June 18, 2020
Marginalized people are always expected to fit within the wishes and needs of those who assume power over them.
We see it in marriages where patriarchy is pre-eminent, in enmeshed families where the lives of adult children are controlled by caregivers, and in communities where marginalized people exist in the shadows…. struggling to breathe.
So many people come to believe that “accommodation” is compromise. The two are not the same.
Compromise says both parties find agreement on their major points leaving a valley of fairness, equality, respect and honor that gives each group the majority of what they need and want. Equality in the US had its significant nation-wide “skeleton compromise” within the last 56 years in 1964. Consider it an outline for a future the black community ( and other people of color and women) still long for in the US.
Accommodation, however, leaves one group with everything and the other group with less than what they need and want; and an ongoing pressure to accept it without question or complaint. It is often the “just live with how things are” frame of mind. Well, that’s still bondage in light of our plight today.
Even worse, what little the accommodators have received in the one-way deal is siphoned away as more concessions are made to accommodate others with greater power, authority to oppress. The US has largely looked like this for the marginalized.
Statements like, “Can we just get along?” often come from the lips of those on the most favorable side. When they come from the weaker side, they are generally statements of overwhelm, frustration, cries for a break among the continuous abuse… a place of being generationally tired.
When we see what accommodation does to the dutiful wife with no life of her own or the kids who have never made a single major decision for their own lives, we sometimes get a glimpse of an uncommon type of rage.
Rage is never good- whether bombs are strapped to chests, guns are carried into classrooms, mobs burn down thriving communities or folks lash out and tear down their own communities.
Yet it exists.
Darkness festers in generational accommodation…. like secrets. To succeed in peace within the beauty of Sonship a desire to grasp this small truth can help the congregation heal.
Who are our leaders accommodating in “Christ’s” truth? Who are we accommodating to avoid doing what is just and right for the sake of love covenant? What side of Christ’s desire for full accommodation to His will…. will we stand?
While this nation demands accommodations and twisted compromises favoring old systems, the Body doesn’t have to do so. Let us be in agreement with Kingdom intention. LET US REPENT AND HEAL. #chamberofthescribe
