May 26, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, My Daughter's Sign
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, My Daughter's Sign
I knew that sign would be more polarizing than a candidate endorsement. I also knew I believed Black Lives Matter. Maybe more than anything, I was impressed with my daughter’s audacity, and convicted by the simplicity with which she suggested it. Because I must admit I did not have the courage to imagine putting that sign in our yard. I wondered if it would cause problems with any of my parishioners. I wondered if it would bother any of my neighbors. I wondered if they’d think things about me that weren’t true. I wondered if they’d find out things about me that were true. I wondered if a sign like that would be defaced. But I was proud of my daughter. So, I said OK. Well, that’s not true. I said let me talk to your mom about it, but in my heart, I had already said OK. And my wife agreed. I still wondered all those things, and so did she. But we got the sign and we put it up right in our front yard.
Nobody has defaced it. Nobody has even commented on it, to be honest, except one guy at a nursery my wife went to. She was showing him a picture of the front of our house asking him for advice on what kinds of bushes to buy and he gave her grief about the sign, saying she was getting political by showing him the picture. My wife hates confrontation and hates signs more than I do, and here she was hearing about it from a stranger at the nursery. She was courteously resolute in her response to him, which made him feel embarrassed. She chose boxwoods and he put them in the car for her.
Now it’s been nearly 3 years. And the sign isn’t looking so good. All the other signs in the neighborhood have gone away – most of them shortly after November 2020. And here we are with our Black Lives Matter sign, a White family in a White house in a White neighborhood. And I have to make a decision. Do we take it down?
Nobody has defaced it. Nobody has even commented on it, to be honest, except one guy at a nursery my wife went to. She was showing him a picture of the front of our house asking him for advice on what kinds of bushes to buy and he gave her grief about the sign, saying she was getting political by showing him the picture. My wife hates confrontation and hates signs more than I do, and here she was hearing about it from a stranger at the nursery. She was courteously resolute in her response to him, which made him feel embarrassed. She chose boxwoods and he put them in the car for her.
Now it’s been nearly 3 years. And the sign isn’t looking so good. All the other signs in the neighborhood have gone away – most of them shortly after November 2020. And here we are with our Black Lives Matter sign, a White family in a White house in a White neighborhood. And I have to make a decision. Do we take it down?
