Hello from Selma (pt.2)

It has been a while since I have written or updated.
Sorry.
A lot has kept me from writing. A lot has happened in the office and out of the office too.

Life in Central Alabama is interesting. This is a new life for me. A new experience. A new place to call home. Our kids are adjusting and coping with a new normal that includes limited connection with possible new friends because of this pandemic. Some days it is rather pleasant to have our kids engaged and around us. Other days it can feel claustrophobic and prison like.

I have worked throughout the pandemic in my office at Christian Services for Children in Alabama, located in Selma Alabama. Our staff are considered essential and we serve foster kids and families in crisis. I find it interesting that when you work within such a constant flow of crisis, living through a pandemic is almost like every other day. (That does sound a bit callous, but our staff regularly require some respite of their own and some self-care through various situations of compassion fatigue)

The families we serve and the foster children who come to us all have stories. Some stories would truly make you weep and mourn because of the trauma that these children have been through. Some are dealing with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) along with the visible scars of abuse and/or the emotional scars that are evidenced in their current mental state which varies from barely discernible to hospitalization. It breaks my heart to hear these stories. To hear how some parents, who never should have been parents in the first place, seemingly throw their children away or are just seen as collateral damage from a life time of drug and alcohol abuse.

We had a foster child just the other day who was found hoarding food in their bedroom, because as a survivor that’s what you do to stay fed and alive. This foster child is in a safe foster home now, but traumatic history often encompasses reason and current reality and the primal survivalist takes over. Children like this will require intensive counseling and support which will last for years…sometimes even their entire lifetime. That prognosis truly break my heart.

On Racism and Healing…
Aside from living in Florida, if that counts, this is the first time that I have lived in “the South”. I watched in horror, like everyone else, as George Floyd was murdered on the streets of Minneapolis by police officers. I too decried the injustice and the nature of how wrong it was/is. I have stood in solidarity with my African America brothers and sisters, and I will continue to do so. I can only fathom the fear and anger a black man or black woman has when they are times targeted by police or pulled over on the side of the road for doing nothing except for having a darker skin color. I abhor the fact that such racism and inequality still exists in our world, and I acknowledge it. But none of us should just stop at acknowledgment…we must combat it at every turn. I must live and strive to be the change. I must strive to love and serve all people until such acts and prejudices are extinct. I truly pray that day will come in my lifetime. I have ruminated on what I might say about this vital topic in our country. And I have said it from the beginning that I don’t want to just say something, but I AM living something to help unite and bring peace, hope and equality to my African American friends and family. Living for just a short time in the South I can catch just a glimpse of how racism still runs deep down here. It is still living and breathing. I minister in a very poor community that has seen more than its fair share of extreme prejudice and pain. Selma is so much more than just a catalyst within the civil rights movement…it has survived, but it is still in need of healing because its wounds run deep and time has not been kind to this city.

I am wearing a button on my blue polo shirt to commemorate Juneteenth which is tomorrow. This is a day that celebrates the freedom of slavery. Isn’t it interesting that even after the famous Emancipation Proclamation slave owners in the South held onto their slaves for up to 2 1/2 years longer. In part because the news was not instantaneous back then like it is now, and another part because the present would be forever changed by the freeing of so many enslaved on plantations and beyond.

Isn’t it interesting how sometimes we need to relearn things over and over again in order for us to overcome the tragedies and injustices of our past?

I don’t know all of the right words to say in situations like we are seeing today, except that we can do much, much better than we have in the past. In order for true healing and reconciliation to take place in our country and in our communities we have to be willing to let go of our prejudices, our hatred, our need for vengeance, rage and above all our complacency. Reform ought to take place, but with it comes our responsibility to be better and to love better. We have to address the wrongness of racism including the racism that isn’t seen outwardly but perhaps lives in our hearts.

I want to live the change and speak the change, I MUST THINK the change and be the change in my community and in my home. I am praying for our country, our communities and for you.

I’ll write again soon.

Blessings on you all.
-Scott.