Exposure and Coping: Day 3 Burmingham, AL

3/12

Visited so many places of worship today. My first time in a synagogue (went to three actually) made me realize that the tensions that we have back in Brooklyn between the blacks and Jews is due to our unwillingness to learn about each other. Before this trip, I had never been in a synagogue and I don't know that I would've ever gone had I not been on this trip. That realization scares me. As much as I'd like to think of myself as an open-minded person, I haven't made much of any effort to learn about a people that I wouldn't care to know much about. Although this was never explicit, my refusal to open up to learning more has kept me and the rest of Brooklyn in thickness of the tension. 

Today was a step in the right direction for me. I learned that there are different denominations in Judaism. I met a female rabbi. I learned that on some level, we are all connected by faith. Faith and love. Those together are powerful vehicles. 

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was the site where the four little girls were killed during the bombing. They had just finished Sunday school and were getting dressed to go sing in the choir for service. The youngest killed was only 11 years old. It's difficult to understand why God took away the lives of these young, precious children, but He always has a plan. Whenever youth are taken away from us so violently, we are always so quick to gnash our teeth and curse the heavens. These little girls are forever remembered in our hearts and had compelled others to make things right and not let their lives lost go in vain. 

The end of the day at Birmingham bought a lot if uneasiness. Our speakers talked a lot about how Birmingham was so great, although there were certain parts that remain almost completely segregated. Some of our speakers that preached from a Jewish point of view told us only of how isolated they were from the movement hence very removed from the plight of African Americans during the Civil rights movement there. There were so many questions that they simply couldn't answer and it wasn't long before we were all stuck. After the heaviness of Selma, we kept seeking out ways to dispel that heaviness and rationalize everything we felt. At this point and time however, all we can do is let our feelings just sit or float above our heads. I forget that sometimes we're not going to get all of the answers and we must be able to move beyond that. Not to necessarily be content with half of the puzzle, but to make use of the pieces we have and continually pursue the rest. I'm not sure that I'll be okay will never finding all of the pieces, but I'm determined to make the most of, and make a difference with, what I have.