As some of you know, I work as a maintenance man on a native reserve, and I love it! I love it not only because the job and lifestyle around here really fits my personality, but also because I feel like when I get home at the end of the day (and usually on weekends too) that we are here doing good work...God's work. I can bring a strong socially responsible message (through my teaching and training of trades related work), and in my spare time I can build relationships and share about the Great Relationship.
Anyways, last night my resolve got tested. Right now God knows that there is one thing that would chase me out of here quite quickly, and that's if I didn't think we were safe. So far, we haven't had any trouble. In fact, we've been overwhelmingly accepted by a number of families here, especially in regards to the school. But then last night happened.
I was alone with the kids at about midnight. I was lying in bed contemplating this safety issue as I dwelt on how my I.A. shop had been broken into the night before. I also thought about how that morning in church, Harvey Schultz had challenged us to think about the question "What is God going to do" rather than "Why did this happen to me" in terms of bad things happening in our lives. Then all 5 dogs started barking violently (this is unusual. we have good dogs.). I go outside and I can clearly hear this obviously drunk voice call out in the darkness "hear boy, hear boy, come hear boy (he is lucky none of the dogs came)". Anyways, I go out to meet this person, and this person begs me to let him cross my yard as a short cut to get back to the reserve. Barely being able to hold our lead dog back, I refused and asked him to go around the yard.
Now he was clearly scared of the dogs but also drunk. He refused to leave and got very angry yelling out things like "You F'in white asshole. I hate you you F'in coward" etc. etc. At this point, I called the cops, and they arrived in about 10min (which is very fast around here). As they were driving up my 1/4mile driveway, they stopped about 30 ft from our entrance. Here was lying the drunk man, passed out, in the middle of the driveway. Realistically, he could've been run over accidentally. However, the cops picked him up and then came over to make sure everything was okay.
As I snuck a peek into the cop car, I realized that this person was actually a pretty good friend of mine! I see him at work most days, and we're pretty tight. WOW! I immediately went to go talk to him and told him that he should've identified himself. He apologized, and things seemed to be smoothed over, at which point he yelled out "I love you man!"
So yeah - it was an interesting night. A night to wrestle with God. A night where I realized, even though I didn't say any racist things to this "stranger", it was very easy to fall into a racist attitude. An Us vs Them attitude. It didn't matter who it was, I wanted the cops to lock that "F'n native" up (and I'm sorry to admit it, but that's the truth). But again, if I had known who it was, it would've been a TOTALLY different story.
What is God teaching me through this? What's he going to do through this? What do I say to this Facebook friend of mine when I see him next? How do I relate to his family? Why was it so easy to fall into this default racism, for BOTH of us?
I'm wrestling with God on this one.
Blessings
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