Although you are reading this post on or after Good Friday, I am writing it following the news a mass shooting in Virginia Beach. And this mass shooting is just a few days after another senseless act of violence in Boulder, Colorado. And that shooting in Boulder occurred a short while after a killing spree in Atlanta, Georgia. And I read, follow, meditate on this news as more and more stories are elevated about Black women and men denied access to their own money at their banking center and being on the receiving end of racists rants due to mask-wearing noncompliance. And Black children violated and victimized in school, at sleepovers, and on their jobs. My heart grieves. My eyes well up with tears. I feel heavy. I try to shake the pain. It isn’t working.
So I write.
I write because it helps heal my soul. I write because it is my contribution to ongoing and necessary conversations about justice and equity and peace and love. I write because it is my source of refuge. I write because I know it is one of the many gifts God has bestowed upon me to help shine light in the world. I keep writing.
I keep writing and I affirm this work – this writing – is the work of Christ. I keep writing because justice work is ALSO the work of Jesus. Jesus sat with the marginalized. Jesus loved those living in the margins. Jesus cared for and cares for the disinherited.
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. (Matthew 23:23-24, NIV)
As I lean into the work my soul must have (Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon) – the work I believe we are all called to do, I also ask of you … where were you and what did you do? When you read the stories, heard the news, attended the virtual panel, where were you? Where was your heart?
Where were you? What did you do?
Rev. Dr. Teresa Fry Brown. Rev. Dr. Courtney V. Buggs. Dr. Howard John Wesley. Tiffany Dalton. Brittney Packnett Cunningham. Black Lives Matter. Stop Asian Hate. Stacey Abrams. Kamala Harris and Colin Kaepernick. I can’t breathe by HER. Rev Dr. William Barber II. NAACP. Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Nikki Giovanni and Tracee Ellis Ross. Elizabeth Andrews. Dr. Tiffany Lane. Dr. Teddy Burgh.
What were you doing? What were you preaching? What were you proclaiming? How were you speaking?
Where were you serving? Where were you teaching? What did you receive? How were you reaching?
What did you yell? How did you tell? Where did you pray? And again, what did you say?
What did you learn? How did you grow? With whom did you share all that you know?
What were you doing when our country was facing a great reckoning? Did you bow? Did you break? Did you seek to reconcile? Did you hope to mend?
Where were YOU when it was all going down? And will you look back at this time … and hear well done … with a calm spirit, consoled heart and peace of mind.
60 years from now someone will tell the story. And they will ask where were you and what did you do? What WILL you do? Where will you go? Who will you tell? How have you and will you contribute to healing our world?
Where were you and what did you do?
Because this too is the work of Jesus …