Find Gods Love in How We See Each Other and Ourselves

An Invitation to Join the Dismantling Racism and White Privilege Team on a Lenten Journey to Find God’s Love in How We See Each Other, and Ourselves.

Mark 8:22-25 NRSVUE
²² They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. ²³ He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” ²⁴ And the man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” ²⁵ Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he looked intently, and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

When we looked at this passage of scripture a couple of weeks ago during our St. Mark Adult Sunday School study of the book of Mark, one thing that resonated for me with the work we are doing in DRAWP was when Jesus, after first laying hands on the man’s eyes, asks “Can you see anything?” to which the man replies “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” How often, I thought, do I see others so dimly, and as something other than who they really are. And then, as was pointed out by another class member, after Jesus laid his hands on the mans eyes once again, “and he looked intently, and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.” Although there appears to be some ambiguity in the verse, we agreed that after Jesus healed the blind man, it was the man himself that looked intently, had his sight restored, and saw everything clearly. Although because Jesus sees into all our hearts I see no reason that it could not have been both of them looking intently. This is to me what working toward a more just world in how we see and treat each other will be made real- by asking for healing, looking intently, and seeing clearly what we need to do to share God’s Love. This is what we invite you to share in this series of blogs over the next few weeks.

But first, a brief history and report on the current status of DRAWP.
From the document “History Of Dismantling Racism And Privilege Team, Presbytery Of Giddings Lovejoy”

“In 1990 the 211^th General Assembly adopted a paper called “Facing Racism: In search of the Beloved Community.” That assembly called upon all presbyteries to make a commitment to develop an anti-racist identity. In 2000, the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy adopted a Five-Year Strategic Plan, including four strategic directions, one of which included the goal of dismantling racism. In 2002, the presbytery adopted the following policy:

That all clergy and presbytery staff shall participate in a training event on dismantling racism and privilege within two years and new clergy and presbytery staff within one year.

 In the Fall of 2003, a sub-committee, an action team was formed to carry forward the work of the Strategic Implementation Team to dismantle racism in the presbytery. In the structure of the presbytery at that time, action teams were loosely formed entities under a ministry team, made up with a passion for a particular ministry. Members were not nominated and elected by the presbytery, and no rules governed the make-up of the team.  The Dismantling Racism Action Team was attached to the Missional Outreach missionary Team. In 2006, the team became a full ministry team, with membership nominated by the Nominating Committee and elected by the presbytery.  It is instructive to relate that the team wished to be called “Dismantling Racism and White Privilege Ministry Team.” The adjective “white” was expunged from the title as too confrontational.”

Clergy training and other events have continued since 2006, and Dismantling Racism workshops were held for congregations at congregational request, and in 2015 youth groups from two congregations were supported by the team for trips to locations in the history of Civil Rights.

October 2019 was a turning point in the DRAWP mission, starting with a bus trip from St. Louis to Montgomery, Alabama. The 39 participants, representing 13 Giddings-Lovejoy congregations, were not only able to share the experience of being together at important Civil Rights locations, but to as well initiate sharing their diverse individual reactions to the challenging content and difficult truth they were presented with at locations such as the Legacy Museum: From Slavery to Incarceration and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. This ability to share personal experience in an open, loving, and constructive way is the foundation of DRAWP, and has given us the ability to take our mission beyond the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy to the entire PC-USA, and we will be using personal stories of how this came about throughout this series. After returning to St. Louis, members of the DRAWP writing and history teams created “An Apology to African Americans for the Sin of Slavery and Its Legacy,” which was presented to and approved by the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy at the February 6, 2020 gathering.

An excellent account of the trip to Montgomery, the writing of the Apology (including a link to the document) by Dianne McCullough can be found here- https://glpby.org/epiphany-and-the-gift-of-metanoia/

Gathering in person for meetings and events came to a close in March 2020, though DRAWP remained active through ZOOM for meetings and group book studies, including The Broken Heart of America by Walter Johnson and The Black Tax by Shawn Richardson. A video of DRAWP activities, up to and including this time period, created by Pastor Dave Burgess of St. Mark can be seen here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuHqbPT7q8I

It was during this time as well that the writing team was preparing to submit the Apology to the 225^th General Assembly as an Overture, “An Apology to African Americans for the Sin of Slavery and Its Legacy,” was then submitted for approval at the Presbytery Gathering, November 6, 2021 and was accepted by a vote of 76 yes and 8 no votes.

After receiving concurrence from 11 other presbyteries and being unanimously approved by the Race and Gender Justice Committee, the Overture was presented to the 225^th General Assembly as RGJ-08 and passed by a vote of 373 yes and 19 no.  An account of this action, in the context of other Racial and Gender Justice Committee actions, as well as the reading of the “Litany of Repentance,” can be found here- https://www.pcusa.org/news/2022/7/6/reading-first-act-repentance/

And the full text, history of action, and the very informative comments can be found here- https://www.pc-biz.org/#/search/3000895

This past year DRAWP has reorganized itself around three themes- Education, Relationship, and Advocacy. The Educate team is near completion of a 9-week curriculum based on the Overture, the Relate Team is continuing to organize field trips, meetings, and gatherings intentionally designed to help build relationship, and the Advocacy team is working with other local and national organizations devoted to addressing gun violence and social justice. Each of these teams will present much more of what they are doing in future parts of this series, and opportunities for participation for those of you who, hopefully, will be interested in joining our efforts. I began this piece with an invitation, and an observation that in order to have our sight restored, we not only have to ask for healing, but as well we have to look intently in order to see clearly. I would like to continue that invitation as we go through these weeks of Lent, and in closing offer an example of how the journey started for one of our  DRAWP members, Ivan Collier.

“The Montgomery trip started for me when Gary Naylor walked up and said “There’s going to be a Presbytery sponsored trip to Montgomery to visit the Legacy Museum, wouldn’t you like to go?”  I knew about the museum because Gary had recently presented Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy, to our Sunday school class.  Gary went on to explain that trip participants would consist of African American and white Presbyterians from historically segregated congregations within the St. Louis metro area.  The trip was designed to promote reconciliation.   As Gary spoke, there was a picture in my mind’s eye of a door being held open by a person with eyebrows quizzically raised as if to say, “Why not take this opportunity?  No discredit if you don’t, but isn’t this a chance to do some things you’ve wanted for a long time?”.  “You bet”, I told Gary, with the expectation that life afterwards might not be the same.  What I did not realize, that Sunday morning, was by how much.”

Thanks,
John Northrip
DRAWP Relate Team Co-Chair