It’s an uncertain time. It feels weirdly stable and unstable at the same time.

Today is not only Bold Woman’s Sunday. It’s also the last day of Black History Month.

Last Wednesday, the church celebrated Epiphany. It’s the day when God turns on the lights and reveals the truth.

So much has happened since March. It seems like the world stopped turning and speeded up all at once.

Naomi is the mother of a beautiful daughter. The girl suffers daily, and nobody knows what it is. Why she can’t just be like all the other kids?

When the choir first introduced this song, apparently there was quite some opposition to it. Because this song is not just a beautiful song. It’s a statement to honor Black lives.

Once a week we would stand along MLK street, holding our signs and taking a short “march” from one traffic light to the other and back.

I didn’t know anything about the history of this movement, the ignorant European I was. The black sign looked like trouble to me. What about me? Or at least what about other marginalized people?

Fast forward to June 2020. There is a BlackLivesMatter sign in our front yard. And one in our kitchen window.

It’s awful. It feels like it will never end. It changes how you behave completely. It defines who you interact with and who you are afraid of. It is always on your mind. It defines your reality.

Taking a stand by kneeling is one of the highly symbolic images we are seeing these days. It’s a simple, yet strong gesture. A humble acknowledgment that there is still lots to learn, lots to talk about, lots to reconcile, lots to heal, lots to change in this country.

“When we go back to normal” has become a figure of speech during these last 3 months of our COVID-19 reality. Normal to me meant “good, regular, safe, free” – you name it.

How many pictures of a Jesus with dark skin have you ever seen in your life? And I am not talking about old icons that turn dark by age. I am talking about portraits of Jesus as the man of color he was.