A couple of days after the events began in Ferguson, I
posted this.. I haven’t posted anything
else on the subject since.
I have been too angry to speak much publicly. Once the protesters started to chant for
Darren Wilson’s death, I got angry. That
was my tipping point. We were no longer
dealing with “peaceful protesters” who were marching for justice; we were now
dealing with an unreasonable blood-thirsty mob.
And you can’t reason with the unreasonable. I learned that many years ago while married to
an alcoholic. I had been upset and sad
and frustrated and confused and tired of it all, but I hadn't been angry. But now I’m angry. And I have been angry since Saturday.
So in an effort to preach to myself only and in an effort to
still admonish myself to only say what is helpful for building others up that
it may benefit those who listen and to hopefully direct my anger into something
beneficial for me, I was pondering and praying over this question from Joy.FM
this morning – What can we do to build unity across this entire city? I don’t have an answer to that question, but
this idea hit me. For this past year, I
have been posting The Top 5’s for immediate family members on their birthdays. Could I post the Top 5 Things I Love About
Ferguson? Could I post the Top 5 Things
I Would Give Ferguson If Time, Money and Resources Were No Object? Well, here is my attempt to do just
that. Not to preach to anyone but to
build folks up and benefit those who read, primarily myself.
The Top 5 Things I Love About Ferguson...
# 5 Our community garden.
It’s our first year, but we are now one of four that I know of, the others
having many more years under their belt.
But we are planting seeds (pun intended) of a future place for people in
the neighborhood to come together and be nourished – physically and communally
– as corny as all that sounds. (Again, pun intended!)
# 4 Our businesses and business owners. Thankfully we have some major
retailers in our city. We ALL need that
revenue even though that is not considered politically correct to say these
days. But the majority of the businesses
in Ferguson are locally owned and operated by people who want to turn a profit
doing something that they love and by serving their customers. And the total disregard for these hard
working people by the thugs that have made Ferguson a household name well
beyond our borders is cheap and disrespectful and low and a whole lot of other
words that my mother and my faith teach me not to use.
# 3 Our neighbors. People have said that St. Louis is the
largest small town you’ll ever experience.
And Ferguson is but one example of this.
Please do not judge our neighborliness by what you see on the nightly
news. We truly do peacefully coexist on
a daily basis – black and white. I could
go into all of the factors that I see as having contributed to the strife of
the last week and a half, but I’m not sure that would be helpful for building
others up or benefiting those who read, so I will not. But our city has a number of neighborhood
associations working together for our kids and home and families – like good
neighbors do.
# 2 Our humility. We
don’t go around bragging about covering fire and police protection for the
surrounding cities who cannot afford full-time standing forces. We just do it, because it’s right to do it. We don’t do it so that it will be touted
about on the national news. Or even the
local news. We just do the right thing
because it’s the right thing to do.
Humbly. Responsibly. Mother Teresa is known for saying “Not all of
us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.” Ferguson does lots of small things with great
love – the essence of humility.
And The # 1 Thing I Love About Ferguson…
# 1 Our leaders. From
our Mayor to our Council Members to our Chief of Police and His Force – good,
solid, salt of the earth kind of people who DO have a feel for the pulse of
this city despite what others may be saying in the media and on blog posts and
Twitter and FB! (Sorry, I told you up
front I was angry, so I felt the need for an exclamation point there.) 99.99% of the people who ever read this post
will have never met our local leaders.
But I have. I have had
conversations with them, and they have a heart for this city and fully
understand the dynamics in play on a daily basis. They don’t go into this business for the
money or the fame or the power. They go
into these leadership positions for the right reasons and they stay for even
better reasons. Let me put it this way –
I wouldn’t want to do what they do, but I am thankful that they do what they do
so I can do what I do. Isn’t that
supposed to be the way this works?
Now for the Top 5 Things I Would Give Ferguson if Time,
Money and Resources Were No Object…
# 5 Enough. Not an
abundance but enough. Like this poem.
# 4 A better normal.
If returning to our normal is not good enough, then I would give us a
better normal, whatever that looks like.
But we can’t even think about what that looks like as long as this other
circus is going on.
# 3 Everyone who does not live in Ferguson to leave. Everyone.
Even if you are here to help, we need you to leave for at least the next
few weeks so we can begin working on # 4.
Leave your digits. If we need
you, we will know how to call you back.
# 2 Confidence. So
that we can hold our heads up again. So
that our kids can go to school again. So
that we can support our local businesses again.
So that businesses can rebuild.
So that new businesses will give thought to coming to Ferguson.
And the # 1 Thing I Would Give Ferguson if Time, Money and
Resources Were No Object…
# 1 A mission. Some
of you reading were probably hoping I would say something like a great big
group hug, but that idea just makes me want to vomit in my mouth. Some of you reading were probably hoping I
would say peace. And that’s a really
nice ideal and all, but it has become such an overused word these days that it
almost has no meaning. Nope, I said a
mission, because that word encompasses all of the warm fuzzy intended feelings
of the group hug and peace, but it means so much more. Mission says that we have a purpose. Mission says that we have a vision. Mission
says that we can heal, and we will heal and we can be a beacon of hope for
other communities who either have gone through or will go through what we’ve
been through. Mission says that we will
recover. Mission says that we can bring
our people together to listen to each other, to brainstorm creative ideas to
help each other, to work together to do the right thing for the right reason
even when it gets hard to do the right thing for the right reason – regardless
of skin color or hair color or clothing color or music preference or economic
background or education or color privilege or whatever other catch phrase you
want to use. A mission says all of that
other stuff doesn't really matter, because together we are moving in the right
direction. As neighbors. As friends.
As a city.
Thank you for reading as I process my anger. If it helped you, too, then God Bless.
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