By Terry Allen
I stopped to observe Lucille “Big Mama’s” question as she stated in one of the last conversations with me before she made her transition.
All of the church sisters had heard her say, “Are you redeemable” and that always made the church meeting quiet.
This particular “Big Mama ism” was so strong, it resonated with me days after she died. I sat with her the hospital room for moments after she passed! My thoughts of redemption rang inside my head as she left this world for the heavenly other. Are you redeemable? Are you worthy?
Here is what I do know. Big Mama always answered, “If Jesus redeemed his sinners and made them saints who at this table is redeemable or not redeemable?”
She always said this to her accusers and allies. She issued those exact words during her talks with the women’s groups, her own family of sisters and her church family. Simply, are you redeemable?
I listened and understood that she was making a “Diplomatic and Democratic” to diffuse any opposition to a great outcome. What I learned from here was 5 easy rules. Here goes:
- Jesus Christ was a redeemer, and so will we be one!
- Everyone makes mistakes so everyone must atone for them as we embrace and redeem them.
- Redemption is an act of believing things unseen an ultimate act of faith
- Redemption removes judgment of the past aggressions we have over each other
- Redemption allows us to have a Do over and address the elephant in the room fairly
Let me apply that to the COVID 19 pandemic! The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is changing the way our day-to-day interactions. There is much we still don’t know about how this situation will play out.
But the virus has a vaccine and a vaccine protocol in place that has not won over Africans Americans.
African Americans have not shown up in droves to get the vaccine. In the Black Community, whites are showing up in numbers extremely higher than African Americans in most major cities. The deaths in the Black community are overwhelming.
There are several reasons why this is happening because on both sides of the aisle there is blame.
I want to address one reason on the Black side today! Blacks have stated and shared some historical medical fearsin our dark American history that resonate with those opposing taking the virus.
The mistrust in the system and the vaccine myths are deeper than imagined. Get the vaccine!
Please have a talk with the medical experts in your network to make the lifesaving decision to get the vaccine.
To those African Americans who have not stood in the gap and who have not gotten the vaccine, I want to close and ask two questions.
Why have you not gotten the vaccine? And are you not redeemable?
