I was raised in a white, middle class, suburban neighborhood in the 1960s. I was sheltered from the turbulent world by the green hills of Simi Valley and by my loving, Christian parents. Childhood was bliss and I assumed it was for everybody. Like many people, I viewed the world through the spectacles of my experience and the rose colored glasses of the past.
Recently, I listened as a pastor prayed for revival in America as in bygone days. What cities and towns was he thinking about? Of what days could he be speaking? Certainly not the segregated South in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s! Blacks who served our country during World War II and the Korean conflict returned home and were denied access to hotels, restaurants, businesses, and they were denied even the right to vote simply because of the color of their skin. These were not great days for everybody.
My devotional reading today included the Bible and a discarded library book this old book hound found at a Friends of the Library sale long ago. The discarded book is “Famous American Negro Poets” by Charlemae Rollins. Published in 1965, this was its third printing.
I was drawn to a couple of poems by Langston Hughes. One poem reminded me of the hurt Martin Luther King Jr. felt when he had to explain to his little girl why she couldn’t go to “Funtown.” Hughes’ poem, “Merry-Go-Round; Colored Child at Carnival” speaks volumes!
Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can’t sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There’s a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we’re put in the back —
But there ain’t no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where’s the horse
For a kid that’s black?
For that little child, America is better today. She’s one who doesn’t want to return to a mythological utopia of the past.
The Scripture for the day jumped off the page, “Remember Lot’s Wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it and whoever loses his life will preserve it,” (Luke 17:32-33).
Lot’s wife looked back. She wanted to keep and hold onto the past. She lost everything. She lost her life.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Langston Hughes in his moving poem, “Mother to Son,” encourages the next generation to press on.
Well, Son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor —
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So, Boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now —
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Some things are better about America now than ever. Some things are not. What America needs isn’t a revival of bygone days.
The heart of America’s problems is a problem of the heart. For those of us who are Christians, let us pray for America. Let us pray for our leaders. Let us pray for our own spiritual revival and a deepening relationship with Jesus Christ.
To borrow from an old spiritual, let’s “move on up a little higher!”
Ken Haskins is pastor of First Christian Church in Carson City.
