Paint and Hike

My heart is heavy for my home state. In some ways we are so lucky. While natural disasters ravage many other parts of our country and planet, our weather challenges have been the types of challenges that we know how to manage. My apologies to Minnesotans dealing with the aftermath of those challenges.

We seem to create our own challenges. We can’t seem to get a handle on racial justice. It is not a new problem. It is only new that the people affected are finally saying “Enough is enough! I am a Minnesotan, too!”

If you are a person who thinks that the protests are the problem, you need to hear this: If your family members were being killed, if you needed to be afraid for your children and yourself all day every day, would you still be a polite and quiet Minnesotan? While I know there are people who used to feel safe in their neighborhoods and now do not, the protests are the symptom, not the cause. Nothing else has worked. People of Color are still looking for justice and not finding it. We need to stop worrying about hurting people’s feelings and figure out a way to stop the killing. Others have written extensively on this topic, I am simply stating my views. I feel it is important not to sit on the fence. Racial justice matters. It is not ok to just throw up our hands and say this is just the way it is. It doesn’t have to be this way. We need to start seeing each other as fellow humans, not us and them. As a Christian, I try to live as Jesus taught. When he saw injustice, he spoke up about it.

It is mid-April and I woke up to new snow. Some might find this reminder of winter depressing but I am excited to get out and walk today before it melts.

When life seems overwhelming, I find that shifting my focus to nature helps. Noticing the way that all the parts of nature are perfectly interconnected is a great reminder of how we can move through our day just being who we are. We do not need to change who we are. We might need to change what we are doing.

I hope this finds you well and I appreciate you taking the time to read it.