Black History Month - Coming and Going

    I tried to dedicate a bit more of my learning to African-American history this month by paying attention to more history, knowledge, stories, and even participate in some African-American things. I then wanted to share and relay these lessons to others. Since the summer of 2020 I have wanted to attend some Black churches, and I thought that I could follow through with it this month. I did pretty well the first few days of the month, but then I lost the verve and missed out on more opportunities.

    As stated in a National Geographic documentary about Black History that I watched some of yesterday, "Black History (in the U.S.) is American history." Right. I have said so and thought so before. We celebrate all of it, and we recognize the bad, too. All of it is us. Our world. Our country. Our heritage. We share it.

    This past year and half, going on two years, I have had good experiences with African-Americans personally. They were not bad before that. But things came into better focus for me in this regard. It is the post George Floyd, Black Lives Matter times. We try to get it.

    What else did I want to convey? This month is good to remember and assess our shared history. Accomplishments, victories, setbacks, disgraces, all the things that have been and made us who we are. 

    Let's do things right and remember.

    Speaking of remembering, there were a couple more things that I had in mind for this post, but I have forgotten them. Perhaps I will recall them soon.

    That is it for now. No, I remembered a couple things.

    Oh yeah. As I was wanting to visit and participate in some African-American based churches in my community, and thinking of time to do so this month, I was spending some of my time helping a brother in my congregation who has been largely down on his luck, who has been scammed for thousands of dollars, who is in debt and his job has been pulling back on his hours, social security is claiming that he was overpaid by them and want thousands of dollars back, which he does not have. He is in debt, can sometimes not pay his rent, or have food for money. We have people (including myself) dealing with Adult Protective Services to help him.

    So this has kept me from spending more time doing some other things. And this gentleman I speak of? He may be Black. Or partially, anyway. But to me, that part is immaterial. He is our brother, no matter his skin nor heritage.

 I want to be a bit more like MLK, in a month we think a lot of him, or since January too. His federal holiday. We celebrate our combined and shared histories, our heritage and futures together.

    We will succeed or fail together. 

    Long live these dreams.