A Voice In Ramah

Every time I visit the Children’s Defense Fund’s Alex Haley Farm in Clinton, Tennessee I am stopped in my tracks by this image.  I’ve been visiting the farm for years for spiritual retreats and children’s movement trainings.  But it doesn’t matter how many times I have seen this image, as I walk up the steps of The Lodge on the Farm I am never prepared for the way my heart falls into my stomach at the sight of these little rocking chairs. I am stopped in my tracks.  I am moved to tears. I am always angry.

These four little rocking chairs were installed in memory of the four little girls who were in Sunday School studying a lesson entitled, “The Love That Forgives” when their Alabama church was bombed on September 15, 1963 at 10:25 am on that Sunday morning.  Killed in the blast were 11 year-old Denise McNair, 14 year-old Cynthia Wesley, 14 year-old Addie May Collins and, 14 year-old Carol Robertson.

I know that I will end up in tears at the sight of these chairs, but I make my way toward them anyway.  I do so, for the memory of these children, and with the knowledge of another reality that is a bit more difficult, maybe, to represent or bear.  One the same day that these four little girls were killed, two other children were also killed.

Johnny Robinson was 16 years old. He was shot in the back by police as he threw rocks at the cars full of white youths whose response to the murder of the little girls was to ride through their traumatized town waving Confederate battle flags. I walk toward these chairs because Johnny’s grieving rock-throwing was considered a crime; but, Confederate flag bearing terrorism is still acceptable.   Virgil Wade was 13 years old. He was shot outside of Birmingham while riding his bicycle. The only explanation the Jefferson County Sheriff had for his murder was, “no reason at all, but general racial disorders.” (a summation of the quote in the New York Times article on these murders dated September 15, 1963.)

I’m stopped in my tracks because we still live in a country that does not honor or prioritize the lives of Black children.  These Black lives mean nothing beyond the day rate paid to cover the salaries of the compromised who are employed by youth jails, private prisons and too many charter schools companies.

Black girls in a Sunday School class – learning what generations of Black women and girls learned before them from the church:  forgive.  They meant nothing to white supremacy.

A grieving and angry black boy hurling rocks at those who would celebrate his community’s terrorization. No sympathy for him.  No grief counselors. Always bullets.

A black child riding his bike miles away from the violence.  No explanation for his erasure from the earth beyond “general racial disorders.”

Fifty-four years after this Baptist church was bombed, these black girls were killed and these black boys were erased (rarely do we remember them), we are still unable to protect Black children, to understand the grief and trauma they bear, or to get answers for the ways their lives are erased and explained away under reports of collateral damage.

I am taking a huge liberty in my prayer this morning. With full appreciation of Langston Hughes’ prophetic words in his poem  “Kids Who Die” written in 1938 to a nation hell-bent on killing black children, I’m changing one word as an angry, pissed-off plea in 2017 unto the God who surely sees it all.

Wake up, get up, God.  See that your children [live].

“Kids will [live] in the swamps of Mississippi organizing sharecroppers.

Kids will [live] in the streets of Chicago organizing workers.

Kids will [live] in the orange groves of California telling others to get together.

Whites and Filipinos, Negroes and Mexicans,

All kinds of kids will [live] who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment and a lousy peace.

Get up, God. Come see about Your children!

Or in the sentiment of Psalm 44: 23 – 26 (The Message)

“Get up God! Are you going to sleep all day?

Wake up! Don’t you care what happens to us?

Whey do you bury your face in the pillow?

Why pretend things are just fine with us?

And here we are – flat on our faces,

held down with a boot on our necks.

Get up and come to our rescue.

If you love us so much, “help us!”

Amen.

Family: Chicago teen found dead in Rosemont hotel freezer – Chicago Tribune

““I did not raise you to cry,” my father would say when I fell off my bike, as he poured rubbing alcohol on my bloody 6-year-old knees. Not hydrogen peroxide — alcohol. Whenever I cried, which was usually when I did not get an A on a math test or saw a lost-dog poster or read about Anne Frank, my parents, immigrants from Ecuador, handed me a mirror to observe myself. They wanted to desensitize me to my own tears, to line my small heart with bulletproof glass, even if doing so meant making me hate my own weakness.”

From Robin Meyer’s UNDERGROUND CHURCH:
Heaven’s Imperial rule is like leaven that a woman took and concealed in three measures of flour until it was all leavened. —MATTHEW 13:33 (KJV)

“Not only do we live in the Empire. The Empire lives in us. … But in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, our Teacher and Lord, we do not have to obey the Empire. We do not have to cower before it, or subsidize it, or be its compliant acolyte. We can be like leaven in the imperial loaf, working on behalf of an unclean God until there is enough bread corrupted by love to feed everyone at the messianic banquet. It will be messy affair, with open seating and no head table.”

“Instead of passing one more resolution about the importance of feeding the hungry, we can simply resolve to actually feed them—and then resolutely go about doing so. We can refuse to give up on the lost; we can forgive those who have wronged us; we can reject violence in all of its guises. We can refuse to participate in the glamorizing of war and tell the gospel truth: war is sin. It is the greatest failure of the human species. Baptism once meant a rejection of all violence. What would happen today if we raised more conscientious objectors in our churches than soldiers? We can boycott products that hurt workers or children or this earthly garden that has been given to us. Those of us who have more than we need will share out of our excess with those who have less than they need. We will not participate in making a scapegoat of our Hispanic sisters and brothers, and we will make arrangements ahead of time to hide an innocent Muslim family should another major terrorist attack occur. We promise God and one another that we will find ways to withdraw our cooperation from all systems that deal death and diminish dignity.”

“We will begin by admitting that the most powerful way to get the attention of the Empire is not to fund it. Every time we buy something, we make a statement about what we truly value. Every communion table should be open, and all human beings should be welcomed as children of God. Loyalty to a new ethic, The Way of Jesus, will be our only creed. And worship will be as diverse as the human family. We will stop fighting over music in the church long enough to remember that without it, in all its magnificent variety, many of us would not believe in God. ”

“Instead of pretending to know everything, we will admit that the older we get the less we know, so that we will not confuse faith with certainty or knowledge with redemption. We will seek to live comfortably inside our own skins and in harmony with a beleaguered planet. We will regard the final act of grace to be that which makes a person gracious. Love of God and neighbor will be more important than arguments over the virgin birth or endless enterprising calculations about the end times. We will build communities in which no one can be denied access to an experience of the divine.”

” The final act of love will be to love even the unlovable. We will do strange and wonderful things that make no sense to anyone and then we will smile when someone wonders why improbably wonderful things keep happening to us. Can we do this? Yes we can. We can do it because it has already been done for us. We don’t have to make it up. We just have to turn it loose. Heaven’s imperial rule is like leaven that a woman took and concealed in three measures of flour until it was all leavened. Let the corruption begin.”

The Underground Church, by R. Myers

“‪I’ve been firing up a long time for my journey, but now I’m almost home. God has shown me the Golden Chariot. Arouse, awake, sleep no more; Jesus does all things well.” After a moment’s hesitation, she continued: “Tell the women to stand together, for God will never forsake us.”
Harriet Tubman, reported by Mrs. Mary B. Talbert, president of the Empire State Federation and the National Association of Colored Women. February 26, 1913

(New York Age, 27 Feb 1913, Thu)

*****

“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.” Harriet Tubman at a suffrage convention, NY, 1896.

******

“I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.” Harriet Tubman to Sarah Bradford in Harriet, The Moses of Her People 1886

*******

“…there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland, because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. But I was free, and they should be free.” Harriet Tubman to Sarah Bradford in Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1868

******+

“Slavery is the next thing to hell.” Harriet Tubman to Benjamin Drew, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 1855

******

“I grew up like a neglected weed, – ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Then I was not happy or contented.” Harriet Tubman to Benjamin Drew, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 1855

*******

“..and I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.” Tubman to Ednah Dow Cheney, SC, 1865

*******

“God’s time [Emancipation]is always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free.” Harriet Tubman to Ednah Dow Cheney, New York City, circa 1859.

From Pastor Brown via my friend Robina Winbush….

A Prayer for Mother’s Day
Eternal God, on this day we lift up mothers to you.

You, O Lord, are the one “who, from our mothers’ arms, hath blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.” Scripture has prepared us to recognize that by your grace, mothering takes many forms. We pray for mothers around us . . .

. . . For those who, like Jesus’ mother, Mary, have been surprised by the unexpected responsibility of parenting. Remind us not so much of the circumstance through which children come into the world, but that they are always a gift from you. Help us to always see your image in them.

. . . We pray for those who, like Naomi, find themselves parenting someone outside the predictable patterns of mothering. Bless this day all grandparents, aunts, foster parents, adoptive parents, and kindly people who care for children.

. . . And we give thanks for those like Ruth who become caregivers for their elders. Because the generations that need to be mothered and the seasons of our lives can change, we sometimes find ourselves mothering those who have even forgotten who we are. We take strength in knowing that you remember their identity when they no longer do. Grant courage and strength to all those who provide care in your name.

. . . We pray for those who, like Hannah, have struggled with the task of letting go of a child. Teach us to support our children, even when the calling of their hearts does not meet our greatest hope for them.

. . . We pray for those like Mary or Rachel who have known the deepest agony of a child’s death. Remind them again that nothing can separate their child from your certain love. Give strength and peace to those who mourn and those who cannot stop mourning.

. . . Despite our best efforts, families are breeched and broken by death, disaster, or disagreement. Help us, like Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, to regroup our families in confident hope that in due season wounds shall be healed and oneness restored.

. . . On this day we set aside to remember mothering, we also call to mind those men who are called to the vocation of mothering, those who, in the absence of another, seek the heart of a Mary or a Rachel. Let us renew our commitment to uphold them this day.

Loving God, the bond between parent and child can be the most intimate and nurturing of our lives. When this is our experience it is indeed a foretaste of your realm. To remember mothers on one day is not enough. So, fashion in us a people who pray, work, laugh, and weep with mothers and children in whatever circumstance best reflects your own great love. For this we seek your grace and presence. Amen.

I believe in God

who created the world not ready made

like a thing that must forever stay what it is

who does not govern according to eternal laws

that have perpetual validity

nor according to natural orders of poor and rich,

expert and ignoramuses,

people who dominate and people subjugated.

I believe in God

who desires the counter-argument of the living

and the alteration of every condition

through our work,

through our politics.

I believe in Jesus Christ

Who was right when he

“as an individual who can’t do anything” just like us

Worked to alter every condition

and came to grief in so doing.

Looking to him I discern

how our intelligence is crippled,

our imagination suffocates

and our exertion is in vain

because we do not live as he did.

Every day I am afraid that he died for nothing

because he is buried in our churches,

because we have betrayed his revolution

in our obedience to fear and authorities.

I believe in Jesus Christ

who is resurrected into our life

so that we shall be free

from prejudice and presumptuousness

from fear and hate

and push this revolution onward

toward his reign.

I believe in the Spirit

who came into the world with Jesus,

in the communion of all peoples

and our responsibility for what will become of the earth:

a valley of tears, hunger, and violence – or the city of God.

I believe in the just peace that can be created,

in the possibility of meaningful life for all humankind

in the future of this world of God.

Amen

Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s child-focused capital punishment policies drawn up to erase the threatened rise of a new kingdom…and a new king.

Awakened by a dream (which had to be the kind of nightmare that sits on your chest like a ton of bricks, insisting you wake up just so you can breath), Joseph did what people have done in places where terror reigns. He gathered up his family and ran away from home. The story goes that This family that we smile adoringly at when they are posed in Nativity scenes experienced the frightening prospect of a violence they did not cause – and they found refuge in Egypt.

Refuge in Egypt.

Warsan Shire’s poem entitled “Home” captures the terror of what it means to leave your familiar, running with all you have for your life.

May all who are running from the terror in their familiarity find blessed refuge. May all who stand on the shores of “safe places”…just move one step over to the left and make room for God.

Home

by Warsan Shire

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here