“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven…a time to keep and a time to throw away.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,6)
I recently witnessed a special time in the history of our community, a time to keep rather than a time to throw away.
There stood Wyomia Tyus, all the way from Los Angeles. She came home to help dedicate a county park, one with her own name on it. It was a fitting tribute to a black woman who has brought unusual distinction to her hometown.
Most of you have never heard of Wyomia Tyus. Don’t feel left out. There are a lot of us right here in the community where she was born and raised who never heard of Wyomia Tyus either. That is not until we saw her name go up on the sign at the entrance of a new park where a lot of our kids play soccer.
But history remembers her as an extraordinary, world-class sprinter who raced her way into the Olympic record books. Wyomia Tyus won gold medals in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and was the first modern-day Olympic athlete to successfully defend a gold medal in consecutive Olympic Games.
I’ll tell you something else about Wyomia Tyus. She was also a victim of the racial hatred that permeated the 1960’s. Embarrassingly, her hometown had no trouble filling in a municipal swimming pool to keep blacks from swimming with whites during the 1960’s. Yet it could hardly raise enough money or interest to hold a parade in her honor.
So there she finally stood…triumphant, yet humble.
I was touched by the moment because it showed how much the town in which I live has changed. You see thirty years ago, no elected official in his or her right mind would have voted to name its flagship park after a black woman. But thirty years later, the matter got very little discussion. We’ve come a long way.
It wasn’t a spiritual moment, but it certainly proved a spiritual truth that the Apostle Paul once pointed out: “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” (Romans 8:25)
What I enjoyed most about that day was the healing that began to take place. You could see it in the eyes of many that were present to celebrate this woman’s accomplishments. So even though we built a park to honor the athletic accomplishments of one of our own, perhaps we also began to build a bridge over which a lot of others who have been wounded by prejudice can begin to heal.
I wish we could take what I felt last Saturday, bottle it and use it to cure some other prejudices that continue to plague the communities in which we live. Just look around, the present-day Wyomia Tyus’s are among us, except they are not always black. In fact, they come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Some of them have AIDS, worship other gods, believe in same-sex marriages, can’t read and write, have no permanent address, or appear to have forgotten what a bathtub looks like. Just like the rest of us, they sin. Yet, we think we are better off.
When you turn your nose up at these who are demonstrably weaker than you are, remember what Jesus said: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…For I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners.” (Matthew 9:12, 13)
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