Theological Reflections on Black Killings
Today my brother sent a message to our family Whatsapp group. It was titled “How to Protect Yourself in The Event of an Active Grocery Store shooting.” It was then that the grief hit me, pain that felt foreign because distraction had been a familiar friend. I heard the news this morning. On NPR’s Up First & The Daily podcasts. I heard details about a white supremacist shooter and a supermarket in a predominantly black area of Buffalo, New York. I listened to the hosts talk about motives and hate crimes and a conspiracy called “Replacement Theory.” I heard the names and identifiers of the people who had been murdered in cold blood. A former police officer, a grandmother of 8, a local Deacon. I listened to this, and then heard that in the 2 years since the pandemic started 1 million Americans have died from covid. I took in the reality that there are one million realities that no longer exist. One million parents, siblings, grandparents, neighbors, children, Uncles, Aunties, lovers, and friends that are gone….and I continued my commute to work- unmoved, unbothered, unshaken. My body habitually numbed my heart and mind in self defense. After all, who has the time or energy to grieve every loss or mourn for every tragedy? But then my brother sent my family a video on how to protect ourselves in case a white supremacist tries to interrupt our peaceful existence will bullets filled with fear and coated in cowardice and the ground shifted under me. I was moved. I was bothered. I was shaken. The pain finally slipped through the cracks of its compartment and broke through the protective dam of my emotions. I wept with tears that drowned my defenses in a flood of sorrow.
The anguish was unmistakable but I felt like I was weeping borrowed tears. I am not mother, sister, daughter, lover, or friend to those lost. By the grace of God I have lost no one, and yet to these precious, God-given lives I am neighbor. Stranger, but neighbor. I lived in the same world, breathed the same air, and was created by the same God as them. It wasn’t just that they died, it was the way they died that broke me. It was the fact that my body had so effectively protected me from the sadness which accompanies empathy that I couldn’t remember the last time I wept over a mass murder… I breathed in deeply and the air was tainted with the aroma of strange fruit. It reeked of fear and deception. I opened my eyes and darkness stared back, peering into my soul. The taste of hopelessness was bitter on my tongue. I heard the creation groan in sorrowful anticipation- longing for the sons of God to be revealed. I touched my tear-stained chest and wondered if God was weeping too.
In my confused, angry, fearful state, I thought about God. I thought about the one time I prayed that God would give me a heart like His. One that truly recognized the significance of every life made in the image of God so that I could be tuned to the frequency of divine justice. Be careful what you pray for. What if God answered that prayer? What if my grief over these lives lost in a senseless act of violence and hatred was just an echo of what God was feeling. The all powerful God who could have destroyed the gunman before he even had a chance to raise his weapon —the all knowing God who could have warned everyone to stay home —the unchanging father of heavenly lights who had no good gifts to give his children when they met their untimely end —the God who is everywhere and therefore was there with a front row seat to the wicked cruelty of a monster gunning down innocent people in a supermarket—what if this God was weeping too? What if his sorrow at the suffering of his people was deeper than I could even begin to understand. What am I to do with this God that is who he is and still allowed this to happen? How am I supposed to explain his love? How can I accept his comfort when he won’t tell me why? Without him, the darkness of despair is complete, without even a glimmer of hope with which to imagine the dawning of a new day.
It’s a question as old as time. If God is so good then how could he let this happen? Those people that died are not just my neighbors, they are me. If God let this happen to them, how can safety be guaranteed for me? I do not know. I do not have your answers, I only have my questions. What I do know is that it is only the living that can mourn for the dead. I know that I didn’t convince myself that these lives were worth grieving for. I know that despite all my questions, I still serve a God who promised healing in exchange for humility (2 Chronicles 7:14). I know that there is a God who is more familiar with suffering than I will ever be. A God who is near enough to be present in my pain, even if, for whatever reason, he won’t take it away. Somehow, somehow, i just believe in justice, restoration, and redemption. Somehow, even now, I’m certain that the sun still shines on the darkest days…and so although there is so much to be done, in this moment, I pray.
I am devastated that this is not the first time. I am horrified that it will not be the last, but in the absence of answers, I hold on to what I know and I pray. I pray for comfort for the families of these loved ones that were taken too soon. I pray for good grief that celebrates life and mourns the death of people and peace of mind. I pray for justice –justice that considers the needs of the community and not just the punishment of a murderer. I pray for restoration -restoration that looks like sprouts of joy and unity rising from the ashes of fear and despair. I pray that we, as a community, never sacrifice our humanity for the illusion of protection. I pray that we never forget that allowing ourselves to feel and suffer with those who are suffering is a prerequisite for finding the light in the midst of so much darkness.