Choose Your Battles

I don’t recall what year it was. I don’t recall which daughter it was. And I don’t even recall the specific circumstances. None of that really matters anyway. Suffice it to say, I was using my “dad voice” and emphasizing something with one of the girls that she [in all her teenage glory] did not particularly appreciate. All the moms and dads out there can relate, right? Susan and I engaged in a little side convo about my dad-discipline to which she remarked, “You need to choose your battles.” Looking back, she would likely have chosen a different tone for said remark and I would like to take a trip back in time and choose a different tenor for my response, which was, “I am choosing my battles and I pick this one.”

Calmer heads eventually prevailed before we moved on to whatever the next disturbance became. Although I seriously can’t remember any of the specific details that prompted it, that moment of clarity never left me.

When someone says, “choose your battles,” they really mean that you should pick a different one.

Essentially, what Susan meant is that I needed to reconsider. I needed to back down. I needed to take a breath and live to die another day on another hill. I…disagreed. 

Like nearly every other day in our country, we’re drawing one battle line after another. Many who are passionate about one issue or another issue or many issues are taking up arms. They are choosing battles, digging into those who disagree with them and begging to know why so many silent others aren’t joining them. To the emboldened and the wounded alike, silence begets discouragement and communicates complicity. 

Some people try to disarm folks with quips like…

“You can’t die on every hill.”

“You should choose more important battles.”

“We need to keep the main thing…the main thing.”

And sometimes, the attempt to disarm look more like an effort to discredit.

“Stop virtue signaling.”

“Quit all the fake outrage.”

“Well, if you’re mad about this…why didn’t you post and get equally mad about that.”

I could blog a book on all those. People don’t have to choose every battle. I’ll also go one step further and say that social media isn’t the only place or even the best place to engage in battle.

On February 6, the sitting President of the United States reposted a video alleging voter fraud. For several hours, the video remained online and concluded with a clip depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their heads superimposed on the bodies of monkeys.

I’m choosing this battle.

I’m choosing [first with what I hope was a wise social media response, and now with what I hope is a wise, carefully worded blog] to honor black brothers and sisters, created in the Image of God, worthy of respect, admiration, and total freedom from this and every kind of oppression. 

I’m choosing to believe that people deserve better. I’m choosing to call this out and to speak out against it along with the people, systems, platforms, and especially the politicians who continue to propagate it and make excuses for it.

The thing about battles is we get to choose them and we get to choose how and where we fight them. I know that many are looking for posts and stories, waiting for hearts, likes, and other signs of agreement. I get that more now, thanks to the kind words from several really wise people in my life. I’ve never not been in this fight. However, I've often chosen to engage it differently…reaching out to friends when the racist temperature increases yet another degree…engaging in conversations, amplifying black voices, and [most important of all] discipling others in biblical values and teaching my own children.

For me…up until now…as a parent, pastor, and simply a person…those avenues have been enough. No longer. I’ve never been silent…but I’ve not necessarily been loud. At its core, that’s what this Volume Speaks Value corner of my life is about. 

Today, I'm choosing to believe that regardless of who originally created the post, who chose to leave it up, or who later removed it, responsibility rests with many people, including and beginning with President Trump.

I’m choosing to believe that it harkened centuries of evil, racist tropes that continue to inflict so much harm.

I’m choosing to believe and to call out the dark, evil, sinful intention behind it.

I’m also choosing to highlight that what we saw Friday wasn’t a new side of Trump’s character that hasn’t been proudly evident 1,000 times before. Remember “garbage Somalis” and “rapist Mexicans.” His rhetoric has consistently and hatefully been racist, protected racists, and perpetuated harmful racist division. The post on Friday was not new. It is racism at its worst. And it’s making us all worse. 

I’m choosing this battle and I’ll say this to followers of Jesus who have been socially silent and not engaged these things before. I believe we are called to this. Racism is an affront to the Imago Dei and a wound to the Gospel that the church cannot afford and should not allow. I’m not taking names or keeping score. I’m not looking to see who likes this page, calls this out, acknowledges the hate, and leverages their platforms in agreement. You get to choose your battles too and I’m not making the false assumption that lack of social media messaging paints a full picture of how and when and where you are taking on this important fight. You get to choose that just like I’m choosing this.

As part of my own awareness, I'm underscoring and apologizing for the overwhelming privilege that allows me to make this choice while the targets and victims of racism, hate, and oppression, don't have the same option. They have to be so utterly exhausted from the battle and so deeply wounded by those of us who haven't understood, haven't listened, and haven't joined. I am truly sorry.

Today, I’m choosing differently and I'll be as loud as I can be while being careful how I fight…choosing as best as I may to live out the brightest Light of Christ that I can in this life.