We have to wonder what they are afraid of – the politicians who have banned books, circumscribed teaching about terrible events in our history, and who want to deny that anything bad ever happened to anyone because of race or ethnicity, even religion. It’s really incomprehensible that in certain states, even those with a significant racial or ethnic minority that teachers are even forbidden from answering questions.
Do they really think that they can eliminate certain parts of our history? It seems that the goal is to really eliminate the desire for change, for social justice. I remember in an Alabama Sunday School when I was told to sing all the little children were “precious in his sight,” not equal, as I had learned the song. God forbid that we would all be equal.
What’s the difference between this new attempt to rewrite our history and what Putin is doing in Russia with his curriculum stating that Ukraine is an imaginary creation and has always been Russian, that there is no separate Ukrainian culture. It’s like watching the Russian kantele players from what once was Finnish Karelia sing old runes in Russian. But our faith teaches us that truth will win, whether in Florida, Alabama, or Ukraine
Prayer for the Day
Afraid of change, the censors try to rewrite history,
To make the world not in your image, O God, but theirs;
Fearful of the transformation promised by your Word in the world,
More than milquetoasts, they want to suppress the truths they fear.
But you, O God, know that history cannot be expurgated,
That you call us to establish a world in your image.
In the name of the One we follow,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future from the errors of the past and infirmities of mankind.
- Edmund Burke, Anglo-Irish M.P. (1729-1797)
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
- Maya Angelou, American poet (1928-2014)
You keep my eyelids from closing; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I consider the days of old, and remember the years of long ago.
I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit.
“Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?”
Psalm 77: 4-7