meditation on "A Time for Burning"

“Gort: Klatu, Varada, Nikto.”

These are famous words from the movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” That movie title was the theme of last night’s gathering at Filmstreams’ showing of another movie that could have had that for a title. Instead, it was called, “A Time for Burning.”

1965 was a racially divided and charged time, and Rev. Bill Youngdahl, youngish, upwardly mobile superstar of Omaha’s all white Augustana Lutheran Church had a simple plan that became a flashpoint for the congregation and the Omaha community. The plan? Invite ten couples from one church to meet with ten African American couples from a racially mixed Lutheran church. Simple, direct, and as he said, “the smallest step I can think of .” The result: in two weeks time, the congregation was split and the pastor forced to resign. It was “too much, too soon,”

In the discussion at Filmstreams following, members of the packed house remarked:

From a young teen: “Fear is what’s happening. The people in the movie are comfortable where they are. They’re scared of change becoming different. They’re scared to cgo beyond the wall.”
From a mature African American: “there can be no reconciliation between races.
What we saw then is what we see today.”

From others:

“If we don’t understand each other, how can we change the system?”
“Like Youngdahl, ‘Sometimes it’s not about what I want to do or have happen—we have to listen and take it.’”
“The extremist wasn’t Ernie Chambers, the extremists were the elder statesmen of the church. Ernie simply held up a mirror we the people saw themselves. I see myself.”
“If this racism is going to change, we must have internal changes first.”
“We need to be expressive, passionate and make our voices heard.”
We need a spirit of reconciliation and vulnerability, and not to let those who are not reconciliation minded hold sway.?
“Why should I continue dialogue when nothing has changed in 40 years (not to mention the 350 years before that.)

the facts of Omaha (from Ben Gray of KETV7, photojournalist/producer):

• one forth to one third of black males will end up in jail before they are twenty one.

• Blacks in Omaha are the third poorest in the country.

• Children in Omaha are the poorest children in the country.

• Many believe: “The race war is coming. And white militants are training for it around Omaha.”

One thing was noticeable: In the documentary, teenagers got the racism thing and wanted to meet together. Old white people with power thought it was all too soon and coming too fast. The tensions between races seem to have continued, if not expanded to include Latinos, immigrants of any kind and more. We have segregated ourselves. The result is tensions and gun battles on the streets.

Can we take action? Yes

Will we?

Well, WWJD? WWYouD?

John 4 7

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.” The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”