Call Me Kiesha

Today seemed to draw together several threads in my life. I've been reading the Yada Yada Prayer Group books. They are about a small town white woman who marries and moves to the Chicago suburbs. They decide that they should move into the city to be more intentional about relating with others of different racial as well as socio-economic backgrounds. Needless to say, there is a lot about race relations.

Then there was the election culminating and everyone speaking of the huge step in history this has been. Race relations flies to the front before any other issue. The whole world wondering what is going to result as this "new day dawns."

But before both of these things, God threw me in with other fellow Christians to work amongst the children in West Virginia. Sarah Brown, aka Kiesha -- because, she says, it sounds more ethnic and then you will be able to picture her better -- and I have been working together for just over 2 years. I just had my WV CEF anniversary last Saturday! She allows me to ask all sorts of questions and sometimes I make a funny comment that I later think, "Oh, does that offend you?" Like today, we sat down and made a schedule for a speaking engagement. She is going to start off, I'll chime in through the middle, and she will finish up. I said, "Oh, it's like an oreo cookie." (Good thing she likes chocolate as much as I do! Now she says I owe her some -- yes, she is standing right here.) She didn't at all feel slighted, she just smiles at my antics like that. But in all truth I value Sarah's openess, her honesty in this race-tense world. It's nice to know that I can ask something that I don't really understand and she will explain her world to me without offense or malice. She's a gift.

My closing thought for a day that to some seemed tumultuous is Psalm 46:10-11 "Be still, and know that I [am] God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD of hosts [is] with us; the God of Jacob [is] our refuge." The whole Psalm is a great reminder and food for reflection.