“Be the Bridge” Book Club Recap

We met together on a Thursday night in July at my friend, Ally's farm in Rougemont, NC.  It was beautiful as we gathered in a circle, a small group of us spread out in the grass, keeping our social distance due to Covid. It really is hard not to greet everyone with a big hug like we used to.  There were 13 of us and we ranged in ages for sure from a seventeen year old to an older generation and everyone in between. We were at a Be the Bridge book club meeting to talk about racial reconciliation and we were a racially diverse group seeking to understand one another.  I asked my friend JaCynthia to lead the discussion and she did a beautiful job creating space for each to share without anyone taking offense and we opened the time in prayer seeking God.  We were all open and honest, leaving with hope in Christ, knowing it was something special we experienced together.

I'm not going to share things discussed in Book Club, but I will share my take-aways from the book.  Be the Bridge is an important read!  I recommend everyone take the time to read this book or listen to it on Audible (because it is a good one on Audible)!  Latisha Morrison, the author, shares her story in the book and also educates.  There were parts of history shared that I had never heard and needs to be told.  In fact, I would like to re-listen to Be the Bridge again and take notes just to understand these events in history better. Latisha Morrision begins her book talking about John 17.  These are the words of Jesus right before He goes to the cross, it's what's on His mind, it's what He thinking about. He is praying for others, and it isn't thoughts about himself. That's just who Jesus is and it’s a way you can know you are loved. He prays for you and me and one of the things He prays for is UNITY.

Jesus Prays for UNITY

"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.  I in them and you in me.  May they be brought to complete UNITY to let the whole world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:20-23).

Unity so the whole world may know...know Jesus is God, sent by God and He is LOVE! Aren't we all searching just to be loved.  We search in so many places.  And through His love we can see His Glory!

We Prayer for HUMILITY

"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6).

If we are in Christ, living under His authority, then it is being humble that says this is not the way I think or not what I want to do, but if God says it in His Word then I will obey.  I was in a Bible Study with a girl whose prayer request every week was for her to live under the authority of Scripture. She knew God's way was best, but was wrestling with her own desires (James 4).  Don't we all!

In "The Chosen" (a very well done video series on the life of Christ),  Jesus calls the tax collector and Peter has a problem with that.  Peter asks Jesus if he knows who this guy is? (Matthew...the tax collector was a person hated within his own Jewish community.). Jesus says, "Yes Peter, I know him".  Peter then objects and says...he is different.  Jesus replies, "get used to different".  I love that so much because we judge so much and think it should be done this way, we are right.  Yet, God's ways are higher, His thoughts are higher and there is none like Him (Isaiah 55:9). There are so many parable stories Jesus told about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like (found in the book of Matthew, the tax collector).

Back to Be the Bridge, there were some great questions from the book.

(So many good questions at the end of each chapter, I really loved that!)

I'll share some of Morrison's questions that stood out to me here:

- How much are we willing to do things a different way?

- Learn about a different culture?

- Engage with different people?

- What movies of books have you read or listened to of a different culture other than your own?

- What do you think is the value of getting to know people and have relationships with others of a different culture?

We Have to Know the Truth

"We can't fix what we don't understand.  We have to know truth!" Thank you Latisha Morrison for this word. Think about truth verses lies.  Do you want to be lied to or would you rather have the truth?  Jesus said in Luke 6:31, "Do to others as you would have them do to you."  As I learn about other cultures, do I understand my own? What are the blindspots?

Latisha made an important point concerning racial reconciliation that we need to know the truth about history.  Is it our culture to cover things up?  We know from the authority of God's Word that repentance brings healing and refreshment (Acts 3:19).  Proverbs always gives wisdom and a straight up word.  Proverbs 28:13 says, "Whoever conceals their sin does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy." The book talks a lot about lament and repentance.

Be the Bridge showed me how there are no excuses for sin.  Horrific stories such as Mary Turner in 1899 who was pregnant, strung up by her feet upside down, gasoline poured on her and set on fire.  They cut the unborn child out of her, stomped the child to death and shot her over and over.  No one was ever convicted for her lynching.  This is sickening.  I had never heard her story.

Think of the words of Jesus who said treat others the way you would like to be treated.  Ask yourself, would I like to have been ripped apart from your family, do hard manual labor all day in the elements and not get paid, not be treated or thought of as human, hear a bell mid-day and know oh it's time to get whipped?

Latisha Morrison said after sharing the awful story of what happened to end Mary Turner's life on earth that there is one who experienced His own unjust lynching.  Would we ever say of Jesus, well, it wasn't that bad?  No we can't say that. Jesus was hung on a cross, brutally mistreated, abused and torn in two unjustly. He willingly sacrificed Himself to give us new life and eternal life. And what did Jesus say from the cross, "Father, forgive them."  We need to humble ourselves before God and say we are wrong, we are sinners and we are the ones in NEED of FORGIVENESS.  We can't think of ourselves as I'm not that bad or I'm usually right.  That is pride and "God opposes the proud but gives more grace to the humble." More questions from the book...

- Why is it important to be educated on historical events?

- What were some of the true stories shared in this book that made an impact on you?

- Why is it bad to make excuses for slavery?

- How does lament and repentance connect us to God?

- How could lament bring healing concerning racial harmony?

- How will you continue on the path to racial reconciliation?

Reconciliation

Jesus came to reconcile us to God.  We can't have a relationship with God because of our sin.  We all know what messed up relationships look like, we've felt the pain our own sin caused or someone else's sin caused to us. But Jesus reconciled us to God through the cross, His death, and resurrection.

Concerning racial reconciliation, Latisha ended her book with this powerful Scripture that changes everything.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us.  We implore you on Christ's behalf:  Be reconciled to God.  God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).

We can keep Be the Bridge discussions going, keep listening and caring for one another.  It basically means, "Be a Friend".  Seek friendship out.  I can say my life is so much richer and better when I make friendships with others of a different culture.  I learn, grow, and can see more of God's fullness.  We are each image bearers of God and that is amazing!

His Beauty is everywhere, are our eyes awakened with the wonder to see it?