The only time I’ve ever been to Ferguson, Mo. was on a fall  weekend in 1980 when I went to meet my biological father for the first time in my life. I was thirty years old and had my kids, my wife, my mother and her husband with me. The place he lived in was a rat-hole. He was never a father to me, as so many black men can sadly relate to.

A year and half later after the riots started over the police shooting of Michael Brown nothing has changed in my thoughts and feelings about the abomination of race relations in my country of birth. I still am not a believer in the righteousness of the ‘Raiser of Taxes’ despite our 250 year insistence that we are God’s gift to the world.

Ferguson in my father’s day was more than 75% White. Since then it has flopped around, the population now almost 70% black. It is not only telltale, but hard to believe that the police force at the time of the slaying was 95% white.

Unlike blacks in Ferguson and all over our land who had no chance to forge their own destiny; my father, being white, squandered the opportunity to forge his – he could have done better. His older brother was a big shot at Budweiser. He was 63 and was only two years away from dying of a brain hemorrhage helped along by years of alcoholism when I saw him that one and only time. He had fathered a bunch of kids and had a few families spread around the country over thirty-five years of grifting. Though he had no excuse, he was by no means innocent of the abuse of abandonment of his wives and children.

Everyone has at least a meager knowledge of the history of the black man in America over the last 400 years. Very few have a good and clear knowledge of the atrocities of government apathy, of the lack of empathy from its leaders, the terrible legal denials of the black man as a full enfranchised human being in “the land of the free”.  All are aware that this is the home of the brave and the land of the free – – – – unless your skin is black.

When I walked into the room to look upon my natural father for the first time his back was turned to me. When I tapped him on the shoulder he wheeled around and snarled – “Have you come to kick my A–?!” I said, “No.” I had come to tell him about my life and Jesus Christ.

I now have three black grandchildren who live with me. I’m glad I have the opportunity to bring them up. I worry about the racism they will have to face. I thank God that society has not completely stopped me from helping them to realize the chance to get a fair shake at an education and to live a life free from fear.

Though my father’s sins were visited on me and while I had never met him, I was eerily just like him; would have ended up just like he ended up, but I found a place of refuge. Or should I say, refuge found me. It wasn’t in a church, either. But it was God who saved me from the pitiful plight of the fatherless – that horrible fate that has been imposed upon the black man by the grotesque craziness of white supremacy and the compassionless abomination of owning another man’s life and soul.

The prejudice of man will never die on its own. It can never nor will it ever be legislated away. It will take the return of Christ to destroy the prejudice against the Jew, the black man, the natives and the aboriginal peoples of the earth.

I once preached a message to a full church of whites and blacks at a wedding. I told them that the lessons of the last 150 years prove that a government or assemblage of people in power can never legislate equality, that’s not what they do; man does not share power or money with anyone.

No! I told the crowd. The only place where there can be equality is when one abides with Jesus; in the ‘True’ church, where there is no male or female, no rich or poor, no boss of one’s faith, no leader or dictator, but Christ only. You can’t have dictators masquerading as pastors, or Popes and Bishops being the living representation of Christ. Love cannot be legislated, demanded by the lady of justice with the blindfold peering out blind upon the mass of humanity, half of whi9ch stands oppressed and threatened with every rising sun.

The nature of love means that it cannot be imposed, love has to be loved by the lover, embraced in the heart and not bowed to by reverence unbridled and solemnly received. The law, the Bible says, is for the lawless. Love and treating others the way we want to be treated is a law unto itself which can find a place of security only in the meek of heart. Then, and only then can it abide where it need not be enforced. Love is done out of love because one loves it, believes in it, trusts in it. It is done willfully and willingly, it must be believed without reservation. The only way it can happen is by following Love wherever it take one, wherever it must go.

But where shall it be found? The only place it can be found with certainty and power is in one’s heart by letting the Master lead the way. In this only there is no discrimination, for the eye of love is color-blind, the mind of love knows no distinction between rich and poor, the soul of love does not think in terms of male or female but only in terms of life and life everlasting for the needy souls of whom Jesus died for.

I’m not for lawlessness for my kids or grandchildren, the black ones or the white ones. The color of their skin makes no difference. I hope they will do right to everyone, tell the truth and not be intimidated by lies and fears for self. The color of their skin has nothing to do with the love I have for a person whether kith or kin, or wandering stranger. How could it? The color of their skin has nothing to do with my hopes for them. How could it?

Breaking the law is worthy of punishment, society has to be protected. As the Scripture says, “The law is for the lawless”. The law is not made for law abiding citizens, because they abide by it. It is made to protect society against lawless behavior. Both sides are guilty. But how can anyone avoid the deduction that one side bears the burden of responsibility.

I have guardianship of my three black grandchildren. I’m scared they won’t love me. They love sports like I do. They accuse me if I don’t go see them play their games. They don’t always listen, or do what I tell them to do. And I have to be the bad guy, when I only want to be their grandfather. I hate what society, and drugs and poverty, and privilege and racism has done and is doing to blacks. The system and the American way for more than 300 years must take the blame. The succeeding generations always suffer for the sins of its fathers. Only Jesus can deliver us from this vicious cycle. Are we not all on a ‘not so, merry-go-round?

My father loved booze and gambling and chasing women more than he loved his kids. I was released from that cycle by the love of Jesus who has even let me become redeemed from walking in his footsteps and its suffering from dastardly, deadly effects.

What are we doing? I was just going to write I am not an emotional man? I misthought. I am an emotional man about the love of Christ and how the world gives no care while we dodge the bullets of this on-going border war of American racism that touches every American life daily even without most people knowing it. There is no way out but we can ask Jesus Christ Himself to lead us to higher ground where he will take care of us and help us out of this quicksand of sorrow and evil. We cannot rely on modern churches with American flags being flown in their foyers and halls. Only the unbiased faith of Jesus can lead blacks and whites to a church where harmony and love rule over the individual heart. It is not in a building with walls or a courtroom with benches of justice. It only is found in the open fields of God’s words, under the clear skies where Jesus resides and the Father sits, that quintessential place of faith in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.