You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.  Galatians 3: 26–27

During this time of repentance and reflection, I am moved to recommend reading Caste, The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.  Powerful, disturbing, provocative and profoundly moving, I suggest that this book will challenge your world view and shake you to your core.  Your perspective of who you are, of what this great country of ours is built on, and of how far we must go to redeem ourselves in God’s eyes will be laid bare. 

The well-researched parallels she draws among the caste systems of India, the United States and Nazi Germany are chilling at the very least.  Ms. Wilkerson convincingly posits that the systemic racism in this country derives from our caste system, “a fixed ranking of human value,” which has been “the operating system for economic, political and social interaction in the U.S. from the time of its gestation.”  She reminds us that “caste makes distinctions where God has made none.”

The path forward is hard, but perhaps begins with what we already know:  Love God above all, and love your neighbor as yourself.  So simple...but...is it?

—Susan Harnstrom

“Lord, open my eyes that I may see …; open my ears that I may hear…; open my mouth and let me bear gladly the warm truth ev’rywhere. Open my heart and let me prepare love with thy children thus to share.” Amen.
(From the hymn “Open my Eyes that I may See”
by Clara Scott, 1895)