A Chord Accord

(From my sketchbook)

Sometime during the 1958 school year in western South Dakota, I found myself sitting up in front of a classroom of young students.  I was four years old and terribly shy, so this was torture.  To make matters worse, I was dressed in the garb of women from Mali, West Africa. If I dared move, I felt like my costume might come unraveled.  

My mother was born in Mali, West Africa.  So the question would arise during those elementary school playground conversations about our parents as to why I wasn't black?  As a very young child I couldn't explain why, except that was just the way it was.

Western South Dakota was a long way from Africa, so my mom had been asked to give a presentation on Africa to a local classroom of youngsters.  I was brought along as a handy costume model.  

Skip ahead to the mid-1960's.  I was an upper elementary student in the oil fields of Wyoming.  Other parts of America were embroiled in the Civil Rights issues.  Where I lived, there were no African Americans.  I was vaguely aware of the struggles involved, but knew that injustice had been dealt to many.  In my child's heart I wanted to have a black friend and used to ask God for that in my prayers.

Later on in college, I had the opportunity to work in an outreach to youth in the projects of North Omaha and began to see firsthand the realities of racial issues.  Then living as an adult for a while in the Deep South, I was again faced with inequalities.  I had the opportunity to worship with my Black friends in their churches and experience a little from their perspective.  

My experience with racial issues is fairly limited, although as a very young child, I lived in the Badlands of South Dakota and saw regularly the devastated lives that Native Americans lived on the reservation.  I remember how that seemed to be just a part of life, a normalcy. Now with a better understanding of history, my perspective regarding racial issues has grown.  

Right now America is reeling from the latest major tragedy in Dallas, TX last week.  I'm not going to delve into all the political and social commentary in the aftermath.  What I do want to highlight is the fact that we are all human beings, each of great value and potential.  We are all created in God's image.  We live on this earth together.  And I chose the title to this blog post deliberately to drive home a point in this regard.  A musical chord is made up of 3 or more notes played simultaneously and in harmony.  Notice the togetherness and the harmony.  That's what makes enjoyable music!  

As the various races of humans, we all have a note to play in the chord of life.  And altogether we can make beautiful harmony.   In a chord, the bottom note is the root note on which the rest of the chord is built.  There is one person, a Jew, who is the root note to the racial chord in this world.  Without Him, there is discord.  With Him, concord is possible. That person is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man.  He became one of us in order that we could become like Him.  This is possible because of His sacrificial death on a cross, bearing the wrath of God for our sins.  This was so that we could have an eternal relationship with God and experience newness in all our thinking, speaking, and actions.  His life in us provides us the power to be God-like to each other.  If we all were to live in this way, racial struggles would be a non-issue.  Beautiful harmony would be heard around the world. 

I was privileged to see The Lion King performed on Broadway a couple of years ago.   Afterwards, the group I was with was treated to an informal meeting with one of the actors, Arbender Robinson.  He was so dynamic and engaging.  Arbender shared with us his life story and how he landed on Broadway.  He was very inspiring.  While he spoke I was busy sketching him, which he graciously autographed after his talk.  Here's a sample of Arbender's tremendous abilities:  

Live bravely and beautifully!