serpents and doves

My dancer daughter spent our week of vacation braiding her long, blond hair into tiny braids - around 75 she says. She had recently come back from a pilgrimage to the home of Bob Marley (actually it was a missions trip) exclaiming how beautiful the Jamaican people are; since I exercised my parental veto over dreadlocks, she did the next best thing and covered her head with miniature snakes. My husband calls her his little black child, pale as she is!

We have lived a pretty monochromatic life here in northern New England. (Which is one of the disadvantages of living here.) My children know exactly four persons of color in our town. This has had a curious effect upon them; they are intrigued by people who are different than they are. They have no preconceived ideas or prejudices, but they also do not have any of the politically correct caution about noticing (and commenting on) the ways in which people differ. They don't pretend everyone is "just like us," but they don't feel the need to make value judgments about the differences.

On vacation we saw more "people of color" than we do at home, and my five year old was fascinated. We passed two black women and their children in a store who were having a lively, friendly conversation. When we were hardly out of ear shot my daughter exclaimed, "Mommy, did you HEAR how those black people were talking?"
"Yes, honey," I muttered, hurrying her along before she said whatever was coming next!
"They talk different!"
"Well, yes, they do. . . " I began, thinking I would give her a little socio-linguistic lecture about cultural differences, but she was way ahead of me.
"Maybe I could make friends with them. That little girl looked nice. . . but they didn't really notice us, did they?" she said with a disappointed sigh.

My fifteen year old has not had much more experience with cultural diversity. After her two weeks in Jamaica, she attended Earl Mosely's Summer Dance Intensive. Mr Mosely is an incredibly talented black choreographer and dance teacher. Most of the students were from the NYC area, with the exception of C and two other students from northern New England. (They were in the highest level ballet class, but when it came to hip-hop they were pretty much pre-K! ) Nearly all the dancers were black or Hispanic.

One of her friends found the atmosphere at the camp a little initimidating; she felt like the other dancers resented them, even "hated" them. She felt excluded, ignored and shunned. C, however, refused to take offense. She wasn't sure she even felt what M was talking about, but if she did, she was certain it was just a misunderstanding. She could not imagine that anyone meant ill by things that were said or done. She kept reassuring her friend, "They just do things differently than we do, that's all. Besides, how do we seem to them?" She chose to describe her feelings as "shy" rather than "intimidated."

Sometimes I worry that someday her guilessness will get C in trouble; that perhaps she'd be better off a little more suspicious, a little more guarded. But I know I am dead wrong. She is not stupid, but she is generous. She is not a pushover (well, maybe she is. . . ) but she thinks the best of people. She approaches the world with open hands and an open heart and expects that people will treat her the same way. She disarms them so thoroughly they usually do.

I don't know what C will be when she grows up, but when I grow up I want to be more like her and her little sister. No matter how old we are, the Scripture still exhorts us to grow, and even to grow up. Perhaps what we need to be growing into, however, is best exemplified by children. Jesus himself pointed to children as our example in the matter of humility.

As look at my children I realize that so much of what I have learned as a "grown-up" inclines me to be judgmental, mistrusting, sometimes even cynical. I may not discriminate on the basis of race, but discriminate I do. My heart is often guarded rather than open; I am probably more practiced at rejecting than accepting others. I am a master at snap judgments (I call it "the gift of discernment"). I find it so difficult to be that strange creature who possesses the head of serpent but the heart of a dove, to be at once wise and innocent. Maybe I have as much to unlearn as to learn because Jesus was not fooling around when He said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3-4)