Facing Down the Fans
Theme of the Week: The Risk of Reconciliation
John Stackhouse
Monday, June 17, 2002
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Facing Down the Fans
Theme of the Week: The Risk of Reconciliation
Monday, June 17
Key Bible Verse: "Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father" (Matthew 5:16). Bonus Reading:Matthew 5:13–16
SuAnne Big Crow's basketball team was playing the Lead, South Dakota, high school, where contempt for Indians ran deep. In his Great Plains, Ian Frazier describes it.
The Lady Thorpes from the Pine Ridge Sioux reservation could hear the fans yelling phony Indian war cries, the "woo-woo-woo" of white kids all over North America. They filed into the hallway, set to jog a lap or two around the gym and shoot some warm-up baskets. As they reached the tightly packed gym, Lead fans waved food stamps to scorn the welfare received by some on the reservation.
Leading the team, SuAnne dribbled out to the center of the court, stopped, and flipped the ball to her teammate cousin. She removed her warm-up jacket, draped it over her shoulders, and began to dance the Lakota shawl dance—singing and swaying in front of her confused team and astonished adversaries.
SuAnne then dropped the jacket, took the ball from her nonplussed cousin, dribbled around the court, and laid the ball up into the hoop. The audience exploded in cheers. The relationship between Pine Ridge and Lead was different for years.
—John Stackhouse in Faith Today
My Response: A gesture I could make to bridge a chasm in relationships is …
Thought to Apply: Is it wicked of me because my skin is red? Because I am a Lakota?
—Tatanka Iyotake, "Sitting Bull" (Sioux tribal chief, 19th century)
Adapted from: Faith Today (7-8/98).
Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
May/June 2002,Vol. 5,No. 3
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Lord, make me willing to endure discomfort in order to reach out as a reconciler.
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