An Answer to Prayer

Alton Sterling was shot, and I shook my head. I’m not ready for this right now. Philando Castile was shot, and I broke. I’m not exactly in touch with my emotions, but even I broke down three times that morning. The great Nikole Hannah-Jones captures that hollow feeling perfectly. I prepared to face the predictable script. Release any prior criminal history of the deceased. Ask public to “wait for facts” before releasing anything on police. Wait for explanation about how shooting is their fault. Be told I’m anti-police because I want accountability. Fit “black on black crime” in there somewhere.

Surprisingly, the narrative zigged when I believed it would zag. Lots of support from white and non-white people alike. We might do this, guys. We could make it.

Then Micah Johnson unleashed himself on Dallas Police, and that brief hope fled. Again, reading from the script: People declaring widespread war on cops. Blaming protestors. Black Lives Matters wants dead cops.

Even that response was muted. Instead, many of us sat together in grief. We mourned the unnecessary loss of life. We sent our thoughts. We sent our prayers.

I wrestled with how I should respond to that week. I considered a scathing diatribe, Beyoncé-with-a bat, gleeful, calling out hypocrisy. Maybe some righteous anger, calling down thunder, scorching traditional rhetoric. It was time to strike.

However, through the prayers showed strained emotions, people completely at a loss about how to deal with these events. Exasperation was the subtext. Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness clustered behind those prayers.

Prayers. We’ve gotten pretty good at sending them. We sent them to Orlando. We’ve sent them to France, twice, recently. But what are we praying for? Are we only praying for the violence to stop? If so, I submit we’re missing the mark. These shootings are horrific, but they are the strange fruit of a poisoned tree that is centuries old. To expect it to produce different, good fruit could only be done through a literal miracle. But, with a shovel and some work, that tree can be excised without supernatural intervention.

Could it be that you are the answer to your own thoughts and prayers?

Structures must change. Institutions must be reborn. Foundations must be rebuilt if we ever hope to find any measure of respite from these events. Technology has rendered them unavoidable.

A letter, written by clergy, to MLK opened: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” He responds to this letter as he begins to speak out against the Vietnam war (the full speech can be read here and is worth your time). He responded:

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.

Prayer is great, but what is your response? Simply waiting until the next tragedy to offer prayers is worthless. Pleas to “be better” are cast into the void if we do not act. If we believe there is injustice occurring and do not move to help, we are complicit in these treacherous acts.

Do you participate in your local government? Do you participate in community organizations that assist under-served populations? Do you speak up against systemic and overt racism? This poisoned tree has roots that extend to our country’s founding and down through human history. From noted philosopher Maximus Decimus, “The time for half measures and talk is over.”

It’s time to say something. It’s time to take action because for many the grief does not cease when they close the Facebook tab. Find a place to plug in that will make a difference. It won’t be perfect. I won’t be perfect, but that’s okay.

By all means, pray. But do something.