It was an episode from the TV series 'West Wing'.  A British envoy who regularly suffered from haughtiness and a few too many drinks is talking to a White House staffer about a haunting aspect of England's history.  He follows by saying, "Your (America's) original sin is slavery." - suggesting it (slavery)  is something we are forever marked by and from which we may never find absolution.  Watching the news these past weeks, I wonder if  he is right about both aspects- how it has marked us and our inability to find absolution.

    After the clips of Reverend Wright began playing regularly on the 24 hour news channels, Barak Obama gave a speech on race that very few folks could have.  From a mixed race family he spoke of various aspects of how race has lived out in us: fear, hatred, hurt, weariness, suspicion, oppression, entitlement and many more.  And he held up the reality that none are totally innocent and all may in different ways have been targeted, stereotyped and affected by the actions of the 'other'.  It offered a base from which we could speak, a history that did not inherently claim total victim status for any group nor claim total blame for any group. Perhaps we had a window to talk in a way that did not automatically draw lines and put anyone on the defensive as the certain good or bad guys. Perhaps we had a window to look, all of us, at ourselves and whatever part we played and the affects we all experience, black and white, in all of the manifestations of this insidious reality.

    Instead we have spent weeks of news coverage not talking about the issues raised by the Senator and our part in them.  We did the cowardly thing of finding a scapegoat- ah, Reverend Wright.  As long as we can say he is bad, then it follows that we can say we are good, or at least not as bad as him.  Don Henley once penned a song about a preacher and his congregation: "they loved it when he told them they were better than the rest."  Once again we have traded in a birth right of learning to find redemption for the warm meal of castigation and tar splashing.

    When will we become brave enough to leave behind distractions so we can find the life that is ours?  Why is Reverend Wright worthy of two weeks of news coverage when today thousands upon thousands of kids will go to sleep malnourished, AIDS is removing a whole generation of parents on another continent, working Americans are loosing their houses in record numbers, fifty percent of black men in American cities do not finish high school, an obscene amount of those same men are housed in prisons, and no one on the globe seems to have the energy to stop the slaughtering in Darfur?

    "Let the dead bury the dead."  "Take no purse or staff for the journey."  "Go sell all you have."  "I must go to Jerusalem."  "One does not live on bread alone."  "You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and all your soul, and with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself."  These are the responses of Jesus to the siren songs of distraction.  Responses to those who offered him an out for anything painful or difficult, anything demanding maturity.

    This is not a defense of Reverend Wright or an endorsement of any candidacy- that wondering in itself is a distraction from a significant conversation for which we still yearn 'in groans too deep for words.'  May we one day find the courage to trust there is One who can lead all of us to the Promised Land of racial reconciliation. It is a path that begins in the wilderness and ends at a banquet.

Todd Donatelli