Black and White and Read All Over

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You know the old riddle, don't you? I think it's for 3rd graders plus or minus.

What's black and white and read all over?
A nun falling down the stairs.
A zebra with diaper rash.
A newspaper.

A few days ago, I was waiting to get my feet x-rayed.

X-ray. Doesn't that sound really retro? Like x-ray glasses. X-ray gun! At one time the epitome of high tech. Now when you look at those clunky metal film cartridges and the cross beam, it all seems so Dr. Who-ish.

I was contemplating what socially redeeming book to take with me but remembered there would be tattered, Pig Flued copies of People and Sports Illustrated in the waiting area. It's amazing how immersed I can get in the gossip about celebrities.

And there are fewer and fewer that are familiar to me. Because most of them are young enough to be my kids. Hey you - Kleinblower and McAuldy - it'll happen to you too, so don't sit there all young and cute with a puzzled puppy look on your face.

So I get there and it's a choice between golf, housekeeping and - angel choir voices and bright lights - EBONY.

I have never picked up a copy of Ebony. In fact, I looked in the racks at my local grocery today and didn't find a copy of Ebony. Or Essence. Not even O. So why the angels and lights? Because I read it. And liked it. Then an interesting thing happend. I'm lost in the articles and and there's this little tinging in the back of my consciousness that everyone. Everyone. In this magazine is black. Except for the one white man contributor. And some women in a tampon ad. And I thought.

Everybody should read Ebony.

If you're not black, do you ever think to pick up Ebony? And yet, blacks are expected to read Glamour or Cosmo or Good Housekeeping like it's "normal."

Pick one up somewhere.

Get immersed. . . .

Get a glimpse of the world from another side.

I now realize how ture it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts people from every nation who fear Him and do what is right. - Acts 10: 34,35

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" - Revelations 7:9-10