Learning to lament

I’ve been sitting with the heaviness of what’s happening in DeKalb County, Georgia and considering how best to use my modest platform for good. I don’t have all the answers and I certainly don’t do everything right, but I can pull back the curtain on my thinking and share the teachings that help me.

First and unequivocally, Black lives matter.

I’m finding focus in the butterfly model of transformative justice, which needs 4 wings to take flight: resisters, reformers, builders, and healers. Where do you see yourself on this map today? It can change with time. (I’m a healer.)

Soul Fire Farm co-founder Leah “Penniman described the four wings: Resisters: the people in the blockades, the protests, the work stoppages; Reformers: the folks trying to make change from within systems, including schoolteachers and elected officials, like those getting into the prosecutor’s office and working to get sentences lowered; Builders: those who create alternative institutions such as freedom schools, farms, and health clinics; and Healers: the conflict mediators, the therapists, the preachers, the singers, the dancers, the artists—’all the folks that are gonna make us well,’ she said.”

To assist my moral imagination, I just read Nic Stone’s YA (young adult) novel Dear Martin, at the suggestion of my 14yo son. This book puts readers in the shoes of a Black high school senior in Atlanta as he endures police violence, navigates privileged enclaves, falls in love, and seeks to understand and apply MLK’s philosophy. YA also bestows the wonderful gift of reminding us what it felt like to be young.

In addition, I hear Sarah Bessey’s call to “obey the sadness” and “learn to lament”:

“I am learning to lament, to mourn, to weep with those who weep, to take our shared sadness and bewilderment into my own soul too. It’s okay to feel it. It’s okay and it’s necessary, it’s holy and good work. We need to listen to the stories that make us uncomfortable and challenge our peace…I hold space for the righteous anger and the grief. I join in the lamentations of the weary world. And then I will seek ways to embody those very prayers.” (p190)

Likewise, I’m taking to heart Nadia Bolz-Weber’s humbling message that we lack critical, transformative information:

“None of the information reported in the media about these killings [arrests, actions, crimes, battles, bombs, shootings, etc…] tells us much about the human hearts that are destroyed now as a result.”

I’m also listening to Bob Marley’s “War” with new ears, hearing no call to violence—only lamentation.

I had a similar wake-up several years ago with the song “I Shot the Sheriff” (reposted below). I had listened too long with ears steeped in a culture of white supremacy, missing the deeper meaning.

Thankfully, the truer music is finally hitting—and that demonstrates another bit of Marley’s wisdom: Music has special magic to work nonviolent change.

“One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain…So hit me with music…brutalize me with music.” —“Trenchtown Rock”

Finally, a classic: love your neighbors. Many faiths teach this north star. In practice, it keeps us on a path facing systems, not people, with our frustration, anger, and energy for change. Like any good life-affirming maxim, it is both profoundly simple and easier said than done. I’m trying. We’re trying.

We’re all in this together, neighbors, learning as we go.

Peace.

The post below first appeared on my blog in 2017. The list of names, horrifically, grows longer and longer . We must continue to say every name.

I've been searching for something to say about #philandocastile that might honor his life, cry foul at his death, and somehow bridge the ugly partisan lines we've drawn between ourselves on this subject. (Those lines, as I'm sure you know, will never map neatly onto the core issues of justice and love.)

Anyhow, I'm at a loss for the right words, so I'm going amplify a song of freedom from Bob Marley. "I Shot the Sheriff" has been on my mind all day. I heard it earlier, for the first time in a while, and in a sense for the first time ever.

"Sheriff John Brown always hated me
For what I don't know
Every time that I plant a seed
He said, "Kill it before it grows"
He said, "Kill it before it grows", I say
I shot the sheriff, but I swear it was in self-defense..."

If you poke around, you'll see that folks don't agree on what these lyrics mean. But today, to my ear, they issue a cry for justice in a corrupt system that ultimately harms both the victim and the perpetrator. They admonish us by invoking a Black man's need for self defense against those who are sworn to protect him. And they convey his anguish.

I hope you can hear it.

"Freedom came my way one day
And I started out of town
All of a sudden I see sheriff John Brown
Aiming to shoot me down."

Philando Castile.

Terence Crutcher.

Sandra Bland.

Eric Garner.

Mike Brown.

Rekia Boyd.

Sean Bell.

Tamir Rice.

Freddie Gray.

Danroy Henry.