The Presbyterian Office of Public Witness arranged a boat ride last night for Presbyterians attending Ecumenical Advocacy Days. It proved a fun evening with great food, good music, and wonderful company. My sons even kept me posted on the scores of the NCAA tournament games.
At one point, I stepped to the stern of the boat where the air was crisp and cool.
See you along the Trail.
I prayed for Trayvon Martin today during the Training Day sponsored by the Presbyterian Compassion, Peace and Justice ministries.
I had called my friend and colleague J. Herbert Nelson, the director of the Presbyterian Office of Public W
itness on Wednesday saying that we should remember Trayvon’s death in some way. He agreed. I said I would bring one of my hoodies.
I arrived in D.C. on Thursday and J. Herbert asked if I would pray and include a prayer for Trayvon. After some reflection and prayer, I came up with an idea.
I put my hoodie in my backpack and carried it with me to New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. After J. Herbert preached, we sang A Mighty Fortress. During the next to the last verse, I went up to the chair beside J. Herbert, put down my backpack, and got the wireless mic. When the hymn ended and the congregation sat down, I moved into the pulpit and began.
“Sometimes we pray with words. Sometimes we pray in silence. Sometimes we pray through symbolic actions. Today we will pray in all three ways.”
I left the pulpit, picked up my backpack, and moved to a table set up in the center of the pulpit area. The table would later be used for a panel presentation.
In silence, I opened my backpack, and removed my hoodie. I deliberately shook it out so all could see. I then held it as high above my head as I could and slowly rotated it so that it faced each part of the congregation. It also prevented me from making eye contact with anyone and bursting completely into tears.
After I had shown the hoodie to the whole congregation, I snapped the hood back and showed it to everyone again.
Then I put on the hoodie and slowly rotated so everyone could see me.
Finally, I raised the hood to cover my head and moved back to the pulpit.
There I prayed with words for Trayvon and for all children who are victims of overt violence – children whose names are known and whose stories are told, children who are known only to the family and friends who love them.
I prayed for all children who are victims of structural violence – economic injustice, racism, homophobia – the systemic realities that shape our lives and too often stunt and snuff out the lives of children.
I prayed for those who gathered in Washington, D.C. to engage in advocacy for justice in Jesus’ name. May we have the grace to move from a love of power and the wisdom and courage to continue our ministry of speaking truth in love to power – this weekend and always. May it be so.
I uncovered my head and stepped down from the pulpit. As I moved back to my seat I again made sure not to make eye contact.
I am grateful to J. Herbert for this opportunity. I wish I could do more. I will.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Human Rights, Photo
Walking to and from the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness, this intriguing tree caught my eye and the eyes of many others.
Catherine, Peng and I stopped and looked at it for a time. None of us had seen anything like it. The pink-purple flowers grow directly on the bark – almost like moss.
“I wonder what it is?” mused Catherine. I pulled out my BlackBerry preparing to do a search when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a small sign on the tree. “Bet that will tell us,” I said.
We walked, some of us stumbling, across the sidewalk and on to the grass where we could read the sign.
Eastern Rosebud (Judas Tree) said the inscription. That really did not tell me much. Maybe Peng and Catherine went on their way with a deeper understanding, but no insights shimmered for me. A few minutes ago, ensconced in my hotel for Compassion, Peace and Justice training day and Ecumenical Advocacy Days, I Googled and learned several things:
My picture fails to do it justice – but it points to its intriguing beauty.
See you along the Trail.
It isn’t the best photo, but her sign conveys a powerful message. I wish I had thought to make such a sign for the Million Hoodie March that started on New York City’s Union Square. I thanked her.
Hoodies were not required – I went straight from work.
Check out #millionhoodiemarch for more about the evening.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Human Rights, Photo
Trayvon Martin
Our position of privilege tells me that what happened to Trayvon Martin is less likely to happen to my sons than it is to the sons or daughters of many of my friends. Less likely than it is to happen to the sons or daughters of people I do not know. Less likely than it is to happen to children of color.
I grieve for Trayvon and for his family and for every family that has had to endure such a heartbreaking experience. I grieve for all who have been victimized by violence. I grieve for our society in which such acts occur.
I grieve that there have been calls for a bounty on George Zimmerman. Vigilante justice is wrong. It is not the answer.
I grieve that for all our efforts to dismantle racism and overcome racial prejudice – for the significant progress we have made on the journey toward the Beloved Community – so far remains to go.
I tremble as I ponder the trust and friendship that I receive from people of color. Trust and friendship that provide continuing definitions of grace.
I confess that I have spoken too late and too timidly on behalf of Trayvon and his family.
I acknowledge that I have failed to work as faithfully or diligently as I should have done to address the racism upon which our society is structured.
I grieve. I tremble. I confess. I acknowledge. I will do more.
I will sign a petition started by Trayvon’s family. I hope that the investigations that have been announced will be fair, full, and transparent. Only in that way can justice be done for everyone involved.
I will be on Union Square for the Million Hoodie March this evening.
I will look for additional opportunities to speak and act.
I will place a hoodie at the front of the workshop I will lead at a Presbyterian gathering on peace and social justice on Friday.
I will pray for Trayvon Martin’s family and friends; for George Zimmerman and his family and friends; for those who investigate this event; for the people of Sanford, Florida; for our country; for peace, for justice.
For in the end, our lives intertwine in this country and on this small rock hurtling around the sun.
In the end we are made, not for ourselves alone but for each other.
In the end, is not Trayvon my son? Is not George my son?
We are brothers and sisters. We are all each other’s sons – all each other’s daughters
See you along the Trail.
This post has been revised in response to comments and observations made on Facebook and in other places. Some language has been edited; other material has been added. I am grateful to all those who took the time to read and comment.
Filed under Family, Friends, Human Rights
From ColorOfChange.org. I took the action. Will you?
Read this moments ago from the Huffington Post: The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI have opened an investigation into the “facts and circumstances” surrounding the killing of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager shot and killed last month by a neighborhood watch captain in an Orlando suburb.
I think the action remains important as a way of reminding the Department of Justice that we are watching.
Three weeks ago, 17-year old Trayvon Martin was gunned down by self-appointed neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Despite Zimmerman admitting to following, confronting, and killing Trayvon, he has yet to be arrested or charged with any crime.[1]
Just minutes before Trayvon was killed, Zimmerman had called police stating that Trayvon looked “suspicious.” Trayvon was unarmed and walking back to his father’s home in Sanford, Florida when Zimmerman accosted him.
At the crime scene, Sanford police botched their questioning of Zimmerman, refused to take the full statements of witnesses, and pressured neighbors to side with the shooter’s claim of self-defense.[2] As it turns out, Sanford’s police department has a history of failing to hold perpetrators accountable for violent acts against Black victims and the police misconduct in Trayvon’s case exemplifies the department’s systemic mishandling of such investigations.[3] And now, the State Attorney’s office has rubber-stamped the Sanford police’s non-investigation, claiming that there is not enough evidence to support even a manslaughter conviction.[4]
Trayvon’s family and hundreds of thousands of people around the country are demanding justice.[5] Please join us in calling on the Department of Justice to take over the case, arrest Trayvon’s killer, and launch an independent investigation into the Sanford police department’s unwillingness to protect Trayvon’s civil rights. It takes just a moment:
http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/Trayvon
Walking home from the store shouldn’t cost you your life, but when Black youth are routinely assumed to be violent criminals, being randomly killed is a constant danger.[6] Before Zimmerman decided to get out of his parked car — gun in tow — to pursue Trayvon on foot that night, he called the police to identify Trayvon as a “suspicious person” — apparently because he was wearing a hoodie and walking too slowly in the rain for Zimmerman’s liking. Despite being instructed not to follow Trayvon, Zimmerman proceeded to confront and fatally shoot the boy in the chest within a matter of minutes.[7]
The case has been compromised from the beginning. When Sanford police arrived on the scene, Zimmerman was first approached by a narcotics detective — not a homicide investigator — who “peppered him with questions” rather than allowing him to tell his story without prompting. Another officer “corrected” a witness giving a statement that she’d heard Trayvon cry for help before he was shot, telling her she had heard Zimmerman instead.[8] And beyond the questions of professional competence or even the police’s disregard for the facts, Florida’s notorious “Shoot First” law takes a shooter’s self-defense claim at face value — incentivizing law enforcement not to make arrests in shooting deaths that would lead to murder charges in other states.[9]
Sanford has a history of not prosecuting when the victim is Black. In 2010, the white son of a Sanford police lieutenant was let go by police after assaulting a homeless Black man outside a downtown bar. And, in 2005, a Black teenager was killed by two white security guards, one the son of a Sanford Police officer. The pair was arrested and charged, but a judge later cited lack of evidence and dismissed both cases.[10]
Please join us in calling on the Department of Justice to arrest Trayvon’s killer and launch an investigation into the Sanford police department’s mishandling of the case and when you do, ask your friends and family to do the same:
http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/Trayvon
Thanks.
References
1. http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/15/2696446/trayvon-martin-case.html
2. http://abcnews.go.com/US/neighborhood-watch-shooting-trayvon-martin-probe-reveals-questionable/story?id=15907136#.T2QwBWJWrQI
3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/14/trayvon-martin-sanford-florida_n_1345868.html
4. http://www.wesh.com/news/30692415/detail.html
5. http://abcnews.go.com/US/trayvon-martin-family-seeks-fbi-investigation-killing/story?id=15949879#.T2aTkZggugE
6. http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/8/ramarley_graham_nypd_slays_unarmed_black
7. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-14/news/os-trayvon-martin-beth-kassab-031512-20120314_1_orlando-police-block-captains-zimmerman
8. See reference 2.
9. http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20120316/OPINION05/203160343/Teen-s-death-suggests-review-Stand-Your-Ground-Law-needed?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|frontpage|s
10. http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1128317.ece
Filed under Human Rights
Checked out X-Men: First Class last night. My younger son got me into the series. It proved quite enjoyable and did a good job of filling in the back story. was good to learn about journeys of the various characters. How did Charles Xavier end up in a wheelchair? Why did a rift exist between Xavier and Magneto? Why did something more lay just below the surface of that rift? Wolverine made a brief cameo that established his character if it told nothing about his story.
I assume that if one had read the comic books, one would have already understood much of that. But I had not, so I learned a lot.
Still, it wonders me. Which came first? Did the back story exist prior to the earlier movies? Or after the first movies, was a decision made to go back and tell the early part of the story? I wonder. But doubt that I will spend much time wondering. And I won’t view all the movies again and compare them for possible anomalies. I will just enjoy.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Movie
It is found in the United Nations building, part of the display about the UN’s work on militarism.
Each time I see it, the picture touches a chord of hope in my heart. My soul sings.
We can lay our weapons down – by the riverside – in the desert – on the street corners – wherever we may be – we can lay our weapons down. And study war no more. And begin the hard work of building a just peace.
Yesterday I toured the UN. And the picture carried even deeper meaning than usual. The International Criminal Court had announced its first verdict ever. In that decision, the court found Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty of conscripting, enlisting, and actively using children under the age of 15 in hostilities in the Ituri district of the Democratic Republic of the Congo during 2002 and 2003.
The court’s decision underscored the picture’s meaning. The picture underscored the court’s decision.
Art and the judicial process intertwining to proclaim hope.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Human Rights, Photo
I toured the United Nations yesterday. They have a display of quilts.
This one comes from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Part of a larger quilt, it commemorates the Srebrenica massacre when between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed.
Each square remembers one of the men or boys killed.
I noticed how many times last names repeat. Notice the top row – where all the names are the same; or the bottom row – four names the same. Even in the middle rows, the names repeat.
Fathers and sons? Brothers? Cousins? My heart aches as I wonder and say a prayer for all victims. I say a prayer for the women and all who grieve. I say a prayer that the human race may find the grace to put an end to such atrocities.
And after a moment, a moment that hangs like an eternity, I say a prayer for those who commit atrocities.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Human Rights, Poem
Call on President Obama to enforce U.S. legislation related to the use of children as soldiers!
The U.S. Child Soldier Prevention Act addresses the issue of children in situations of armed conflict. The act seeks encourage governments to disarm, demobilize and rehabilitate children who have been used as soldiers by government forces and government-supported militias.
Using the Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights as a barometer, this bill would place limits on the provision of U.S. International Military Education and Training, Foreign Military Financing and other defense-related assistance in our foreign operations programs for countries in violation of the bill’s standards.
However, this act has been waived in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). President Obama could take steps to prohibit military assistance to the DRC until the government meets specific benchmarks. These benchmarks should include: 1) demonstrating that it no longer recruits child soldiers; 2) showing concrete progress in demobilizing or releasing children from existing forces; and 3)engaging in credible efforts to render persons suspected of recruiting child soldiers to justice.
Call on President Obama to enforce U.S. legislation related to the use of children as soldiers!
I did. Will you?
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Human Rights
Along the Graybeard Trail 