Truth & Reconciliation Film Festival

Over the course of a few months sometime last year, 

I had a series of dreams.

The details varied, but there was a common theme:

Division of Black vs. White

and

Violence.

In their collective, they spoke to me as a warning,

whispering: Racial conversation is coming. Be ready.

I had, of course, no idea what that meant.

Then, Ferguson happened,

and students were dying-in on campus

just around the corner from my office.

My facebook feed exploded with hurtings of some dear ones,

and I messaged them to say: My heart is with you.

And they wrote me back, and we exchanged deep words,

and they taught me much as I wept Holy Spirit tears.

And I understood I had been invited 

to take part in some doing-something; I just didn't know how.

But then, a turning point conversation, where I realized

the place where I work is a powerful setting in which to put on the table

historical and pervasive realities of race in our country.

The perfect setting in which to do something.

~~~~

We kicked it off with a film festival,

for which my parents came to town.

There were films of course,

 a whole list of intense ones.

 But there were also smart introductions to set the context,

 and panel discussions to fill that context out.

 There were community members who wanted to talk,

who asked questions like "what do we do?" 

and gave answers like "we need to look inside ourselves" 

and "we need to acknowledge the painful truth."

 There was an out-of-town guest,

 the Co-Producer/Writer/Director of this documentary,

telling us the story of the 1968 sanitation worker's strike in Memphis,

and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

When all was said and done, we called it a success.

 We realized people need the space to talk,

and we look forward to more to come.