YES, WE OVERCAME [T, 10-6-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

Here is how I’m looking at all those times we sang “We shall overcome…” We did.

 We got Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson as well as Barack Obama and John Lewis. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We got Ann Coulter as well as Leslie Stahl. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We got Kim Reynolds as well as Ann Richards. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We got Joni Ernst as well as Tammy Duckworth. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We got Amy Coney Barrett as well as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We marched to be sure they were included, the ones who had been excluded for so long, included in the power so that they were free to exclude others. Before we marched, ethnics and women had no chance to be hateful, to exclude others. We marched so they would have that freedom, that power, to be like everybody else.

Humans are humans. Greed and selfishness and exclusion are not qualities that go with color or race or religion or gender. Those qualities are in all of us. There is no amount of marching, no number of times singing “We shall overcome” that will overcome human nature.

You would think that they would know we didn’t push so hard on those gates that kept them out so that they could close them again. You would think that since they were once not allowed in, they now would be sure the doors stay open to let others in.  But that’s not the way human nature, the way original sin, works.

We were successful with “We shall overcome.” Now we need to be successful at “Have thine own way, Lord.”

John Robert McFarland