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Overview
Race and Prayer is divided into five sections: Suffering and Anger; Prejudice and Hatred; Diversity; Reconciliation and Healing; and Growth in Understanding and Sharing. Contributors to this collection range in age from teenagers to the elderly, and include men and women from a wide variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, all of whom speak honestly of their own experiences, heartbreaks, and hopes. Twelve cartoons from three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Conrad, editorial cartoonist at the Los Angeles Times, add to the power of this collection.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819219091 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Church Publishing, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 03/03/2003 |
| Edition description: | Large Print |
| Pages: | 216 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Chester L. Talton, born in Arkansas, grew up and attended school in California. Following his ordination in the Episcopal Church in 1971, he served parishes in Chicago, Minnesota, and New York. He is the first African-American Episcopal bishop in the western United States, and is currently Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
Read an Excerpt
Race and Prayer
Collected Voices Many Dreams
By Malcolm Boyd, Chester Talton
Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2003 Malcolm Boyd and Chester L. TaltonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-1909-1
CHAPTER 1
Sufferings and Anger
Confession
Lord, I profiled him. His throbbing car audio made my whole body stiffen. My pace quickened. My mind scanned frantically: Could I pretend to live in the next house? Would they let me in quickly enough if I rang the bell? Will I be raped and killed because I'm only carrying a dollar? My fears "knew" all about him. I didn't even have to see his face.
Lord, I profiled her, too. Her abrupt manner and choppy way of talking told me she wouldn't understand my complicated transaction. My impatient needs demanded instant response and subtle flexibility. I didn't ask what my accent might do to Asian languages if I learned to speak them, or how rude my sense of entitlement would feel to her.
And, Lord, I could hardly stand the way that Middle Eastern bishop celebrated Holy Eucharist. His cadence and emotion made me cringe. I wondered how I could participate at the same table, when I suddenly realized, you were a lot more like him than like me.
Lord, I need forgiveness. I profile everybody—you, whatever kind of "other," even myself. Open my eyes to see in three dimensions. Banish arrogance and false fears. Stretch out, widen the boundaries of my heart.
Amen.
—Marilyn Mccord Adams
Dirty
The little white girl grabbed my hand and held it. She points at my dark skin, the skin of my ancestors, the Oglala Lakotas, and says, "Dirty."
She immediately turns my hand with my palm open and says, "Clean." My seven-year-old mind says, "But I washed my hands." Dear God help us to clean our hearts and not to dirty the minds of our young.
—Robert Two Bulls
The Color of Love
Who will listen To the song of my heart?
The one who can see In the dark.
—Anthony Glenn Miller
Life In United Brands Banana Land and In the Panama Canal Zone
Cristo, Ten Piedad
I was eight years old when I first noticed The differences between the ways we lived. They had manicured lawns and white picket fences, Multi-room split-level houses with porches, backyards and patios. They had a social club only for them with all of the comforts You could imagine. Their wages were higher, their benefits many. We lived in one-room dwellings without indoor plumbing. Our toilets and showers were strictly communal and outdoors. We drank the rain water which rolled off the zinc on our roof. We caught it in old tar-coated oil barrels with a sieve on the top. Sometimes we boiled it; sometimes we didn't. I often wondered why it was the way it was and then I realized That they were White and we were not. In the Canal Zone they had silver- and gold-roll commissaries, Silver- and gold-roll movie theatres and recreational facilities. The same was true of the schools and the jobs as well as the Payroll and the perks. The saddest part of all was it was also True of the churches. They went to the gold we went to the silver. They were White and we were not. Was this in the South where segregation thrived? Not at all. This was in Panama in Central America where Americans came To build a canal and grow Chiquita bananas, where they brought And transplanted their bigoted world. They were White and we were not.
Cristo, Ten Piedad
—Butch Gamarra
With Whom Should I be Angry, O God?
With white people? Those Ang Mo Kwi— the Red-Haired Devils—as granny called them? She would have known, she who lived under the British Imperium, suffering the indignities of a colonized people who could not move in their own ancestral lands.
"No dogs and Chinamen allowed," they said of their clubs. Seeing them now, 100 years later, groveling to get business from China, what sweet schadenfreude.
But should I feel proud now for being an ethnic Chinese? Was the Liberation that san yi and wu yi fought for in 1948 worth it? Is the measure of Chinese redemption the ability to crush the Tibetans?
Or should I be angry with the System, which compels us to act like zombies? (Now, which System are we picketing today?)
With whom should I be angry O God for the excruciating pain of oppression? With my foe, or with myself?
Or is the problem with humanity —our loves, which blinds us to others, —our fears, which harden our hearts?
We are stunted creatures of mercurial feelings and fervid minds, created with hearts just small enough we cannot be consistently compassionate and minds just big enough to plan the most intricate violence.
Too bad we can't turn our anger towards you-who-made-us. Like colonized people, we turn our sordid hatred only on ourselves.
—Leng Lim
Will you help us to offer your gift of hope to the world, Jesus?
A Prayer for February 4th, 2002
Dear Lord, Here we are at 1157 Wheeler Avenue. I took the #6 train from the Upper East Side, To come to the Bronx, To get off the train at the same exit where Amadou Diallo got off. It has been three years now since the forty-one bullets.
Lord, his father is standing here talking to us, With pain in his eyes, his lips quiver. He tries to get the words out, about his lost son.
Lord, it is Matthew Shepard, James Byrd. It is Emmett Till, Lord, they cry out to you this day. We pray for the four officers who in a moment of fear emptied their revolvers.
We pray for Amadou's mother, who today could not speak. We pray for those who bring healing to Wheeler Avenue, to the #6 train.
As we head back, we see birds in flight, Over the rooftops of Westchester Square.
We pray for them too, Lord, That in this millennium we bring peace and justice to the world.
Bless Amadou's soul. Bless us all.
Amen.
—Petero A. N. Sabune
Lord, I don't know what I was supposed to think. I was only nine years old and I wanted to become a Cub Scout. I loved the uniforms that my friends wore to school every Thursday. I wanted to be like them, one of them. I was the only black child in my school, but I never gave that a thought. I know that you heard my friends, Lord, when they told me to "come to the next pack meeting at the lodge hall. The pack master will sign you up." I told my mother that she had to take me to the meeting. I didn't know why she asked me, "Are you sure you can join?"
Of course I can join, we just have to go to the meeting and sign up. I know that you saw us, Lord, as we left home on that cold October evening. We walked the few blocks to the lodge hall. Here they were, my friends, but I could tell by the look on my mother's face that something was wrong. He told her to take me to another place where there was another meeting, perhaps I could sign up for the Cub Scouts there. We stepped out and walked the blocks to another meeting where there were other children at a Scout meeting. No, the man was saying, why don't you try the Episcopal church. Of course, Christ Church, that is a place where I can join the Cub Scouts. We set out again to walk there. At Christ Church, the pack master said that there was no room for me—try at some other time, he said. We left in silence. We walked home without saying a word, somehow I knew that this was not a time to talk. You saw us there, Lord, on that cold night as we braced against the wind going home. You were with us there. God, what was I supposed to think? I only wanted to join the Cub Scouts.
—Chester Talton
A Prayer for Morning
I am so weary, Father, of using myself as the measure of everything and everybody. Just for this one day, I beg you, help me to find release from the old pattern of seeing the different-from-me as either less-than or more-than me. Grant instead that, for just this one day at least, I may see everything and everybody I meet in terms of how I want you to see me at this day's end.
—Phyllis Tickle
Heal Painful Memories, Jesus
In a black art exhibit I see Aunt Jemima Photo of a lynch mob Lacerated black man in pool of blood Black Jesus crucified A teen-age black youth Hemmed in by tree branches, Steel spikes, fire, a wall The summer of 1962 I remember staying in a black home In an Alabama town Wrong side of the tracks Am an "outside agitator" Working on voter registration Listen to the stillness of the night Wind blows through leaves like paper Moonlight shines through heavy foliage Shadows move across a window My heart pounds Will they beat us, hurt us, Drag our bodies out Beneath the trees?
Painful memories are cruel, Jesus Let them be signs of hope and freedom
—Malcolm Boyd
Decade of Evangelism
Hundreds rallied to Bahia, Brazil in 1992: Women, lay, priests and deacons, Men in solidarity with women, Lay, bishops, priests and deacons, Exotic women in their multi-colored native attire. Their lilting foreign voices From Africa, India, Korea and Latin America Telling their stories, Sharing their pain. White women rushed to greet them. In their way, seeking to make up for centuries of Injustice and oppression. I must have looked exotic too with my black face. I answered their greeting in my California-via-Texas voice: Disappointed, the smiles they bore so wide faded. Hurriedly and uneasily they walked away. Was I not worth the time? Alone I stood, Invisible Again.
— Jo Ann Weeks
Invisible Wounds of—Violence
WEEPING, WITHOUT TEARS: DYING, WITHOUT YEARS: SLAIN BY FEARS.
FEW CAN SEE THE FLOOD: FEW DISCERN THE BLOOD: BY VIOLENCE DONE.
BROTHER, SLAYS A BROTHER— REDRESS, SHOUTS ANOTHER, BUT THE CULPRIT IS NOT BOUND— BECAUSE, NO BLOOD IS FOUND.
—Richard B. Martin
In Another Time
In another time And place ...
... there ...
Was my skin of different hue. Dancing, to the beat of drums and wordless tones,
I existed.
—Ruthmarie Brooks Silver
O Lord, forgive your church for having need of a book entitled Race and Prayer.
—Robert C. Wright
Dear Heavenly Father, Everyone goes through a racial thing at least once. So I hope that you show all of us that we are all a human race. I pray that one day we will all be able to live together as one. I know this will be up in heaven. I hope it comes down to earth. Thank you Father for listening and answering my prayers. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
—tatyana, age 16 Central Juvenile Hall East Los Angeles
Prayer to End Racial Profiling
God of infinite compassion, we live in times of turmoil. Out of our fear we seek to target and to blame the innocent. Out of our ignorance we tolerate racist systems that oppress and demean our brothers and sisters. God of justice, help us to resist all forms of racial profiling. Confront our prejudices. Expand our understanding. Strengthen our resistance. Help us to resist the urge to protect ourselves at the expense of others. Remind us that all people are ultimately yours. This we pray, in the name of the Christ. Amen.
—Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook
Isn't Pink a Color?
Dear Lord, who created all your children and knew us while we were still in the womb ...
I don't wish to be forward, but I don't altogether understand and I need some enlightenment, if it please you.
You made some of your children one color and some another. Humankind has probably been struggling with the differences ever since, but it doesn't seem to me that you intended that the tint we are on the outside should be any more of a descriptor than, say, the date each of us was born, or the size of our feet. These are just the details that distinguish one of us from another, aren't they? You created me blonde and blue-eyed, according to the laws of heredity that you set in motion back at the very beginning. You created others with different combinations of genes so each of us could contribute to your world according to our gifts from you.
Terrible things have sometimes been justified by the differences among us, the need some people have to feel that they are superior because of some characteristic or another. Religion, race, gender, all sorts of things have been used to build fences that divide us into exclusive enclaves. I believe you have called us to break down those barriers and to look at one another simply as individuals, awesome in our diversity. Is not this world somewhat like a huge box of crayons, in which we must all learn to live together (some of us with outlandish names) whatever our hue? Not one of us in that box is the same shade as any other, for we all have our role to play in making your rainbows.
Many of us are trying, Lord, we really are. Breaking down bred-in-the-bone prejudice takes time. People of Color X (fill in the blank) have their enclaves too, and were it not for your mighty plan, Father, the Body of Christ would be one giant patchwork. Perhaps that is what you intend. And herein lies my basic question, Lord: Isn't pink a color too?
—Florence F. Krejci
I seemed to be in a film but was not directing it.
Angry voices were shouting, Jesus. There were threats of bodily harm. Someone laughed in a shrill, loud voice bordering on hysteria. The flashing red lights of police cars framed the scene. I stood in line with sixty African American students who sought admission to a segregated movie theater in a small southern college town in 1963. The students refused to buy tickets for the "Negro section" in the balcony, demanding entrance to whatever seats they wished to occupy. The theater manager refused. The police had been called.
Angry white townspeople hurried to the theater, demanding that the students be placed under arrest. The people surrounded the students, calling out at them with racial insults and harsh threats. The men and women students, frightened by the show of power against them, maintained an uneasy but outward calm.
I wondered once again what things inside a person's imagination or feelings explode to produce this kind of hatred. Did the townspeople think the students' original sin was their blackness? If so, who had taught them that?
My whiteness burned me as I sought my humanness beneath color, sex, nationality, rank, or name.
—Malcolm Boyd
Hallowed Halls of Racism
There is a disguised visitor within the hearts of many including the hearts of our leaders in our places of worship. This disguised visitor is a learned behavior called racism. Because of its location its lethal effects are denied. After all the heart is a place where love resides. Not a place for evil. But it is from this place that things we do and say cause damage to the well-being of so many. Racism has taken over this vital organ, the heart, and is undermining the structure of our faith. Those who practice racism often try to deal with it through generosity to those who are poor, oppressed, and suffering on different shores or in distant places. In different voices diversity is embraced as a blessing and makes racism tolerable. But for those with a colored skin it is a curse that makes racism intolerable. Oppression, suffering, and misery are in our midst. In the hallowed halls of our church racism is not only alive but it is thriving. Fueled by those who outwardly smile while maintaining segregated Sundays. It is time that we use our beliefs and values to eliminate racism. Discrimination and prejudice have no place in the minds and hearts of the faithful or in places where the weary seek rest from their labors.
—Martha Falconer-Blake
A cappella choir was my favorite after-school activity at Los Angeles High School, Jesus. Each winter during the Christmas break, we were taken by bus to a ski lodge for an overnight retreat. When I was a senior on this retreat in 1959, I liked a white boy who was attracted to me, too. We danced and stole a kiss. I was excited to think we would begin dating the next semester. He was kind and handsome. To my disappointment, his parents disapproved that I was African American and forbade him to date me. Why, Jesus, did he and I lose what we had only begun to explore because of racial bias?
—Lilline S. Dugan
Rag Doll
A Meditation
black women are said to be like rag dolls we become torn and worn discarded, displaced from the places where we were loved and were born yet we survive.
black women so often used, abused refused, sullied, unused yet we survive.
black women stained, blamed sometimes maimed, still, we survive, black women, broken and bleeding and battered sometimes in silk other times in tatters struggling, rising up from that dust of oppression and debris, mending the wounds so carelessly given praying for strength to rally and press on seeking new life and praying to God that life really matters.
black women are like rag dolls we survive.
—Patricia Greig Bennett
Lord, As the twin towers crumble, As the millions of Afghans Starve and die, As the hundreds of thousands Of Americans live in poverty, As the president asks for more money For the rich and powerful, Help this non-believer Understand And heal his pain.
—Reginald Wilson
A Prayer for Our Nation
O God, thousands of people died in one day. We, who live in what we considered to be a safe and secure nation, are afraid. It is hitting home in more ways than one—that our sense of security is but an illusion that we created to make us sleep better at night.
We are tempted to blame you for it. How could you let this happen in a nation that we claimed to have been blessed by you? Then we held back from blaming you and turned around and blamed the "evil ones" who perpetrated this unimaginable horror.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Race and Prayer by Malcolm Boyd, Chester Talton. Copyright © 2003 Malcolm Boyd and Chester L. Talton. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
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