Worthington Cov./ Wounds in the Way

Worthington Covenant was one of the best churches and offered some of the best conversation for me yet! But I owe the group there an apology - especially the two gentlemen I had such a great conversation w/. I sat down at this table and for the millionth time remembered something. I was the lone black man (I say "man" even though I felt like a kid) biking through rural America and I was getting ready to have another conversation about justice w/a room full of white people. I sat down to eat at one of the tables and three of the biggest white men i'd ever seen sat with me. I have to confess that I entered into that conversation with a loaded gun. Naturally I brought a lot of my past attempts at conversations like this to this table - which was really a bit unfair to these guys i'll admit. I don't know what I thought was going to happen, but I was prepared for tactless, bigoted subtleties and not-so subtleties.

But something else happened. These men were honest, compassionate and exemplary people. They managed to slowly disarm my tense mind and we had a great conversation. I don't have the answer for what God did there, but I was very blessed in the end to have been there with them. I kind of hated having to go after that because I felt like I had just kicked back and relaxed with a couple of Uncles or something.

I, like most everybody else, tend to bring my past experiences to the present ones - both the good ones and the bad ones. I am reminded of a song that talks about right relationships made impossible by our attempts to navigate new experiences with old mindsets and wounds.

Wounds In The Way (Rachelle Ferrell)

She gives her body freely cause she can’t give herself completely 
There are wounds in the way 
She cannot bear to be naked to the world so instead she just fakes it with a man 
There are wounds in the way 

If they would have treated a little girl and a little boy when basically still just a baby 
With some respect and human dignity 
Maybe there wouldn’t be so many failed relationships 
We might even had a ghost of a chance of just loving each other - body, mind, and soul 

He gives his money freely cause he can’t give himself completely 
There are wounds in the way. 
He cannot bear to be honest with himself; so what the hell, he’ll lie to a woman 
There are wounds in the way 

If they would have treated a little boy and a little girl when basically still just a baby 
With some respect and human dignity 
Maybe there wouldn’t be so many failed relationships 
We might even had a ghost of a chance of just loving each other - body, mind, and soul 

As time passes by they begin to multiply 
There are wounds in the way 
Adding up secretly like the rings of an old oak tree 
There are wounds in the way 

Some old and some new, all stifling, debilitating and cruel 
There are wounds in the way 
And some are passed down from elder to youth - they don’t even belong to you 
There are wounds in the way 

As time passes through, they begin to accrue a strange sort of value 
Some that you think are worth holding onto 
Cause you don’t want to change who you are – no you don’t 

He loves her strong and true, but when he get’s angry it gets misconstrued into violence There are wounds . . . 
And she loves him equally, but when she feels misunderstood instead of sharing openly and honestly she is wounded. 

There are wounds in the way