It’s bizarre to watch a newscast that reports the Charleston shootings and Tom Brady’s appeal in the same 10 minute segment.

I’m from the south.  I’m from a place and time where the confederate flag represented high school spirit for a team that had blacks and whites playing together.  We, as kids, were naive to what the flag meant to a host of other people in town.  When the school changed the mascot (Rebels) and removed the flag, it started something in our town that became more contentious than school spirit.  Thirty years later, I can see the racism I was naive to as a teenager but also see healing.

I’m not a presidential candidate but if I was I would encourage South Carolina to remove the confederate flag from public places other than a museum.  It is a part of our history and it has a broader meaning than race but it still causes pain for people and we need to be sensitive to that.  We need to love people, not a symbol of history.

I don’t understand white supremasists groups.  They espouse God and hatred.  It doesn’t take much to realize that is just ridiculous.  I grew up playing basketball with black guys.  I drove them home from practice almost daily.  My mom made cookies for all of us on game days.  We joked together.  We sweated together.  We grew up together.  We had physical differences but we weren’t all that different on the inside.

I don’t know that the pain of slavery or racism will ever go away.  Sadly, because we live in a broken world, there will always be things that try to divide us.  There will always be things that succeed at dividing us.  I hope while we battle those conflicts we learn to love better, to empathize better and to grow closer to each other.

Our world needs more peace.  More empathy.  More love for the hurting, the poor, those challenged with mental disorders, those challenged with the battles for the heart in a broken world.

I am not always right and you are not always wrong.  You are not always right and I am not always wrong.  Let us talk.  Let us listen.  Let us look to the future for what we want the world to be for our children and grandchildren.  Let us look more like Christ and less like ourselves.

Grace and peace.