PLANTATION II

Freeing Others

The Plantation is the place we are relegated to if we allow our feelings to keep us from God’s best.  Our wounds and fear of injury imprison us and make us believe there is no hope.  I have been asked by women how to help their friends and daughters off the plantation.

 

The best way to help someone off the plantation is to lead her off.  Think of any other dangerous situation: would it be better for you to stay behind to comfort her or lead her out? We would never have heard of Sojourner Truth if her sympathy for others had led her to stay behind to help. Once you truly know the way out you will be able to help others find their way.  If your friend is in distress your real job is not protecting her from life, but preparing her for it.   

 

I sent my daughter to a small private school.  One day she told me she thought her teacher was prejudiced.  I froze, guilty and terrified, but I managed to say nothing.  LaterI prayed and cried out to God.  I knew I could not help her if I were disabled.  I could not allow her to think the feelings this generated set limits on her life.  The next time she mentioned it I was ready.  I said, “Oh, Holly.  No one gets through school without meeting prejudice.  People will prejudge if you are too smart, too dumb; too fat, too thin; too tall, too short, too pretty, not pretty; whatever.  It is part of your education. You just have to figure out what to do about it.”  She said “I am the best in that class.  I am going to keep on being the best in that class.”  We spent lots of time together discovering ways to deal with the feelings brought on by injustice.  She learned how to respond and when to let God do it for her. She had to know she could survive.

 

To help a loved one, get yourself off the plantation.  Teach her to let her feelings inform her, not direct her.  It is only a feeling – we won’t die if we refuse to express it or act on it. 

 

HIDING SIN IN CIRCUMSTANCES (from February 6, 2006)

The Pleasures and Perils of Teaching

 

“It’s a very ancient saying, but a true and honest thought, that if you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught.” (The King and I)

 

 “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”  (James 3:1 NIV)

 

When I prepare to teach I know that a test is coming on my own life.  God will not allow me to teach stale material, lacking fresh humility.  As I listened to my class last night, I became aware of my own sins in the area of rudeness and disrespect to my husband.  He has recently begun to work from home and I have found his intrusion into my life unsettling.  He has the habit of surrounding himself with sound.  As he moves from room to room the noise goes with him, one TV after another, a discordant stereophonic symphony.  It is not the sounds of mindless music, or even recycled sitcoms, that surround him.  It is endless "the-sky-is-falling" political commentary spoken with urgency out of dark-suited talking heads, experts of every ilk and inclination, beginning every sentence with “I think”. 

 

I chose to allow this atmosphere of surround-sound soup to be my excuse for being terse, rude, and unkind to my husband, assuming that he would somehow know how disturbing his habit was to me. Then, I taught my Wives class.  As I prayed my way home last night, I knew that God was not pleased.  I repented and waited for the “God” moment.  Feeling the release, that sense of peace that God had heard my cries, I waited until this morning and asked my husband if we could talk. God had prepared the way, and my husband listened patiently as I asked his forgiveness and explained my situation. (He even put off a business call so that I could finish!)  He promised to more carefully observe my “Monday’s Off” rule (our weekends are grueling).  He also agreed that I could work in my office space in the bedroom and he would use his laptop in the back room recently vacated by my mother-in-law.  We can close two doors between us. 

 

Not all issues are that easy to resolve, but we will all answer for our behavior, now, and at the time of judgment.  Circumstances are not an excuse.  How easy it is to hide our sins behind them.  It is like a child covering his eyes with his hands and believing no one can see him.