What is happening in our nation feels as surreal as these past two months living in quarantine have felt. There is so much hatred. So much anger. So much hurt.
I know I won’t ever understand it fully, but nevertheless my heart aches. My desire for wrongs to be righted burns.
When I try to comprehend this, when I say to myself, what do I know (in a personal way) that is like this? I immediately think of another minority group who has experienced the same treatment. I think of the special needs community. I think of Jonathan. I think of the countless stories I have heard of someone with Down syndrome or autism being hurt or killed simply because they couldn’t communicate or they were misunderstood by police. And when I allow my mind to go there, my heart is even more burdened and my mind thick with a haze of emotion. Because this is my closest way of having all this hit home for me. When I remember the why’s of the ways my family and I watch over Jonathan, never letting him too far from sight, never letting him go places alone, knowing the possibility that he could be misunderstood or mistreated if the wrong person came upon him, I know I am only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to relating with what is happening to black lives in our country by people who are meant to protect them.
I hesitate to share these things, for fear of someone misconstruing my words, but the alternative is saying nothing. I am torn up inside when I think of hate, when I think of any person being wrongly treated for their skin color or any aspect about them which makes them ‘different’. But just feeling this way isn’t enough.
Yet even with all this, the feeling of ‘it can’t happen here’ constantly threatens me, though I know ‘it can’t happen here’ is a delusion. Because it is. It is already happening here. It is happening in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is happening in New York City. It is happening in Glynn County, Georgia. It is happening in Fort Worth, Texas. It is happening in Sacramento, California. It is happening in Detroit, Michigan. It is happening in Sanford, Florida. It is happening in Miami, Florida. It is happening in Frederick County, Maryland.
Something needs to be done, but I don’t know what and that is what frightens me the most.
Sometimes I think our freedom of speech has misguided us as Americans. We think because we can speak, we should, disregarding the need to consider each and every word we speak and how it might impact others.
My goal is to guard my words, choosing to listen above rushing to speak; and I plead with you to do the same. To check each and every sentence you speak or type against the words of honorable others who have done the same and against some of the soundest wisdom available to us:
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about* such things.
*And speak!
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