This morning, I prayed a prayer of lament. Lament was the only prayer in my spirit. It is difficult to express the deep sorrow I felt yesterday when I learned that no charges were brought against the police who shot six bullets into Breonna Taylorâs body.
Shortly after midnight on March 13, 2020, Louisville police officers used a battering ram to enter the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who had dreams of a bright career ahead. She and her boyfriend had settled in to watch a movie in her bedroom on that tragic night. Police came to her door and minutes later, she was fatally shot. Her death sparked months of protests in Louisville.
Yesterday, six months after the fatal shooting â six bullets â a grand jury indicted a former Louisville police officer on Wednesday for wanton endangerment for his actions during the raid. A grand jury delivered the long-awaited answer about whether the officers would be punished. No charges were announced against the other two officers who fired shots, and no one was charged for causing Breonna Taylorâs death.
For me, there was only lament. I imagine that for Breonnaâs family, there was the deepest kind of lament. For her mother, lament was the only response she could express as she wept uncontrollably. And, even for the protesters who filled the streets, I believe there was lament.Â
Theologian Soong-Chan Rah explains in his book, Prophetic Lament, that in the Bible lament is âa liturgical response to the reality of suffering and engages God in the context of pain and suffering.â He goes on to say that it is a way to âexpress indignation and even outrage about the experience of suffering.â Racism has inflicted incalculable suffering on black people throughout the history of the United States, and in such a context, lament is not only understandable but necessary.
Perhaps white Christians and all people of faith have an opportunity to mourn with those who mourn and to help bear the burden that racism has heaped on black people. (Romans 12:15) Â Â â Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise
In the end, many people see only the rage, anger, impatience, violence of the protesters. Can we also see their lament for Breonna, as well as for centuries of racially motivated murder â beatings, burnings, lynchings and murder committed by police officers?Â
People of faith â white people of faith â will we try to understand the rage of our black and brown sisters and brothers? Will we join them in righteous anger? Will we mourn with them? Will we lament when lament fills their souls and overflows in cries for justice?
We must, in the name of our God who created every person in Godâs own image!
Last night, I heard an interview with Brittany Packnett Cunningham on MSNBC. Her words were eloquent pleas for justice. She spoke about how persistent and all-encompassing racism is in our country and about the murders and the protests and the political rancor that fuels it. She acknowledged racismâs strong, unrelenting hold on this nation, a hold that is virtually impossible to break. And she said something I have said for a long time, âRacism cannot be reformed. It must be transformed.â
To me that means a transformation of the heart and soul that compels each of us to lament, to comfort, to speak truth in governmentâs halls of power, to stand openly against any form of racial injustice.
May God make it so.
Will you pray this prayer of lament with me?
O God, who heals our brokenness, Receive our cries of lament and teach us how to mourn with those who mourn. Receive even our angry lament and transform our anger into righteous action. Hear the anguish of every mother assaulted by violence against her child. Hear the angry shouts of young people as shouts of frustration, fear and despair. Grant us the courage to persist in shouting out your demand for justice, for as long as it takes. When deepest suffering causes us to lament, grant us Spirit wind and help us soar. If we resist your call for justice, compel us to holy action. May our soulâs lament stir us to transform injustice, in every place, for every person, whenever racism threatens, for this is your will and our holy mission. Amen.
A blending of two photos: One is an image of protesters in Minneapolis. The second image is a portrayal of people raising their hands to celebrate Pentecost.
This morning I have no words. I have tears. I have sadness. I even have some anger that the people I love whose skin is not âwhiteâ are living in grief and frustration. I say only that injustice and oppression cling so close to my friends, today and in centuries past.
I hear my dear friends cry out for justice. I hear them using words to make sense of it all, and I hear their voices fall silent. Silent, with just these words, âIâm tired.â A dear friend posted the words on the left this morning. I want to see her face to face. I want to be together. I want to comfort her, hoping beyond hope that it is not too late for comfort.
I read this horrific headline this morning.
Prosecutors in Hennepin County, Minnesota, say evidence shows Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for a total of 8 minutes and 46 seconds, including two minutes and 53 seconds of which Floyd was non-responsive. Â â ABC News
Artists honor George Floyd by painting a mural in Minneapolis on Thursday, May 28, 2020. Artists began work on the mural that morning. (Photo: Jacqueline Devine/Sun-News)
Today I find myself deeply in mourning for the violence that happens in our country. I find myself trying to share in the grief of my friend and knowing I cannot fully feel the depth of it. Today I find myself unable to emotionally move away from it all. Today I contemplate George Floydâs cry, âI canât breathe.â
If there is any comfort at all, it comes as a gift of the artists pictured here. In an act of caring, they offer this mural at a memorial for George Floyd.
The names of other victims of violence are painted in the background. The words, âI canât breathe!â will remain in our memories. Today we are together in mourning.
But tomorrow, I will celebrate Pentecost. I wonder how to celebrate in a time when lamentation feels more appropriate. I wonder how to celebrate when brothers and sisters have died violent deaths and when thousands of protesters line the streets of many U.S. cities. I wonder how to celebrate when protesters are obviously exposing themselves to COVID19.
Still, tomorrow â even in such a time as this â I will celebrate the breath of the Spirit. Tomorrow I will join the celebration that has something to do with being together, being one. To juxtapose the joyous celebration of Pentecost with the horrible picture of what we saw in cities throughout our country for the past few nights seems an impossible undertaking. What does one have to do with the other?
Perhaps they do share a common message. From those who protest, this message:
âWe bring our broken hearts and our anger for the killing of our people, for the murders across the ages of people who are not like you. You treat us differently than you treat the people who look like you. For as long as we can remember, you have visited upon us oppression, slavery, racist violence, injustice. And we are tired. We are spent. We are beside ourselves with collective mourning. We canât breathe!â
From those who celebrate Pentecost, this message:
âHow we celebrate the day when the Holy Spirit breathed upon those gathered together, with gifts of wind and fire!
How we celebrate the story told in the 2nd chapter of Acts!â
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.Utterly amazed, they asked: âArenât all these who are speaking Galileans?Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabsâwe hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!â Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, âWhat does this mean?â
Some, however, made fun of them and said, âThey have had too much wine.â
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: âFellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.These people are not drunk, as you suppose. Itâs only nine in the morning!No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
ââIn the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, last days, God says,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.ââ Â â Acts 2:1-18 NIV
The people did not, in fact, have too much wine. Peter made it clear that wine did not empower the people who gathered in Jerusalem â Â âevery people under heavenâ â to speak and understand as they heard every word spoken in their own language. That would be a start, would it not, if we could speak the same language and truly understand â people who have flesh-colored skin, and brown and bronze, and red and black . . . every skin color under the sun. If only we could understand each other.
And then, what if we could gather together, welcoming every person? What if we could truly gather together and wait for Spirit to fall upon us with empowerment like we have never known before? What if we allowed the Spirit to give us breath, together?
In the end, there is a tiny bit of joy in George Floydâs tragic story. It is a joy much deeper than realityâs sorrow. The artists completed their mural, and in the very center near the bottom, they had painted words that express the greatest truth of all.
Can you see it behind the little girl? âI can breathe now!â
What if we welcome Spirit Breath that will change us? What if we embrace empowerment from the Holy Spirit to help us change our world? What if we end oppression and injustice, together? What if holy perseverance could inspire us to live and act in solidarity with our sisters and brothers, all of them?
What if we dare to give our soulâs very breath to help bring about Beloved Community, together?
Together! Together!
May my God â and the God of every other person â make it so. Amen.
I share this blog post today in memory of Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed in the state of Georgia, the state in which I live in full and free safety. Ahmaud Arbery did not know such safety. But today we say his name and honor his memory. There are so many names we could speak today: Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd. Breonna Taylor and hundreds more, even thousands. What can black parents possibly tell their kids now about staying safe? I also honor the parents who try to find the right words, the right admonitions to say to their children. Most of all, I honor the strong and powerful voices who continually cry out: âJustice!â My friend and pastor, Wendell Griffen, is one who cries âjusticeâ with a particular eloquence.
Wendell Griffen is a pastor, state court trial judge, and social justice activist in Little Rock, Arkansas who lectures and writes about social justice. I am pleased to share with you his most recent article. He will call you out. He will speak plainly to those of us who are white. He will call you to act against injustice, drawing your courage from God, who whose children are deeply loved â all of them!
For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
Hosea 8:7 (NRSV)
Have you viewed the ten minute and twelve second video of the May 25, 2020 killing of George Floyd by former members of the Minneapolis Police Department?
Why havenât you? What are you afraid you will see? What are you unwilling to see? What are you unwilling to admit?
Have the four now former members of the Minneapolis Police Department responsible for killing George Floyd in broad daylight before onlookers who also videotaped their conduct been arrested on suspicion of committing a homicide (causing the death of another person) of George Floyd?
Why havenât they been arrested? Why have they not been held in custody and required to post bond? Who decided they should not be arrested? What message was sent when they were not arrested?
The killing of George Floyd was a criminal act. There are witnesses to the act. The fact of Mr. Floydâs death is indisputable. Mr. Floyd was not threatening anyone â none of the officers nor anyone else â when he was killed. The actions of the officers were not taken or necessary to prevent him from threatening anyone.
In other words, there is no legal justification for the actions of the four former police officers who killed George Floyd.  None. Period. Full stop.
We should not be surprised that people around the world, including Minneapolis, are furious. George Floyd was slain by agents of the state. His killers are still at large. They have not been arrested. We should not be surprised that people in Minneapolis are outraged by statements on Thursday from local and federal prosecutors calling for âpatience.â Why should they be patient about deliberate refusals to arrest known homicide suspects? Why should they âtrustâ a âprocessâ that reeks with corruption and injustice?
We should not be surprised that people are outraged by the decision of the Minnesota Governor to mobilize the state militia â the Minnesota National Guard. Minneapolis is not under siege or being attacked. The âpeaceâ and âorderâ of the Minneapolis area is not threatened by the civilians who protested while four Minneapolis police officers killed Mr. Floyd. It is not threatened by Mr. Floydâs family members and friends. It is not threatened by the many people who took to the streets to protest his death and how local authorities refused to arrest his killers.
Do the Mayor of Minneapolis and Governor of Minnesota believe that it takes 500 National Guard soldiers to arrest four suspected killers?
And does anyone really believe that the fiery protests seen tonight would have happened if the four suspected killers had been already arrested?
Letâs talk plainly. George Floyd was killed. At minimum, he was recklessly killed. At worse, he was knowingly killed. In Minnesota and every other US jurisdiction, recklessly causing the death of another person is manslaughter. In Minnesota, state prosecutors can charge people who commit manslaughter without convening a grand jury.
Letâs talk plainly. In Minnesota and elsewhere in the United States, a person who cooperates with, assists, helps to conceal, or otherwise interferes with efforts to stop a homicide is liable for the homicide as an accomplice. Each of the officers involved in the homicide of George Floyd should have been arrested and charged days ago with manslaughter! The prosecutors can later seek grand jury indictments for murder if other evidence is uncovered.
Letâs talk plainly. The Minnesota Governor and Minneapolis Police Department, and the Hennepin County prosecutor are demonstrating their cultural incompetence. That incompetence is not merely personal. It is institutional, pervasive, pernicious, and infuriating!
The same cultural incompetence happened when Ahmaud Arbery was killed in Georgia.
The same cultural incompetence happened when Breonna Taylor was killed in Kentucky.
The same cultural incompetence happened when a white woman named Amy Cooper falsely accused a black man named Christian Cooper (no relationship) of threatening her life.
That cultural incompetence is not new.
The Louisville Police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in her home have not been arrested â yet!
The killers of Ahmaud Arbery were not arrested for months after he was attacked and slain. They were only arrested after (and because) a video was exposed that chronicled how he was killed and who killed him.
We should also demand that the former police officers involved in the Floyd matter be arrested immediately on suspicion of manslaughter. There is plainly probable cause for arresting the officer who held his knees on Floyd. However, there is also probable cause for arresting the other officers as accessories (accomplices) because of their active presence and complicity in the homicide (manslaughter).
Few statements to date have stressed this fundamental issue. Arrests do not need simultaneous charging actions. There is no need to await charges before each of the former officers who were involved in the homicide of George Floyd is arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. There is no requirement that the autopsy be completed before persons suspected of manslaughter are arrested. There is no requirement that ALL possible information be gathered before suspected killers are arrested.
Each former officer should be arrested on suspicion of having committed manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.
Prophetic people know that refusal to arrest of the former officers is a political statement by the Minneapolis Police Department. The Department has chosen to not arrest killers. That fact should be strongly proclaimed. Prosecutors do not arrest suspects. That is a policing decision, and the police have deliberately exercised their discretion to NOT arrest four homicide suspects.
Telling people to âtrust the processâ is infuriating when âthe processâ is openly working to perpetuate a blatant injustice.
Stop saying âyou feel the angerâ of people in Minneapolis, and especially âfeel the angerâ of black and brown people. No, you donât! You havenât suffered this mess. You havenât dealt with it every day and night.
You havenât seen people be called “lawless” for loudly protesting a homicide except when the victim is a person of color.
You donât âfeel our anger.â You may feel your own anger. Good. But donât claim that you âfeel our angerâ or âshare our anger.â You donât unless you have shared our pain, shared our discrimination, and shared the centuries of blatant state sanctioned slaughter of black and brown people by law enforcement officials. We know you donât feel and share our anger. Stop fooling yourselves and stop trying to fool us!
Black people are not fools. The U.S. Justice Department is headed by William Barr, the same person who decided that the United States would not charge Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who killed Eric Garner by choking him to death, with violating Garner’s civil rights.
We live with discrimination every day. We do not have to act like we like it. We do not have to put on a good face about it. And we will not do so. If you arenât comfortable with our anger and the way we express it, get out of the way. If you arenât turning over the institutions responsible for our anger and angry behavior, get out of the way.
As the prophet Hosea wrote concerning the ancient Hebrew nation of Israel, this society has always sown the wind of white supremacy with its tolerance of state-sponsored terrorism and slaughter of black, brown, red, yellow, and poor white people. People of color have long known that this society âshall reap the whirlwind.â
The whirlwind from the seeds of long pent-up outrage about systemic law enforcement abusive and homicidal conduct has arrived at the same time the nation and world are gripped by the global Covid 19 pandemic which highlights racial disparities in countless areas of life. The whirlwind from generations of corrupt and racist political leadership now has arrived when the US is led by a vicious idiot, despot, racist, and sociopath named Donald John Trump.
The whirlwind is here. The United States cannot, should not, and will not escape.
Amen, my brother. Yes, our country has reaped the whirlwind. We have reaped the whirlwind. Let us gather our resolve and look to our faith to guide us, and then let each of us work to break the bonds of injustice in whatever ways we are able. Today I committed to using my art and writing to portray the rise of white supremacy and the oppression of non-white persons. What gifts could you use to enter the struggle for justice? Can each of us work for justice with a sense of urgency?
May our God find us faithful to the creation of Beloved Community. Â Amen.
I hear my dear friends cry out for justice. I hear them using words to make sense of it all, and I hear their voices fall silent. Silent, with just these words, âIâm tired.â A dear friend posted the words on the left this morning. I want to see her face to face. I want to be together. I want to comfort her, hoping beyond hope that it is not too late for comfort.
âHow we celebrate the day when the Holy Spirit breathed upon those gathered together, with gifts of wind and fire!
In the end, there is a tiny bit of joy in George Floydâs tragic story. It is a joy much deeper than realityâs sorrow. The artists completed their mural, and in the very center near the bottom, they had painted words that express the greatest truth of all.
