Humbly submitted for the cause of peace and brotherhood by Rick Searcy
For 20 years I have lived here in Owensboro. There have been many things that I have grown to love about it. I have had the privilege of befriending people from all over Daviess County with a plethora of backgrounds. Many of them are responsible for helping me transition from a lost teen running from a life of crime, drugs, and violence, to the proud father and person I am today.
The moment we become parents, we realize that our lives now have a different purpose and meaning. We now realize that we have been blessed with the greatest responsibility that God can bestow on a person. According to Psalms 127:3, “Lo children are a heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” As we continue down the journey of parenthood we all want many of the same things for our children. We want to be able to put food on the table, we want them to be safe, educated, and we try our best to follow Proverbs 22:6 “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
As a parent, I ask myself, “How am I training my son?” The way I train him will have a direct impact on our community and world. This is something we all must understand as parents today. Many people have asked themselves what I can do to make this a better Owensboro for my children. Or how can I help? To answer this question we must ask ourselves what type of Owensboro we want our children to live in today and tomorrow.
The Owensboro that we currently see was handed to us by our predecessors as a representation of the things they believed were important to them. Though we are grateful for what they have done, it is undoubtedly our responsibility as parents to move our Owensboro forward, powered by what is important to us today. Our Owensboro must be a much more inclusive, diverse community, where we listen to each other even if we disagree or look different.
As parents, the Black Lives Matter movement is not something we should just seek currently in our Owensboro, but an opportunity to make that a permanent belief ingrained in the hearts of our children. Our Owensboro will not manifest if we go back to the old ways of thinking, and the way things used to be. Our Owensboro will not manifest without us parents teaching against injustices of any kind, because in our Owensboro injustice to some of us, is injustice to all of us. So let’s not just think that just because some of us don’t experience injustice, that somehow it is not our responsibility to teach against it.
The saying goes “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the second best time is now.” So the same is true for our Owensboro. Now we must make the commitment to ourselves and our children to plant the seeds of diversity and inclusion. If history has taught anything it is that we will never have a thriving community if everyone doesn’t have a seat at the table. In our Owensboro, we are men and women that are not bound to the beliefs of our kinfolks. In our Owensboro, we must resist the temptation of falling back into the same subtle bigotries that have poisoned our community for decades, but be determined to heal the divides that have held back our progress. In our Owensboro, we will accept this opportunity to come together and answer that call of peace and unity for everyone,
so our cup of prosperity as a city will overflow for generations to come.