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Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation QUOTES

Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation QUOTES

1 " To lament means to express sorrow or regret. Lamenting something horrific that has taken place allows a deep connection to form between the person lamenting and the harm that was done, and that emotional connection is the first step in creating a pathway for healing and hope. We have to sit in the sorrow, avoid trying to fix it right away, avoid our attempts to make it all okay. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

2 " In the love of the family of God, we must become color brave, color caring, color honoring, and not color blind. We have to recognize the image of God in one another. We have to love despite, and even because of, our differences. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

3 " Jesus can make beauty from ashes, but the family of God must first see and acknowledge the ashes. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

4 " When we lack historical understanding, we lose part of our identity. We don’t know where we came from and don’t know what there is to celebrate or lament. Likewise, without knowing our history, it can be difficult to know what needs repairing, what needs reconciling. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

5 " Jesus’s final prayer was oriented around a vision for unity, and he commissioned his church to be the healing agent that brings the ministry of reconciliation into broken and fractured places in society. And yet an honest assessment raises more questions than answers. Is the church at large, and are we as individuals, currently making any contribution to healing the divisions? Or are we making things worse? Have we come to grips with our role in creating this divide, or are we stuck in a state of denial? "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

6 " If repentance requires turning and walking away from the sins of our past, doesn’t it require walking toward something more reparative? So reparations and repentance are inextricably intertwined, and those who’ve inherited the power and benefits of past wrongs should work to make it right for those who’ve inherited the burdens and oppression of the past. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

7 " Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

8 " What is the purpose of lament? It allows us to connect with and grieve the reality of our sin and suffering. It draws us to repentant connection with God in that suffering. Lament also serves as an effort to change God’s mind, to ask him to turn things around in our favor. Lament seeks God as comforter, healer, restorer, and redeemer. Somehow the act of lament reconnects us with God and leads us to hope and redemption. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

9 " In my work as a bridge builder, I’ve seen how, time and time again conversations about reconciliation stall when the topic of righting the wrongs comes up. Terms such as reparations, affirmative action, white privilege, and Black Lives Matter are non-starters for so many folks, in part because they disrupt the listener. They remind him or her that making things right costs something, often power, position, or money. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

10 " If you’re White, if you come from the majority culture, you’ll need to bend low in a posture of humility. You may need to talk less and listen more, opening your heart to the voices of your non-White brothers and sisters. You’ll need to open your mind and study the hard truths of history without trying to explain them away. You’ll need to examine your own life and the lives of your ancestors so you can see whether you’ve participated in, perpetuated, or benefited from systems of racism. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

11 " Bridge builders don’t deny hurt. They experience it. Sit in it. Feel it. But they don’t stay in that pain. They don’t allow those who’ve wounded them to control them or constantly drive them back to anger and resentment. Instead, they allow that pain to continually push them into forgiveness. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

12 " We can’t bypass the weight of our guilt and shame if we intend to arrive at true reconciliation and justice. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

13 " To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

14 " Love,” I said, “brings freedom, and slaves didn’t have freedom or choice. Family doesn’t leave family in bondage. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

15 " Lord, we confess as a church that we have modified the meaning of the gospel to justify our lack of effort to pursue justice for the oppressed. We have altered the nature of the gospel message in order to remain focused on our personal piety at the expense of caring for the needs of others. We confess we have created a gospel that is manageable so as to avoid entering into the pain, struggle, and discomfort of bearing one another’s burdens—and therefore we have failed to fulfill the law of Christ. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

16 " It felt as if people had saved all their “ask a Black person” questions for me, and they unloaded until it almost drove me insane. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

17 " hope. We have to sit in the sorrow, avoid trying to fix it right away, avoid our attempts to make it all okay. Only then is the pain useful. Only then can it lead us into healing and wisdom. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

18 " See? Only when we’ve made space for our emotions, when we’ve honestly evaluated them, can we move into true Christlike forgiveness. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

19 " Repairing what’s broken is a distinctly biblical concept, which is why as people of faith we should be leading the way into redemption, restoration, and reconciliation. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

20 " Race, as we know it, is a political and social construct created by man for the purpose of asserting power and maintaining a hierarchy. "

― LaTasha Morrison , Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation