After writing a letter to my nephew last week about the harsh realities of being a black man in America, I was left pondering. Between being a christian and a community organizer my main objectives are to transform the minds and hearts of the people I interact with. When said transformation happens it is a joyous and rewarding moment but as Jesus said, narrow is the path. I have a theory that truly transformative work is hard to achieve because of humanity's reluctance with two things: growth and being wrong. Now, This is only the first thought-dump of my theory and I'm sure it will evolve and other categories will come from it but let's dive into the ones we have thus far.
Growth is painful to the human condition, it is reward but getting to the reward is a journey. Currently I have been learning how to box, nothing to serious but getting the basics down. My housemates and I purchased gloves, hand wraps focus mitts, a heavy bag, head gear, and mouthpieces. We are pretty decent for someone whose never stepped into an actual boxing gym and spar frequently with ourselves and others, usually being the better fighters. If we wanted to grow from some guys boxing in their basement to competitive fighters we would have to transform. Get a coach, spar guys with similar or more experience, take on a different work out and diet schedule. We are completely aware that we don't have the compact to do that ourselves but with lack of time and finical commitment that growth will not take place for us. That's the hardship of growth, understanding that you currently don't have the capacity to reach a certain goal. For us with boxing we are ok and understand that thus we won't be competitive boxers. For others, they cannot make that same claim when it comes to them reconciling with God or reconciling racial injustice.
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Besides lacking the necessary growth to achieve transformation the other big hinderance is some will just never admit they're wrong. The bible teaches the depravity of men; we've all fallen short of the moral standard God has set. Repentance, which means to think differently, is one of the initial steps needed to begin reconciliation with this Holy God we've all offended. Some don't accept God's standard of depravity, others are ok with it and even attribute it the God's design not seeing it as something to be changed. Comparatively it's hard to take about race and the destructive nation of white supremacy and privilege if you don't believe those things exist. It's harder to do it when one believes those structures exist but don't believe they are the main contributors to the state of our country.
Like I said, this is just something I've been pondering in my head. Why is transformation so hard? We kick and fight against it with all of our being until we realize two things, we need growth and we need truth. Two terms that can be measured but in today's world seems so relative .
