Omigosh Michelle, you're writing about race AGAIN?

It's the race issue again.

I feel guilty saying "again," because I know it shouldn't be like that. Racial diversity shouldn't be some compartmentalized entity that I acknowledge only during Black History Month or when I'm assigned an article about it. It should be just life.

I did an interview tonight with 2 black students who talked to me very frankly, very un-PR-like, very un-administrator-like. They told me they feel like aliens on campus. One of the girls said she felt like an animal in a cage in a zoo that everybody's staring at. The problem isn't that there are "racists" on campus, but rather that everyone wants to be colorblind and ignore the fact that people are different and have different backgrounds. They feel invalidated, unacknowledged, and "assuaged" by administrators at best. It's not that they want sympathy or guilt trips, but chapels just don't meet their needs spiritually, and it is almost to the point that it's unbearable.

Then I talked to the chapel board chairwoman, a super-sweet girl. Her heart was in it for the right reasons; she wanted everyone on campus to be able to worship the Lord. But it's just not possible to bring in a diverse line-up of speakers who charge thousands of dollars to come for two hours. The student-led worship time simply hasn't had people of color stepping up to the plate. She tries, though. She tries so hard.

Two sides. Both aching to meet and yet missing each other completely. How can this Christian school, and how can these smiling, open armed students, alienate each other so much? How come there is so much hurt when we serve the same God? I just don't get it.

It's the race issue again. It's just another avenue through which sin rears its ugly head. And it is wholly out of human power to turn it around. We need the Holy Spirit to fix these broken people, because no program is going to do it. We need to see a multi-faceted, huge God from the eyes of every culture on this earth; we need this diversity. But it is only a miracle that will patch up these shattered ties.