Do we have to fight this war again?

Our country seems to be on the verge of exploding into another civil war. My Daddy has often pondered that. I was a child of the 60s, where the world was changing. In that decade, we saw a President, his brother and a brave civil rights leader murdered. Marching, peace signs and hippies were everywhere. Privileged teenagers rebelled against staid institutions and ushered in a generation of free "love," pot and rock-and-roll. I grew up in the outskirts of suburbia, next to the edges where urban meets redneck. We might have been a little behind the times, but we were in the deep South and right close to Atlanta, where Daddy worked at the Postal Service. I had older cousins whom I saw spiraling out of control into drugs and alcohol, diving into the hippie culture. I would gaze in awe at their forbidden rock-and-roll albums and gauzy, tie-dyed outfits and wonder what California was like. The news was full of things that were scary but far away from my world. Or so I thought. 

Daddy coached two softball venues: our girls team and the Post Office team. I remember dreamy summer evenings, driving into Atlanta. We played around the bleachers and playgrounds with both white and black children, getting filthy with that persistent red dirt. Black girls would ask to touch my fine blonde hair. I would ask to touch their creative, wiry hair. We would laugh and wonder at the differences. My Daddy was (and is) a kind man and was keen on there being equality between races. He was called ugly names by trolls at work because he refused to be racist. When I was in second grade, a black girl in my class was shot while walking beside the railroad tracks in Powder Springs. Thankfully she wasn't killed, but I don't think much investigation was done into who did it or why. Daddy took me to the hospital to see her. He was outraged. Another time, we were at the public pool when a black family got in the water. The white kids started getting out of the pool. Daddy told us to get in the water, so we did. Others quickly followed. 

Maybe "following" is our problem. The human condition tends toward sheep-like behavior. Wherever the crowd is going, we like to follow, whether they're headed off the cliff or into a pasture. Mobs form when some passionate person or small cluster of people begin to move in a direction with impunity. What is good or right is often left behind, because it's difficult to swim against the current. It seemed our culture had made a great deal of headway, since the 1960s. There were horrible injustices, stemming back since slavery, that were still being foisted on people, but advances and changes were being made. I grew up in a mostly peaceful environment, racially speaking, once the 70s encroached. Underneath the relative peace, however, were roots that were quietly growing. Growing and spreading, poisoning those that they touched. Roots of bitterness and anger that had gone underground and untended. It's ironic that the fruit of a thing is usually perpetuated, not so much by those that were hurt, but by their progeny. Who of us has not seen whole family lines who nurse anger, generation after generation, passing on tendencies that seem to have no reasoning in them? It's that bitter tree, growing, defiling all it touches. Both sides of this war have history and reasons to find fault. Like a pendulum, swinging back and forth.

All of our DNA can be traced back to a single family. It started with Adam and Eve. The more we find out about genetics, the more we can prove this fact. The human race has a very diverse gene pool, which can manifest in many different appearances. But we are still humans. Put five families on an island by themselves and in a hundred years, you'll have similar traits, quirks, and a unique culture. We tend to find comfort in sticking with our own, with what is familiar to us. Genetic shuffling is a complex process. Look at dogs, for instance. A dog is a dog (unless it's a poodle, of course). Technically you can breed a toy Chihuahua to a Great Dane and you're going to get a dog. I would recommend the Dane being the Mama...but I digress. Mankind has bred them for many reasons, originally for practical ones but now more for appearance and temperament. Either way, we have breeds that we recognize, all the way from the tiny teacup Poodle up to the Irish Wolfhound. But they are still dogs. The same goes for humans. Thousands of  years ago, when transportation was at a snail's pace, people were isolated into pockets of civilization where they congregated to live, breed (if you will) and congregate to survive the harsh conditions of their environments. Physical characteristics morphed toward similarity, according to how the particular environment reinforced the survival of that people. Over millenia, "types" of people emerged as their DNA mixed and adapted to their territory. This is not macro-evolution, where we are taught to believe that species jump to become something else. This is genetic adaptation, where characteristics already encoded in our DNA are shuffled, through things like die-out, breeding, location. I am no geneticist or scientist and do not pretend to understand all the mysteries of this. I am making a point about race. Our "islands" and pockets of people that have produced different colors, races and ultimately cultures, have the common root of being not actually a bunch of races, but the human race. Race is an unfortunate word, because it infers that we are different species from each other. We are not. We are one species: mankind. One blood that has the capacity to mix.

I'm going to be honest. Even though I know better, I still wrestle with racism. Where I have relationships with people of other cultures and colors, people that I love and admire, when it comes to downing major barriers -- barriers like interracial marriage with my children or grandchildren, I have fear. Fear of cultural differences, of outside judgment, of rejection, of the unknown. I have several black friends who are some of the best people on this planet, people who have faced the giant spectre of this American culture and swam upstream, daring to raise their children differently, remaining steadfastly faithful to God and their spouses, laughing in the face of stereotypes and trials. They haven't allowed themselves to be distracted with hate, bitterness or discrimination, even when it has been all around them. They are better than me, giants in the land, even though they don't seem to know it. Where I feel fearful of the unknown, I think about what God has done in these people and families and I have hope. I pray that we can come together as a nation, to understand and embrace our differences. But without the grace of God and revival in our country, I don't know how this can happen. God, give me a clean heart and a love for those who are different from me. Help me to not fear or hate. Give us eyes to see what You see.