"Stay with us"

The post was a typical post between us. It was one of catching up on activities both sides of the Mississippi, a lively exchange of the comings and goings, involvements of various sorts. I'm the academician working in a university setting and he's living on the land, leading a people and an organization committed to justice and stopping land loss among African American farmers.

It was one small line that caught my attention, visually and emotionally, the one right before he typed in his name. The words may have meant something, or they may have been his latest use of sign off comments. Some of us write "peace," "best," "on behalf of the Black farmer and family," or nothing, simply typing our names, or not typing our names, since we all know who sent the post by looking up in the address line.

He wrote on this particular post something I'd never seen before. You are certainly free to make various comments about my relentless search for meaning in the world and in this righteous cause, but nevertheless, they were his words and they captured my attention.

All he wrote was a brief, but to me profound statement, "Stay with us." And typed his name.

"Stay with us?" Why would I want to leave the cause and the efforts of the cause. "Stay with us" means that he thinks I'm or we're with him? "Stay with us?" and the cause is one worth staying with and for? A resounding, "Absolutely! Yes! I'm staying with you! Yes! We're staying with you!" out here on the edge of the desert in Abilene, Texas. "With us?" Yes, staying with you, farmers, families, and advocates, people of the earth, people who are known only within their circles of farming, people who are celebrities who've loaned their names to the cause, political advocates, advocates who work in mediation, farmers who have turned to advocacy, and students who've come to care deeply about these matters.

Even this week in the ACU lectureship speaker series, people like Jerry Taylor, Fred Asare, and Landon Saunders, and tomorrow, Edward Robinson, Foy Mills, Wes Crawford, and Social Justice Team members will speak boldly from the Biblical text of Amos and Micah and from Jesus of Nazareth about the Black farmer, land loss, institutional power, racism, and how God's heart is broken when His children mistreat his children, when God's children mistreat their brothers and sisters.

So, I am convicted once more when I hear the words of the prophet quoted from that big stage which stands just up from the floor in Moody Coliseum. I am convicted when my own sense of power, place, and privilege is confronted via the word of God.

So, yes, friend from North Carolina, I will indeed stay with you and the larger You in the world, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Willie, Harry, and Rosa, because it's not just your call, nor my call, but it is God's call to justice.