The Remedy Is a Dose of Apathy

Good is the enemy of great. Acceptable, the enemy of excellent.

While on the bus to work yesterday, I finished reading Follow Me to Freedom, a book co-authored by (or more accurately, a conversation between) one of my favorites Shane Claiborne of the Simple Way and John Perkins of the Christian Community Development Association. I’ve read quite a bit by Shane before, but I was unfamiliar with John Perkins or his immense passion and dedication to racial reconciliation. Reading Perkins’ stories made me much more educated, informed, and aware of race issues, especially those John encountered in Mississippi. I humbly and gratefully reflected that for the majority of my life in the Northeast-ish U.S., racism was not something I ran into very often. 

Fast-forward to this morning’s bus commute. No sooner did we pull out from the bus stop, than a black man began loudly “preaching the truth” that he was “born and bred American, and it’s time to stop letting in so many [hispanics] or else we’ll end up like [Latin American Country] or [another Latin American Country].” He carried on until the my favorite bus driver sternly instructed him to quiet down. I felt a twang of guilt as I realized how, just a day ago, I wrongly dismissed racism as an issue from another time or place. Sure, it’s lightyears better today in Northern Virginia than it was half a century ago in the deep south. But “better” isn’t “perfect”, or even “great” or “ideal”. 

How many ways do I settle for “acceptable” when I should be striving for “excellent”? My challenge to myself today. Join me.