A Year Ago

 A year ago, we were sent home from work for two weeks or possibly three. When I went to the grocery store that evening to get food for two weeks, the shelves were empty. The entire produce section was empty. I don’t think people knew that fresh vegetables and fruit have a short lifespan. Toilet paper was like buying gold because it was nowhere to be found. That makes sense because the grocery store shelves were empty. 

I love being outside of my home. I have sat in coffee shops to grade papers and to write. We were sent home to stay home. Restaurants and coffee shops were closing. Our churches would all have to be online. I would have to work while actually being at home. I thought I could grade papers and watch the college basketball tournament. Then, they cancelled the basketball tournament. I knew then that life would change and some old habits would be just that, old. 

Los Angeles is one of the last cities in America to reopen. This week for the first time in a year, we will be able to dine indoors, go to the gym indoors, and go to an indoor movie theater. I have become appreciative of the little things in life. I have become appreciative of my home and family. This last year has not been easy, but we never learn when the tasks are easy, and there were some valuable lessons that we should have learned in this last year, but if we want life to be easy and catered to our own desires, we might miss them. 

Lesson #1: We need to think of others over ourselves. I may not like wearing a mask, but I don’t wear it for me, but for those around me who truly fear this virus. Screaming in their face, even on social media, that they are wrong and stupid is not helpful. In fact, it’s wrong and not Christ-like. We need to also take care of our elderly…all of us. We need to look out for our neighbors and not hoard. That’s all part of putting others over ourselves. It’s not that we don’t love ourselves. Once we love ourselves, we are able to love others, even those that think and believe differently than us. 

Lesson #2: Homeschooling is not as easy as everyone thinks. If you are a parent, student, teacher, or person with children who did not have to do any type of distance learning, you have no idea what the struggle is. (If that is you, refer back to #1.)  I honestly thought I would love to teach online, until I actually had to do it. Maybe I would enjoy teaching kids who are used to being homeschooled, have Wi-Fi and will have their cameras on at all times, but Zoom School is horrible. I am a proponent for equity in education. Along with social promotion, Zoom School is another inequity for our most vulnerable students who need equity in education. So, to my friends who have homeschooled their children and succeeded, you are part of my list of heroes. 

Lesson #3: Taking walks around our neighborhoods can be a great experience. While on walks, I have prayed, discovered solutions to my problems, and met people from my neighborhood. Even in the city, I have discovered God’s beauty in his creation with some fabulous sunsets. God’s creation is all around us. We just have to take the time to recognize it. 

Lesson #4: Art is essential. Whether our art consists of actual painting, drawing, writing, singing, or playing an instrument, or if it is in the form of movies, television, or books, cooking, baking, knitting, or sewing, art is an essential when we are locked in our homes. Many people did not just sit back and watch art that was made, but actually created art and are beginning to see the fruits of their labor. As God is our creator, we can deduct that he is a creator of art and proponent for us to create and enjoy art. 

Lesson #5: Church is not a building. Church is a body of believers that gather together, whether they are in an official building or not. We do not GO to church. We ARE the church and we GO to the world and bring the church to the world, even if going means we go virtually. Believe it or not, the church stepped up while most people were complaining on social media about politics. One church in Los Angeles, (Dream Center) stepped up and made sure that all of the students in the school district of Los Angeles, that serves over 600,000 students, had meals that they would miss because of school closures. They also provided supplies to families because the stores were empty. Churches served and most were unknown because most of us were more concerned of arguing whether or not the virus was real or not. Maybe, the church should be less concerned about politics and become more visible in the community and step up to serve the needs of the community. Then we will all discover that the church is not a building and is essential to the community. 

Overall, we learned that we need to love God (nature), love others, and ourselves. Love. Love is what we hopefully learned is what the world needs. We don’t need all the junk we discuss on social media, but we need love. We need the kind of love that Jesus has. For those of us who have it, we need to share it. For this next year, let us show this love and see where we are in a year from now. 

For the Love of Books

 In the 1980s, when I was in high school, we had a list of books that we were not allowed to read. They were banned. The church or the conservative right had banned them, as they deemed them inappropriate either for subject material or what they deemed to have inappropriate language. Many of those who banned them never read those books, but those same people thought that they needed to control what I put into my mind, so that I would think properly, which is how they think. It doesn’t work that way. It makes us curious as to why it is banned and it makes us angry that we are being forced to think a certain way. 

Fast forward to the 1990s and the explosion of Harry Potter. Again, the church deemed this book inappropriate because of its content. The book did not suffer in sales; it exploded with more sales. Dear Church, we should have noticed in the 1990s that a shift was occurring in our culture, but we didn’t. We were too focused on trying to control everything that everyone does or thinks. It doesn’t work that way. It makes people angry and plot revenge. 

It is now 2021 and those young people that the church tried to control their thoughts and actions are adults. They are now trying to control our thoughts and actions with cancelling what they deem inappropriate. I’m not saying they are wrong, but since I have grown away from other people controlling me, I find it disheartening. The conservative right is screaming about what cancel culture is cancelling, but when you start trying to control others, it will boomerang out of control. 

As a Christian, I do not want to force people to come to Jesus. Jesus invites people to Him. If a person chooses to follow Jesus, then he or she will allow Jesus to work in their life and not try to please the person who forced them to come to Jesus. The same goes with our moral laws. I cannot force anyone to follow the values in my life. I cannot fix or change anyone. I can inspire others to make the best choices to have a great life, and with my age and years of experience, I hope and pray that they will make the right choices, but I cannot force them. Therein lies the problem.  

Christians are angry that life is changing and that some people in our country are deeming products, including books, inappropriate. They are forcing us to believe and think a certain way. They are only doing what the church did first. How many Christians made it public why they were cancelling Netflix? Now, the tables have turned with Dr. Seuss, and the conservative right are angry. (By the way, I get it. The publishing company took six books out of print because they were inappropriate and Dr. Seuss is not cancelled. I just had to be graphic. They do this to a thousand books a day. For everyone that wrote that last sentence on their social media posts, thanks for the continual discouragement for a writer.) What we start, someone has to finish. Maybe, the Church should lead the way and stop cancelling. I wish we would. 

Art is subjective. What one person deems inappropriate in art, another person sees the depth of the meaning of it. What one person calls cheesy, another person sees it as the greatest work of art ever. Since art is subjective, we must be understanding that maybe, just maybe, we do not know everything and just reading a passage from the book out of context could be extremely dangerous, and it happens all the time. The Bible gets taken out of context all the time from both Christians and non-Christians. 

It is from books that I have gained an understanding of life that is different from mine. It is from books that I discovered the truth of the inequity in education that is occurring in the twenty-first century. I have come to understand the importance of helping people in need because I have read incredible stories in books. I have understood a culture different from mine because I have read incredible stories in books. I have understood what is racist to do or say because of incredible books in the nonfiction department. Some of these books have been deemed inappropriate by people either inside of the church and even those outside of the church. People who do not read, should not have a say to what happens to books, which means we need to read more. Christians need to be readers. 

There are a couple of books that I would deem inappropriate because of my beliefs, but I cannot demand that they get banned or even just taken out print. Why? Then they will come for the books that I love, including the Bible. It is time we start having conversations. Books can start the conversations, but they cannot be the final word in the conversation. We have to have real conversations with real people, not on social media. You know what? We’ll still get different perspectives because that is how God created all of us to be. He created all of us to think and choose for ourselves. 

What if the church stopped trying to control people and became a place for people to heal? My conclusion would be that we would be overflowing with Christians in our society. We do not need to control, fix, or change people. We need to pray for people to come to Jesus and allow Jesus, who is much mightier than a human being, do the changing in their lives. I bet He’ll do a much better job. 

For the love of books, we have to stop with cancelling, and banning. They will come for you. When they do, remember, you could have read about it somewhere. May we pick up books this week that will cause us to think. May we read stories through the eyes of those who deem it inappropriate, and then maybe, we will begin to understand that other people have different beliefs and thoughts than us. It is my hope and prayer that my students will have access to all books. It is my desire that they can read and understand all books, but that is a very different subject for a different blog.