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Image by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash |
This year I returned to a place in South Africa that I called home for several years. One night I sat by candlelight with South African friends John and Penny as we ate perfectly grilled blesbuck, one of Africa’s many types of antelope. John said he likes food that comes with a good story. He’s one of the best story-tellers I know, so I he told us the story of the meat.
You can’t buy blesbuck in a store, he said. It has to be a gift. In this case it came from friend who’s Afrikaaner–of Dutch descent. John is of British descent. Afrikaaner and British people have been killing and hating each other in Southern Africa for almost as long as whites done so to Blacks. So this gifted meat passed between unlikely friends.
“And on to us unlikely American friends,” I added. Across almost two decades, hundreds of South Africans like John and Penny have gifted us with far more than blesbuck, and more than money could buy—welcome, homes, and friendship.
The next morning as I sat on the puffiest of daybeds packed with pillows in John and Penny’s cottage, my eyes landed on this snippet of a Bible verse: “It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace.”
Grace is a weird word. Christians say it all the time, but for a long time I didn’t really get it. I imagined grace like the stunning gracefulness of a dancer swirling in moves made possible by much practice. But to Christians grace is the opposite of a practiced skill. Grace means an un-deserved, un-earnable, un-purchasable gift. And feasting on it strengthens the heart. Like a blesbuck.
When people ask what I’m learning in my current research, one summary I give is, humans can’t deserve unity. Deep down I think all of us want to know if it’s really possible to love a stranger, or even our closest neighbors. Those of us working for justice know that’s dang hard.
It plays out in stories like this one, from an interview I was reviewing this morning.
A white man I’ll call Tim grows up in a white world. He does not personally know any Black, Latino, or Latina people and makes a habit of mocking their poverty. Then he faces a turning point. Somebody shows him just how unjust the world is. It sinks in deep. He starts making choices to change these things—he studies the history, goes to work with a Black-led organization, and finds Black mentors.
But something begins to paralyze him. He is terrified of not doing enough. He has seen the mistakes white people made across history, and he knows he’ll make many of those mistakes again. He wants to be like that graceful ballerina practicing hard enough to swirl effortlessly in his cross-cultural, society-transforming work, but he’s an awkward or even dangerous klutz.
“So what do you do when that happens?” I asked Tim.
“You just show up. And people love you.”
This is grace. It’s acceptance and love that can not be earned or demanded—only gifted. Tim will tell you that’s what sustains his work. If you press hard for justice, your heart needs the strengthening of grace.
What stories are told over your table? When were you strengthened by grace? Maybe you’ve been given a feast from an unlikely friend. Maybe like Tim you showed up to a meeting full of shame and dread, and somebody greeted you with a jubilant “Hey, it’s good to see you.”
Here’s an added challenge—if you know somebody who’s given you grace, how about celebrating Thanksgiving by sending them a note of gratitude this week?
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