friends, the whole of the family of God, try to address the problem. Let us analyze the issue, determine a course of action and proceed to eradicate that which ails us ---- racism.
Realize that, if racism were like a large boulder it would be hard to miss, hard to ignore. But, like that pesky little pebble in your shoe, the one that you always try to ignore, racism is not usually noticed but it will --- notice the emphasis --- racism will eventually wear you down.
Racism will eventually wear me down. Racism will eventually wear us all down.
After all, a pebble left unchecked will act like a boulder and turn simple discomfort into a potentially life altering event.
*paraphrased from the parable of a pebble in your shoe