A Letter to the Readers:
Please excuse my brief hiatus. Life has been pulling me in many exciting, but time-consuming directions as of late. However, it remains my desire to continue writing and hopefully contributing to new perspectives and being a catalyst for dialogue about important issues. In light of several recent changes in both my personal and business life, I have a wealth of inspiration to draw from in moving forward with "a hundred visions." So, let us trudge forward together into new realms of discussion, reflection, and illumination. Thank you for your companionship on this journey.
Much love,
J.P.
THE BATTLE
As I was out for a morning jog recently, I was reflecting on some concepts that have been soaking my prayers. One of them was all of the racial tension in this world, in my nation, in my city, and even in my inner circles as of late. The only way you could deny the reality of this tension is if you are living under a rock (though, I have met a few social cavemen in the past few years). One only need watch the news, read article after article, or even listen to the music of some of this generation's most socially active voices to see that prejudice has not been swept under the rug or forgotten. Even a close friend of mine who was in the Congo for the past year was well-informed and was able to describe the tectonic shift resulting from grinding plates of ethnic differences in America. Indeed, it is being felt around the world.
Prejudice is a disgusting grime that is smeared across even the young minds of our world, but finally, we have a chance to attack the great deceptions of racial inequality and racial hatred on the ground floor—the mindsets and the spiritual conditions of entire races. This is no longer a war against the government for civil rights or basic human freedoms. This is a mental, moral, and spiritual battle for freedom from crippling mindsets and heart conditions that have enslaved all cultures, not one specifically. I, for one, am excited to take whatever stand I can with those who are being oppressed in mind and spirit, as well as in body. It seems every generation has a battle to fight, and this is ours.
With these thoughts pervading my mind, I penned the words I will now share with you:
“THE PRISM”
We say we want light in this world, but is that really true? It seems as if we have forgotten the very nature of light—that, when it is broken down, it splits into many colors. God created light; God Himself is light, and He does nothing without purpose. We are made to be the light of the world, but we are made to do that together, not just individually.
In creating such a vast array of people with all sorts of cultural, ethnic, and even value system differences, God set a standard—the standard of wavelengths, if you will. He made it so that no one person (except Jesus Christ) could reflect Him in His fullness. But if I reject another’s wavelength, another’s culture, another’s personhood, another’s ideas, because I am overly fond of my own, then any light I could shine is incomplete at best.
I love that God made this principle tangible in a highly visible, unavoidably obvious way—the colors of our skin. We do not need to be colorblind. Quite the opposite, we need to embrace every color on every wavelength (even, and perhaps especially, the invisible ones, who feel the weight of not being noticed) and discover what being the light of the world really means.
An infinite God invested Himself in a diverse people, and I believe He is revealed in a special way when we come together—all parts of the spectrum, loving their own wavelengths and loving those of others. God, send a spiritual rain that lets us see the beauty of the multicolored promise in the sky once again.
“Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” – John 17:10
