Osler's Razor

Eight years ago, I wrote about how this song resounded with me.  I was a kid who got told a lot (always by people other than my parents, I should note) that my concerns over justice issues were naive, and that once I was grown I would understand "the way things are." This was a code, a way of inculcating what we now call white privilege. I was on a committee at church and urged over and over that the church join in racial justice initiatives. Every time I was dismissed, and often was told that when I was older and had experience with the world I would feel differently-- that I would understand "the way things are."

You know what's great about being 56? No one tells me that anymore.

I am being sincere about that. It is great to be hard to dismiss as naive or young or unexperienced. Many of the people who disagree with me don't say anything at all, which is unfortunate, but some gray hair has its advantages in that I'm not often dismissed outright. Yet, I am saying the same things.

Those memories of being told that people are protecting the status quo because that is "the way things are" came back this week. First Cov got thrown out of its denomination for not bowing to the weight of the past. Meanwhile, down at Baylor, the battle continues over whether a discussion about LGBT students can even be had in an open and honest way.

The weight of history is hard to overcome. But underneath those hills are buried the bodies, the hopes, the stories of people who were discarded and marginalized.

And those are the people Jesus sought out, who he fought for, who he said were blessed. If we are Christians, that is the team we have been assigned to, not the advantaged (even if we are advantaged ourselves). We need to fight for those Jesus begged us to protect, not the people we are most comfortable with.

Perhaps what the status quo defends is the "way it is." But that is not, if the arc of history truly bends towards justice, the way that it will be.