Five Minute Friday : Tell

photo : suzan mikiel
The Heavens tell the story – God you are Greater

Twice on Wednesday, I almost cried.
Imagined the salty taste of tears pooling in the corner of my eyes
Choked, a little, on the lump in my throat.

The first time it happened, my almost 4-year-old son wanted my help.  He loves the carousel but needs the extra support of my arms encircling him to really feel free. His perfect little boy body, his delight in the blue bird he’d chosen to ride…it was a simple mother and son moment. And just as the ride began, Katie Perry’s “Roar” on blast, I glanced out over the pier and watched the waves have their way with a few docked sailboats. Dark and thick, the Hudson River threatened to eat me alive.

If I didn’t pull myself together.

Later, I traced the tips of my fingers along the edge of the bench we sat on. I wondered if Hurricane Sandy was responsible for the water washed look of the wood. If it mirrored my fatigue. Lately I’ve felt so tired.

Maybe it’s the rivers fault. As much as I’ve loved having my coffee here for the past few days, the waters done a number on me. The ebb and flow of the tide rocks my emotions. Hormones fluctuate, answering the moons call. It’s healing and hydro therapeutic but it’s also nauseating. And, like I said, it brought me to tears. Almost.

I have to tell you something.

I wrote this a year ago….I wrote it in frustration. A call to the Christian community I know Gods placed me in to speak up…to acknowledge the death of a 17-year-old boy. At the time my Twitter and Facebook feeds made plain the troubled times we live in. The white Christian world on social media seemed to ignore the death of Trayvon Martin. It wasn’t happening in their world.

I was confused and heartbroken. Because I believe our Christianity demands we take part in these conversations. That we figure out a way to peacefully engage each other about what it’s like to live with the implied truths of a post racial society.

I have to tell you, racism is real.

I have to tell you my family lost a son like this, on the streets of Chicago. Over 35 years ago. Jo Lee was 16 and visiting from Alabama. Unarmed. He met the description of a robbery suspect in the area. Black male.

I have to tell you that I am the mother of 3 African-American sons. Each fits the description of America’s most wanted, the same description Jo Lee fit that night. Black male.

I have to tell you about that because you may not know the challenges black parents face, in raising sons. The stories we’re forced to telI. The fear, the prayers.

Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, yeah – Marvin Gaye

Can I tell you something? I don’t want to offend you. That’s why I haven’t written. I hurt a friend last year with online words and the friendship has not healed. I’m sorry for that. And I’m learning.

The tension is palpable. Right now it feels like we’re living in the Wild West. The Hatfields, the McCoys, the haves, the have-nots, the police dept, every black male in America. It’s a holy hot mess out here.
And I’m tired.

I wanted to write but I didn’t want to offend you. My truth is tangled with soul memories from darker days. Two skips and a hop back in time and I’d have been a slave, maybe your families domestic worker, your sons blacker berry. This ugly chapter is embedded in our American history. Our DNA. My story is not like yours. And I’m still unsure how to deliver the message …to tell the story, without hurting you.

But I want you to hear it. And I want to hear yours. I know, you’re hurt too. But we can’t heal what we don’t acknowledge as hurt. And the silence is deafening.

Now, baptized in spirit, because of Christ alone – we’re walking toward each other. Slowly. So slowly.

And I don’t want to write about it, but I BELEIVE as Christians, we’re called to tell the stories. To go there for social justice. Because it’s true.

No Justice. No Peace.

And never more so than shown by the tear bombs and wooden pellets unleashed on law-abiding citizens standing peacefully in protest of a community member shot and left for dead in the middle of the street. It’s devastating and disgusting. The images of snipers positioned on rooftops to shoot civilians gives me nightmares. Has Ferguson turned into a police state?

I don’t want to carry these stories alone. I won’t be the midwife of all this pain, the treasurer of all these tears. We can’t only “go there”, when it’s convenient.  We have to do the work even if we’re tired. Even when we’re scared. We have to do better. We have to be about, be FOR, reconciliation – every day.

It’s been a year.

I wondered why you didn’t write about it. Why you chose not to share this burden. Tell your story. And perhaps wrongly assumed your apathy.

I view every incident like this from a racially charged filter. I do. Black men have the monopoly on unarmed civilian murder by an officer of the law. It’s a fact. As a Christian, I look to my community to share the burden, the questions surrounding racism in America and how we can move forward. I’m trying to navigate this without being written off as another angry black woman. And I don’t want to be quietly spiritually shunned from all the online communities I love, for saying what you have to already know.

I don’t have to tell you, do I? – Racism is real.

And my shoulders are heavy and hunched over from too many days spent feeling closed in on myself and you and God because silence isn’t always peaceful. And I should have peace. Shouldn’t I? And now it’s morphing into frustration and anger and holy hot tears because I feel helpless and a centuries old fatigue has crept under my skin and if I didn’t know better I’d say I’m being haunted. By Trayvon, and Jordan and Mike and my uncle, Jo Lee.

My quiet isn’t peaceful. My quiet is not surrender. My quiet is tension filled, the calm before the storm, the lone cry of a lark ascending, a hawk circling.  I stayed silent, singing softly in my head – out of feigned obedience.

God you are greater, greater…

I sang softly, swaying back and forth wringing my hands. Eyes closed. And at the chorus I let my voice rise and screamed

“took the keys from death and hell.”

and felt my spirit release, freed from a quiet that was killing me. Because I knew God wasn’t upset with me for being angry. And He hadn’t asked me to be quiet. He took those keys with Holy Spirit force. Sometimes that’s what it takes.

Please understand.

Being Christian doesn’t exclude us from the conversation. We have to speak up. To be clear, I understand we aren’t all called to every conversation and maybe you won’t write about it, but standing in solidarity with a hashtag or sharing posts you’ve read that resonate with the spirit of Christ and reconciliation could be a beginning.

And then the stories trickled in…

And a year later, my thanks to Esther Marie Emery, Sarah Bessey, Preston Yancey, Adriel Booker, Kathi Denfeld, Marcy Hanson, Beth Morey, Abby Norman, Kelly Greer, and Kris Camealy and others for writing, reading and being present with snippets of conversation as we all strive for peace.

We’re all quick to highlight each other’s short comings. Today I want to say I’m happy for the heart connections, steadily taking root, binding us in the real life work of reconciliation. We’re doing it. It’s slow, it’s hard but we’re doing it. We’re “going there”.

Today I watched the waves respond rhythmically to earths gravitational pull and I felt the omnipresence of an all-powerful God anchoring me.  I’m not afraid of going under. Today I’ll ride the wave.

#TrayvonMartin #wakeupchurch #goingthere #ayearlater #MikeBrown

History despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived but, if faced with courage, need not be lived again. – Maya Angelou

an offering to the community at Five Minute Friday