Angry

This is a picture of something I wish I had never seen. I made a new friend this weekend. He is an awesome kid- eleven years old, respectful and good-hearted. I don't think it would be wise for me to give his name so I'll just call him D. This picture was taken in his neighborhood. Though it is hard to tell from this picture I took with my phone, the white banner is advertising a certain type of rally which will soon be held on that spot. Again, I don't want to say what type of rally because you never know what kind of hits you might get from searches for key phrases. Let's just say it will be a meeting of a certain organization of which Senator Robert Byrd was once a high-ranking member. Again, though it is hard to tell from the picture, the three large items laying on the ground behind and to the right of the sign are huge crosses made from telephone poles. In a few weeks they will be erected and burned on this property alongside existing signs quoting bastardized applications of scripture which they think support the hatred they spew. What makes me so angry (other than the obvious) is that my new friend, D, lives close enough to this spot that I am afraid he may literally be able to feel the heat from these burning crosses in his own yard. This is a big deal in any case but a bigger deal when you are the son of a black man. D seems to blow off issues of race. He told us yesterday of something that happened last week at school where a kid told him he "hated (his) black daddy." When asked how that made him feel, he just shrugged and said, "Aww, I just ignore 'em. I get a lot of practice ignoring my little brother and sister." Anyway, I just say all this to ask that anyone who stumbles across this please lift up D in prayer. I know everyone has to deal with some sort of hate at one time or another- people hate others because of their ethnicity, their nationality, their religion- but I still wish D weren't having to deal with it. So pray for him. Pray for those who are hateful. And pray that God will somehow be glorified in this situation no matter how badly distorted His image will be as people somehow try to use His word as a basis for that of which He is the opposite.