An Elder in our Church, Peter Alexander, delivered a thought provoking message this morning centered on Psalm 67.  Contained in his remarks was the question; “what can I do to save the world?”  This timely question was birthed from the agony of the horrendous violence that has occurred over the past week. From Baton Rouge, Louisiana to St. Paul, Minnesota to Dallas Texas… there has been almost a daily terrible dose of tragedy and senseless killing.

Have you ever felt marginalized?  Were you ever bullied in school?  Did anyone ever treat you differently because of some obscure reason that they concocted in their “poor self esteem psyche?”

What can I do, perhaps not to save the world, but to begin healing the racial wounds of our society…that are so deep and gaping that the healing appears hopeless?  What can I do to bridge the cultural chasm between the white race and the black race?  What can I do that will demonstrate by deed and action that I want to know my African American brothers and sisters?  How can I show the members of the Muslim Community that I value them and that I want to work…study…and live with them with the honor of them feeling that I am their equal and their friend?

My African American colleague Jewel Thompson had  Christmas dinner on Campus many years ago that she graciously invited me to.  She made me so welcome!  The food was good and the fellowship was great!  She played Nat King Cole Christmas Carols…and I felt like I was home!  Of Christmas events during my over thirty-two year career…none made more of an indelible impression of me.

A few weeks ago my former supervisor and the Director of Plant and Service Operations retired and invited me to his retirement party.  As Mary Jane and I and Jonathon, who now works for the Physical Plant, were eating…a few people greeted me…but many seemed not to recognize me or remember me.  Suddenly Alfie a

Former student staff member in my office came up to me and greeted me and hugged  me.  Alfie is an African American of Muslim faith.  I told those setting nearby that, “Alfie was my son…he just would not  call me Daddy.”  Alfie exclaimed, “That he would call me Daddy.”

My first supervisor who greeted me on October 10th, 1978 was Jim Walls.  Jim was a nearly 70 year old African American gentleman who smoked the most delightfully scented cigars!  No one knew me…but soon Jim began telling everyone how proud he was of the work that I was performing.  It was not long that by Jim’s efforts, I had a good name throughout the department.  A crew boss…as I was a janitor at that time…cursed me one night on an overtime shift…and I told him that if he did that again that I would leave the job.  The next evening I mentioned the occurrence to Jim.  The next time that I worked for the person that I had experienced the altercation with…I had no more that arrived for the beginning of the overtime shift and Joe and I had entered the first building that we were to clean…we heard an old van drive up…and in came my cigar smoking supervisor and friend.  He entered the door and asked Joe, “Do you realize that Brooks is my son…he just won’t call me Daddy?”

I think that for everyone that desires healing and understanding of others…seek one person who is of a different race and begin communicating with them.  Not with the noble idea that you will enrich them…but with the humble desire that they will accept you.

The last week has been an onslaught of tragedy for our country and our lives.  Mr. Alton Sterling, an African American man was standing in a parking lot selling CD’s in Baton Rouge, Louisiana this past Tuesday night.  A homeless man is reported to have called 911 stating that Sterling showed him a gun in response to him asking Sterling for money.  A video taken of the incident appears to show that Mr. Sterling’s gun never left his pocket…yet police shot him to death. Police refused to comment whether Mr. Sterling had a gun.

Mr. Philando Castile was stopped by police outside St. Paul, Minnesota.  Before Castile reached for his wallet to present his identification he told the officer that he had a gun and was licensed to carry it.  Mr. Castile was shot dead by the officer.

Last night twelve police officers in Dallas, Texas were shot and five have died.  These officers were assigned to ensure the safety of the protest regarding the two men who were killed by police on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The pain and hurt and lack of trust and fear by many members of the African Community is justified in light of what not only is the video evidence of these shootings but also what countless of them have experienced at the hands of bigoted police officers.

At one time in my life I was the manager of a large housekeeping organization at a major university.  One night I was telephoned by one of my supervisors to please come to his building quickly as one of his crew was being questioned by the police regarding the theft of money from a professor’s office.  When I arrived two white police officers were questioning the African American custodial employee.  After observing one of the officers screaming at my employee…I asked how he was a prime suspect when he was entering offices at my request and with master keys that I provided him and the accusing professor had left her purse on her desk with the door open…and she was not present.  The officers convinced my employee to subject himself to a strip search…where they found no money…and he was exonerated.  One of the officers told me that I had hurt their interrogation of my staff member…who was and still is a respected member of our community…and that if I had not been there…he would have confessed.

Police are often wonderful people.  The key word is what a friend told me many years ago…a policeman is a man.  Also, a policewoman is  a woman.  For someone to shoot and kill police men and women to some how avenge wrongs done that the people being shot had nothing to do with…is insanity!

The next time you are in trouble…afraid…perhaps for you life…there will be a policeman or policewoman that you will call upon.  They will come to your assistance…often at the risk of their own life.  They deserve our thanks!

The bigoted racist culture of signaling out African Americans for additional traffic stops…shadowing in department stores…or the deadly irreversible assumption that lethal force is the first solution…is chilling and frightening!

There is a truth that is as old as humanity.  We are all first human beings.  We love our families…we want the best for our children…we want to succeed and create a decent life for our loved ones…and we want the respect of our common humanity.

We must begin now…to talk together and forget the color of our skin…but rather listen and listen and listen…and see the person who is communicating with us as Dr. Martin Luther King extolled us, “by the content of their character.”

On September 9, 1993 Mary Jane and I were privileged to attend An Evening with Elie Wiesel at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.  According to Wikipedia, “Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel was a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Laureate.  He was the author of 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.  Along with writing he was a professor of the humanities at Boston University.”

Wiesel was fifteen years old when he and his family were placed in a confinement ghetto in his hometown of Sighetu.  Mr. Wiesel lost his mother and father and sister in the camps.

Have you ever met a fellow human being that had such a magnetism about them…that you paused and reflected on the experience?  Elie Wiesel had that affect on me.  His face and his eyes were haunting.

Mary Jane recalls Elie Wiesel speaking from a passage from his first book, Night, and how she was moved by the painful honesty of the passage…and what it was like to be in the Camps.  The passage is regarding a father and son running and the human, emotional, traumatic, challenge between them.  “It happened on the road.  We lost sight of one another during the journey.  I stayed a little to the rear of the column.  I hadn’t any strength left for running.  And my son didn’t notice.  Thats all I know.  Where has he disappeared?  Where can I find him?  Perhaps you’e seen him?  Perhaps you’ve seen him somewhere?  ‘No Rabbi Eliahou, I haven’t seen him.’  He left then as he had come: like a wind-swept shadow.  He had already passed through the door when I suddenly remembered seeing his son running by my side.  I had forgotten that, and I didn’t tell Rabbi Eliahou!  Then I remembered something else: his son had seen him loosing ground, limping, staggering back to the rear of the column.  He had seen him. And he had continued to run on in front, letting the distance between them grow greater.  A terrible thought loomed up in my mind: he had wanted to get rid of his father!  He had felt that his father was growing weak, he had believed that the end was near and sought this separation in order to get rid of the burden, to free himself from the encumbrance which could lessen his own chances of survival”  Night: pages 86 and 87.

Mr. Wiesel believed that he must keep the memory alive of the Holocaust…but struggled with the futility of explaining an event that, “defied reason and imagination.”

Upon Mr. Wiesel’s first post war visit to Germany he was moved by the German students that he met and their distressing search to understand Germany’s past.  He urged reconciliation.

I would liken hearing Elie Wiesel speak and later meeting him as he signed our copy of Night…to meeting an Old Testament Prophet.  A man who had witnessed more cruelty, fear, pain, and death…genocide…than most of us will ever experience…and yet sought to bring people together.

A lesson for our time.

According to Merriam Webster Dictionary the definition of Nativism is: ” A policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants.  The revival or perpetuation of an indigenous culture especially in opposition to acculturation.”

Since the Brexit vote to leave the European Union by the United Kingdom there has been a marked increase in hate speech, xenophobia, and bigoted racist actions and remarks.  These have often been perpetuated upon British citizens who simply may have a different ethnic origin than Anglo-Saxon.  One of our fellow bloggers had such an awful thing happen to her, a British citizen, by an ignorant bigoted person just this week.

In the United States, since the Presidential Primaries began, an affinity for a political  point of view boldly expressed by Mr. Donald Trump has caused a resurgence of open racist incidents where bigoted myopic individuals have become emboldened by Mr. Trump’s fascist remarks.

At our own University an African American woman was harassed by fellow white student who identified as supporters of Donald Trump during two open forums at her dormitory.  Among epithets used during the meetings were the Trump supporters admonishment to the African American, “To go back to Africa!”

If our Nativist political leaders want to be true to their isolationist passion…then in America the Native Americans should have cast the rest of us out…long ago!

Great Britain became a world power by colonizing nations and their citizenry around the planet.

Immigration is the cornerstone of both the founding of but also the building of and success of the United States.  Virtually all of us came from somewhere else.  To castigate and threaten other human beings, many of whom are as much a citizen…or more, than the bigoted hateful person hurling the hurtful epitaphs… is the keynote of a coward.

When our hallowed English/American ancestors…our Founding Fathers… decided it was just and godly to put their fellow humans into servitude and take them from their indigenous home…and make them bond men and women…was that Nativism?

Please read this timely and thought provoking blog from my friend Ritu.

I recall a song that I was taught as a child, “Jesus loves me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so.  Little ones to him belong.  They are weak, but he is strong.”

Our Pastor,  Janice West,  delivered a moving message today on the book of Psalm chapter 13.  “For the director of music.  A psalm of David.  How long,  LORD?  Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?”  Psalm 13:1  NIV

During my over forty-six year walk of faith I have discovered that there are segments of christianity that focus on sin and God’s judgment of it…

And there are segments that focus on God’s unparalleled amazing grace.

When you are a member of a church that is based on judgment…usually you are subject to human, fallible, hypocritical judgment.  This type of faith is a no win proposition.  No matter how much you attempt to please a leader or group of elders you ultimately will fail and become disheartened in your quest for God.

True faith in Christ and his teachings rely on him for his beautiful undeserved grace and a determination to follow his directions when he, as Psalm 13 illustrates,  does not appear to be anywhere around you or even listening to your pleas.

Faith is a life long journey…and not a euphoric high…or a deep in the valley low.

“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray of those who persecute you,…”  Matt. 5:44 NIV

I have noticed through the years that when a person is telling you what a great christian they are…beware.  In this political season it has become expedient for candidates to expound on their deep christian faith and Bible knowledge.

If a leader says let’s build walls,  ban religions that are different from ours, and brand people according to their ethnicity…where is the stopping point?

Perhaps some of the reason for the recent vote by the United Kingdom to exit the European Union was regarding immigration and the desire to close borders?  Some of the rationale is hard to argue with…if you ascribe to the easy blessed life of the select christian faith and all others be dammed…because it is just to hard.

MP Jo Cox did not think that it was to hard…she was a strong advocate for helping the Syrian people in every way possible.

“You know the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.  All these I have kept since I was a boy, he said.  When Jesus heard this, he said to him,  You still lack one thing.  Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven.  Then come, follow me.  When he heard this, he became very sad, for he was very wealthy.”  Luke 18: 20-23  NIV

Our burden and blessing is to live the christian life that the Bible outlines…with all of its’ struggle…hardship…and joy.

Note: The paintings shown are my photographs from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

I usually walk around Campus Lake…as you know.  Today I changed it up a bit and decided to walk the beautiful Campus of Southern Illinois University.  Founded in 1869 as a Teachers College it grew into a preeminent Research University.  Popular alumni of SIU are; Jenny McCarthy, Jim Belushi, John Belushi, Dick Gregory, and Melissa McCarthy, among many others.

Delyte Morris came to SIU in 1948 as its’ President and he became the longest serving leader of the University with twenty-two years of service.  Dr. Morris built the small regional teachers college into the major Research University that it is today.

Having been associated with SIU for over thirty-two years I not only have a great love for our University but also some knowledge of leadership mis-steps that it has taken.

After the over nine year tenure of President John Guyon, Donald Beggs was elevated from the Dean of the College of Education to a two year appointment as President of SIU.  Dr. Beggs was a beloved personality on the Campus and a natural leader.  Under his benevolent oversight the Campus began to flourish.  The SIU Community “took heart” and began to believe that our schools’ one time greatness could be achieved again.  He and his lovely wife Shirley were admired and respected.

When the search for a new chancellor began, as the title of chancellor and president of the University had been reversed by then Campus system leader Ted Sanders, there were assurances made to me…as I was the civil service representative on the search committee…that if there was a “groundswell of support” Dr. Beggs would be appointed as the permanent Chancellor.  Sadly the groundswell happened and the promise was not kept.

The Search Committee had the extreme good fortune to find an applicant with a dynamic personality who engaged everyone on Campus from the janitor and grounds worker to the professor and dean with her genuine concern and heartfelt belief that all of us were important and vital to the success of SIU!  I said at a meeting of hundreds of  members of the campus community that Chancellor Argersinger had caused us to dream again!

Chancellor Jo Ann Agersinger was terminated in under a year on sketchy trumped up charges that made no sense to anyone…and our Community felt like an orphan.

Since then Chancellors have been terminated on a regular basis…with many being less effective than their predecessor.

Now the Governor of Illinois has thwarted the budget of the state…and on July 1st  Illinois will enter the second year without a budget.  SIU is being starved to death…by our elected leaders…in the name of political expediency!

From the days of Chancellor Argersinger when enrollment was twenty-two thousand students…to now where it will be under seventeen thousand in the fall.

Southern Illinois University…the miracle in Little Egypt…and often termed the second jewel in the crown of the state of Illinois…with the University of Illinois being the first.

SIU…the hope of the middle class…a beacon to the world…an educational giant…first mismanaged…now awaiting the whims of a recalcitrant government with their own hidden agenda.