Life Repurposed

Life Repurposed


Become a Voice for Change

June 11, 2020

In this episode:

No one really needs to hear my words about racial injustice right now, but I do think someone needs my voice. There is a difference between throwing words out there and being a voice. We can be a voice with few words. Being a voice means I have not passed on by or pretended I did not see.

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Inspired Life
I have wrestled for two weeks about what to say. First, my own life was pretty overwhelming for reasons too many to tell. And then so much was happening in the world.
I don’t think anyone really needs to hear my word or a long pontification on anything. But I do think they need my voice. There is a difference between throwing words out there and being a voice. I can be a voice with few words.
I posted this on social media the other day:
I had planned to release an image of my new book cover this week. I decided to wait a few days because the timing wasn’t quite right in light of all that is happening around us. I couldn’t just move forward and pretend as if I saw nothing. I will share the book image in a day or two, but for today, this is what’s on my heart. No one needs my words, empty as they are. I don’t need to give a long explanation of how I’ve arrived at my point of view. It doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that other human beings have cried out for help, and whether or not I understand all of the implications behind their cries, I hear the pain. I hear the plea for someone to listen, to notice, to validate, to at least pause long enough to pay attention and not pass on by pretending not to see or hear.
I’m listening, learning, and taking off my perspective lenses to borrow the lenses of others who have had a different experience from my own. So much about my own life journey hasn’t been easy or simple. Yet, I know nothing of what it is like to heap racial inequality or injustice in the path along with the other challenges. Nothing.
We grew up saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school. But now I realize that the words are empty if I cannot speak where liberty and justice have been oppressed. I am inept, inadequate, and ignorant, but that can change. I’ll start with being inquisitive and intent, informed and invested in what it takes to make a difference.
Let’s frame this in the context of repurposing, with before and after.

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Life, Repurposed
The reason that silence is considered an endorsement of inequality is that it means we have either had one of two things happen:

We have heard the message and we don’t agree that there is a problem.
We have heard the message and we think there is a problem, but we don’t care.

Let me propose a third option:

We have heard the message,