BUILD A TRELLIS

According to Wikipedia, “a trellis is an architectural structure, usually made from an open framework or lattice of interwoven or intersecting pieces of wood, bamboo or metal that is normally made to support and display climbing plants, especially scrubs.”

In his book The Emotionally Healthy Leader, Peter Scazzero indicates that trellises are support structures that enable plants such as a grapevine to get off the ground. Trellises help plants to grow upward and become fruitful. 

A trellis is a beautiful image of the ancient practice called a Rule of Life. A Rule of Life is an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provide structure and direction for growth and direction. It is a support structure that helps us to grow spiritually and emotionally.

Like trellises with plants, a Rule of Life organizes our unique combination of spiritual practices into a structure that enables us to pay attention to God in everything we do.

Presently, I am redesigning my trellis. I am preparing myself for a career change in Christian ministry. I am transitioning from administration in higher education to pastoral ministry. Providentially, I stumbled upon Peter Scazzero, a former senior pastor and now a pastor to pastors. I am absorbing his book on leadership. Cited earlier, this volume is transformational.

Before crafting a Rule of Life, Scazzero invites readers to work through the following:

● What do you do, that nurtures your spirit and fills you with delight? List them.

● What things or people deplete you and negatively impact your spirit? List them.

● What “must-attend-to” like health issues, make daily demands on you. List them.

Once you have a good idea of the things that nurture you, deplete you and are non-negotiables on your schedule, you have a basis for considering what you want to include in your Rule of Life. Prioritize the things that nurture your spirit and fill you with delight. Opposite to each item on your priority list, identify the things or people that negatively affects each item.

Now that you have itemized the things that bring you delight and the things that attempt to undermine these things, you are well-positioned to establish a structure for growth. Listen to the desires of your heart. What is it you want most in these areas of your life? The Psalmist got it right when he said: “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

Building trellises or structures for growth take time. Time alone with God. Time in silence. Time in prayer and meditation. Pay attention to your emotions. Vocalize the things for which you are grateful. Express your sorrow for known sin and accept God’s forgiveness.

Interestingly, there is no need to tell others that you are building a trellis. With time, others will see changes in your personality. Your appetite for things that build will increase. The things that deplete your joy will be choked. Inner transformation will reshape your passions and character.

It is then we can express longings like King David, “Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones you have crushed rejoice” (Psalm 51:8). Consider Isaiah 35 in rebuilding your trellis.

Do Black Lies Matter?

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in the city of Minneapolis, after white police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the street.

From a cell phone video, taken by one of the many witnesses, we learned that four cops ignored Floyd's repeated plea, "I can't breathe." By the time paramedics arrived, Floyd was unresponsive and apparently lifeless. After about an hour of attempted resuscitation by EMTs and emergency room staff, he was pronounced dead.

Like with the current pandemic, millions around the world were affected by this barbaric act in America. Many ignored social distancing guidelines and protested in major cities of the United States. Whereas protesting is perfectly legitimate, the accompanying destruction of property and looting are not.

Ostensibly, the protests are about “the alleged epidemic of widespread and race-based police brutality against blacks and the lack of confidence, in the case of Floyd, that justice will be done”. The problem with these assertions is that they are not supported by the data.

My research indicates that there is no epidemic of racist cops killing black suspects in America. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, police killings of blacks declined almost 80% from the late '60s through the 2010s, while police killings of whites have not increased. Meanwhile, in 2017, according to the CDC's National Vital Statistics Reports, non-Hispanic blacks were eight times more likely to be a victim of a homicide (homicide death rate: 23.2 per 100,000) than non-Hispanic whites (homicide death rate: 2.9 per 100,000).

The number one cause of preventable death for young white men is accidents, such as car accidents and drownings. The number one reason for death, preventable or otherwise for young black men, is homicide, almost always at the hands of another young black man.

In 2018, there were approximately 7,400 black homicide victims, more than half of the nation's total number of homicides, while the black population is 13% of the U.S. total. Of that number, the police killed a little more than 200 blacks, and nearly all of them had a weapon or violently resisted arrest.

In recent years, the police have averaged killing about 1,000 Americans per year. Of that number, half are white, and one-quarter are black, with the race of remaining suspects of another race or unknown. Of the approximately 1,000 killed by cops, less than 4% (40 persons) involve a white officer and an unarmed black man.

Recent studies not only find no systemic abuse of black suspects by the cops, but if anything, cops are more hesitant, more reluctant, to use deadly force against a black suspect than against a white suspect.

The Manhattan Institute's Heather MacDonald writes: "Regarding threats to blacks from the police: A police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male, than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer." Last year, according to The Washington Post, the police killed nine unarmed blacks. They killed 19 unarmed whites. In recent years, about 50 cops have been shot and killed annually in the line of duty. So, more cops are killed each year than are unarmed black suspects.

Minneapolis in 2020 is not Birmingham, Alabama, in the '50s. The top cop is not a racist segregationist like Birmingham's infamous Bull Connor, who released dogs and turned water hoses on civil rights protesters. The police chief of Minneapolis is Mexican American and black. The district's U.S. House representative is black. The vice president of the city council is black, as is the state attorney general.

In Baltimore, where in 2015, a black man named Freddie Gray died in police custody, how could one, with a straight face, argue that resident blacks suffer from institutional racism? The mayor was a black female; the top two officials in the police department were black; the city council was majority black; the state attorney who brought the charges against six officers was black; three of the six charged officers were black; the judge before whom two officers tried their cases was black; the U.S. attorney general was black, as was the then President of the United States.

Meanwhile, over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, 10 persons were killed and 49 were shot. In a city where roughly one-third of the population is black, 70% of the city's homicide victims, according to the Chicago Police Department, are black.

As a black citizen of the United States, I must ask, do these figures confirm that there is systemic, structural or institutional police brutality against blacks in the United States? Agreed, there are despicable cases of brutality against blacks by deranged white law enforcement officers. But do the statistics rise to the level of “systemic, structural or institutional brutality?”

I recognize that my position will incense many. That is not my intent. My intent is to maintain the conversation, based on truth and less on emotion. Agreed, justice

must be available to everyone, and so must truth - justice and truth are inseparable.

Neglected Impact of the Pandemic

Last week, more than 600 medical doctors signed and submitted a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump. They were asking him to end the “national shutdown” aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. The doctors feared that the widespread orders keeping businesses closed and kids home from school, would result in “exponentially growing health consequences.”

The letter outlines a variety of consequences that the doctors observed resulting from the coronavirus shutdowns. Some of these concerns include patients missing routine check-ups that could detect heart problems or cancer. Doctors also feared the increase in substance and alcohol abuse.

In late April, a survey was done in the United States, using a standard measure of mental distress. For instance, a respondent was asked how often he/she felt sad or nervous in the last month. The results were compared with a sample of demographically similar people in 2018. The results were staggering.

The 2020 participants were eight times as likely to screen positive for serious mental illness. Some 70% of the respondents met criteria for moderate to serious mental illness, compared with 22% in 2018. Clearly, the pandemic has had a devastating effect on mental health.

My studies would seem to indicate, that whereas the pandemic has had a greater impact on the physical health of the elderly, the same pandemic has had a greater mental impact on younger adults. Younger adults have experience a ten-fold increase in serious mental distress, compared with studies done in 2018. Meanwhile, adults sixty and older, had a much smaller increase in serious mental health issues.

The true impact of the pandemic on mental health will take some time to surface. Instances of alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack or kidney failure are poised to increase. Increases are already evident in unemployment, drug addiction and domestic violence. Over a longer period, we would be adding to the list unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and a variety of abuses.

The solution to the above social challenges is not simple. Should governments lift restrictions in order to avoid the mental health issues? If they do, they run the risk of facilitating the spread of the pandemic. Agreed, a more cautious approach is preferred. But what does that mean?

I believe our first responsibility is to preserve life. More medical resources should be available to the more vulnerable in our society. Guidelines for proper hygiene and physical distancing must be observed, human life must be preserved. However, the restrictions required for preserving lives among the more vulnerable, must be balanced with the lessening of restrictions among less vulnerable communities.

Some mental health issues can be corrected with time, loss of life cannot. Death is final. Death is devastating. Hence, we need to celebrate more when persons overcome the claws of this killer virus. The media is too obsessed with the death count rather than with the recovery count. Stories of recovery generate hope. Stories of recovery celebrate life and recognize heroes and heroines in the medical field.

Media intelligence company Meltwater has been tracking some of the stories that are not gaining as much media attention. Meltwater contends, “as news and social media continues to talk about growing concerns and the impact that the coronavirus has had on society in terms of restricted border entry, travel bans and disruptions to the economy, there have been far less media mentions when it comes to the recoveries that have been made.”

Meltwater’s studies show that stories of recovery represent one of the four least reported areas of the pandemic. With 26.1 million news articles talking about the coronavirus across the globe, only about 5,000 of those news articles have mentioned ‘recoveries’ in relation to the virus. On social media, while 223 million mentions have been made on the coronavirus, only about 8,000 of those mentions talk about recoveries, compared to the social media mentions that include ‘Coronavirus’ and ‘death’.

I believe, included in the use of the term recoveries, most references would likely be about economic recovery and not necessarily of persons who have recovered from the virus. In other words, the media is not enamored with stories of hope. Instead, we have been saddled with statistics of death and defeat.

Should data on sermons be available, one wonders, where would the sermonic emphases be placed? Would the emphasis be on restoration, recovery and transformation? Is it possible that we are hearing too much from our pulpits about judgement and the need to repent? Then, who is mending the broken-hearted? Who is taking good news to the poor? Who is helping to release the oppressed? Affirmative answers to these and many more questions were evident in the ministry of Jesus.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many of us to rearrange our plans for this holiday weekend. I pray that our unplanned schedules will include much time for reflection on the impact of the pandemic. Let us not be overcome by statistics of death and defeat, and embrace stories of hope and optimism.