By Bill Mefford
I really hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday; a day when your family was around, when there was good food, celebrating good memories. A day when there was peace, and I mean real peace, not just an absence of violence or a teeth-clinching truce to all political discussions so that no one would run screaming from the table at harmful comments uttered in a moment of passion. I have had holidays like that and they can be gut-wrenchingly horrible.
I had a good holiday this year. Actually it was my favorite I think. My oldest son is a senior at Virginia Tech so we do not get to see him as often as we want so any time he is home is automatically a good time and Eli was home. My mom was visiting us from Texas and has stayed with us for a month or so. In the days leading up to Thanksgiving my mom worked with my boys in the kitchen getting all of the mountains of food ready to go. It was fun to watch her share what she is so amazing at with my sons who were eagerly learning. Of course, because my mom is probably the second most extroverted person I know (the most extroverted person being my wife), she absolutely loved teaching them and sharing the history of the family as she shared the recipes that had been passed down to her.
We had some friends over who we have known for over a decade. Their son is the same age and is best friends with my youngest son, Isaiah. Isaiah and Kelani are seniors in high school and all of our sons together are best friends and love hanging out. To top it off, my mother-in-law, who lives with us, but whose mobility is limited, made it up the stairs to join us so we were all together and we ate and laughed more than we should have.
In kind of a family tradition for us, we ended our Thanksgiving meal with each of us sharing something we are thankful for. It was a beautiful time - my favorite time of the day as we were all thankful for one another and for the love we share. I sat at the table and looked around and it dawned on me that gathered around our table were people of different ages, different socio-economic backgrounds, different races and ethnicities; we were a pretty diverse group. It felt good to be there, to see people I love, to pray together and give thanks for one another and for the food that God has gifted us with.
More than anything, it just felt natural.
Now, I describe this because at no time this week did me or my wife say that we wanted to have a “diverse” Thanksgiving meal. We didn’t think about people we needed to invite to balance races or ages or classes. The truth is that if you are a white person in the United States, there is a good chance (though not an absolute) that you will grow up and have holidays that are more or less heterogeneous. It is simply because we live in a segregated society and if we are Christians we probably go to largely (though again, this is not an absolute) segregated churches. And if we do have friends of other races or socio-economic backgrounds, they are usually not the people we are closest too; that we spend special holidays with for instance.
There is indeed intentionality involved with experiencing deeper diversity in all areas of our lives, but the intentionality does not happen on holidays or special moments in life. The make up of who is present at special moments in our lives flows from the hundreds if not thousands of decisions we made years prior. For us, it happened over a decade ago when we wanted to ensure that our youngest son, who is biracial, would be surrounded by friends of color. It happened five years ago when we wanted my mother-in-law to come and live with us.
I share this because as I sat at the dinner table yesterday I could not help but think of the many, many moments in my life when I have tried but failed to have special moments that reflect the justice of God’s Kin-dom. I thought of daily struggles I have dealing with my own entrenched privilege and hidden racism (that sometimes isn’t so hidden). I even thought of the past work I had done with the United Methodist Church when I was with church leaders trying to orchestrate moments or statements that sound or look prophetic, regardless if there was any authenticity to them at all. Even now, there is such a stress on addressing white privilege and hidden racism that sometimes white progressives will do anything to at least have the appearance of being woke.
To be honest, I am not so sure I really care that much anymore about being woke. Much of that is becoming too trendy for me. I just want to be honest. I loved yesterday because the whole day was fun, it was real, it was just, but most of all, it was natural. And so, even with so much work to do in my life and especially in this world, today I am thankful.