I have moved from “numb” to “listening.” Since George Floyd was murdered, protests began and our racism has fully been exposed, I realize that listening to each other’s stories and listening to our hearts is the only way we can restore our humanity as a nation.
As the social distancing, sheltering in place, and wearing masks became the norm I encouraged us all to keep a journal. Write down the lessons that life is sending our way during these times. There are lots of lessons here. I have kept a spiritual journal since my high school days when I was a member of the “St. Dominic Savio Club.” All of us were encouraged to keep a spiritual journal and record our “moment closest to Christ.”
I returned to my journal of 1968 when I was a junior at Bartlett High. I went to what I had written when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April and when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June. I was amazed at how tragic those events were and impacted my life as a high school junior. Listening was important then as it is now, and I had people who encouraged me to listen and write.
NPR has allowed us to hear the stories of those in the throws of events happening around us. Listening to those stories is restoring my faith and helping me to hope that there will be leaders who will help us get back on our feet. I needed to listen to the response of Episcopal Bishop Mariam Buddle regarding the experience at St. John’s Church in DC. How important to listen to impassioned speeches like Atlanta’s Mayor Keisln Lance Bottoms as a black mother of four. I will never know what it is like to be Black in America, but I must, we must listen to their voices and only then can we restore humanity as a nation. It is imperative that I write down the lessons that I am learning at this time, and become part of the solution, not the problem. Why? Because Jesus reminds us that what we do for our brothers and sisters we do to him!
Several have mentioned they too are “numb.” There are lots of for us at this time if we can remind ourselves to “listen” and record, “remember” not dis-member. Let’s do this for ourselves, each other, our black brothers and sisters; our nation.