Out of the
depths I call to you, Lord;
Lord, hear
my cry!
May your
ears be attentive
to my cry
for mercy.
I wait for
the Lord,
my soul
waits
and I hope
for his word.
My soul looks for the Lord
more than
sentinels for daybreak.
More than
sentinels for daybreak,
let Israel
hope in the Lord,
For with the
Lord is mercy,
with him is
plenteous redemption…” [Psalm 130: 1-2, 6-7]
And the
Psalm continues the act of radical faith by proclaiming over and over that God
will hear, God will forgive; God will save.
And in this summer of 2014, yet again:
A voice was
heard in Ramah,
weeping and
great mourning,
Rachel
weeping for her children;
and she
refused to be comforted,
because they
were no more. (Jer. 31:15; Matt. 2:18)
The mother
of Oscar Grant, the young man killed
at Fruitvale Station, Oakland, California, in 2009, writes to the mother of Michael Brown, the manchild killed in
Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014. Attending to Michael Brown’s mother is
the mother of Trayvon Martin, the
child killed in Sanford, Florida in 2012.
The old song says, “Mary don’t you weep/ Martha don’t you mourn…”
But we have
no one’s permission to tell the mothers of sorrow when and how to grieve their
sons. We can only say, "For as long as your heart is full, we are with you."
And also
weeping: the grandmother of Kajieme
Powell, who was 25 years old, when he was killed, “holding a steak knife”
in front of a convenience store in north St. Louis, on August 19, 2014.
And the
parents of Gregory Towns, who, on
April 11, 2014, in East Point, Georgia, died after police shocked him with a
Taser as many as 13 times because he said he was too tired to walk, due to a
foot chase.
And those who are weeping over Ezell Ford, of Los Angeles, John
Crawford, of Beavercreek, Ohio, and Eric
Garner, of Staten Island, New York.
And the
children of Rachel are male and female,
created in the image of God,
reflecting the beauty of our people.
All unarmed, all killed by police officers:
Tarika Wilson, 26
(Lima, Ohio); Aiyana Jones, 7
(Detroit, Michigan); Miriam Carey,
34 (Washington, D.C.); Shereese Francis,
30 (Queens, New York); Shantel Davis,
23 (Brooklyn, New York); Sharmel Edwards,
49 (Las Vegas, Nevada); Rekia Boyd,
22 (Chicago, Illinois) Tyisha Miller,
19 (Riverside, California) Yvette Smith,
47 (Bastrop, Texas). [Compiled by Khadijah
Costley White, Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism and Media Studies
at Rutgers University in New Brunswick]
Let us be truly attentive. For if we do not hold on to
this act of radical faith, then our children are dead. Finally dead. Simply
dead. And we do not have their permission to leave them unfinished and
defamed. Their names shall not be
“scandalized.”
A meditation that might be useful is to consider that when
Abel offered a sacrifice pleasing to God, his brother, Cain, grew increasingly
angry. What is often overlooked in this
story (Genesis 4: 2 – 16) is that God spoke directly to Cain and said: “Why are
you angry and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be
accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is
for you, but you must master it.” Cain would not listen to God. Inviting his
brother into the country, Cain slew his brother Abel. When God confronted him,
asking where Abel was, Cain said, “I do not know, am I my brother’s keeper?”
God indeed did place a mark on Cain – but not a mark of
“blackness” as the proponents of racism have maintained for centuries. God
marked Cain with a sign that would prohibit others from slaying him. Abel, the
innocent, beloved of God, was killed by his brother. And Cain was forgiven. And
the world saw that sign.
Today, do we need to pray over the signs that protect those
who would kill their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters? We hear the
dying gasps of the children, the weeping and mourning of the fathers and
mothers, the grandmothers and grandfathers, the children of the slain. And we
wonder. We wonder.
Is the mark of Cain today, the police uniform, the badge,
and the riot gear? And just what do they protect? And whom do they serve? Those
who are captured by their own fears? Their own nakedness? Their own doubts? How
deep the source, how thick the wall that must be maintained at all costs – and
from the beginning to now, how do we reckon the price, the worth of a child of
God?
“I
imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because
they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” James Baldwin
For every
generation of those who are determined to hold on to something larger and
stronger than the dark abyss -- otherwise known as the Valley of the Shadow of
Death – there has been a song. The
assembly of those who crawled out of the cabins or who slipped away to the hush
harbors or who gathered in the yards and kitchens of the grief-stricken, told one
another to look for something to cling to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukYKKIvwjr0
And today,
in the language of the harrowed heart, some of the young are finding out the
wisdom of the people: find your song and
bring others within the sound of your voice to the truth you and they will
need.
This is one
voice -- among many others -- emerging from the silence after the whirlwind. And he
says it is “we” who sing.
J Cole: “LIFE HITS. We become
distracted. We become numb. I became numb. But not anymore. That coulda been
me, easily. It could have been my best friend. I’m tired of being desensitized
to the murder of black men. I don’t give a fuck if it’s by police or peers. This
shit is not normal.
I made a song. This is how we feel.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPzPqVqoYV8
Once a song
runs through the body, the spirit awakens.
