Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 125 – 4/20/2021

“‘Let Justice roll down like waters in a mighty stream,’ said the Prophet Amos. He was seeking not consensus but the cleansing action of revolutionary change.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr ~

today, we breathe a sigh of relief as the murderer of George Floyd was held to account and found guilty on all counts of digging his knee into George Floyd’s neck killing him as the world watched in horror and in broad daylight for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds as the life was choked out of this being who kept saying he could not breathe while calling out for his mother…

we have yet to see justice for George Floyd – that would look like George being alive and dancing with his daughter but today was a small step towards the beginning of the revolutionary change this moment demands… revolutionary change that dismantles the oppressive system of white supremacy embedded in the very founding of the United States and puts in place a real democracy where every being is valued and equal justice under the law is the right of everyone…

our hearts continue to go out today to George Floyd’s family and community and to Ma’Khia’s and Daunte’s and Adam’s and Breonna’s and Travon’s and Eric’s and Freddie’s and Philando’s and Ahmaud’s and Mike’s and Tamir’s and Sandra’s and Ton’s and on and on and on…

 let us take this moment of eternity for us all to join hands forming a bridge across the planet and stand in love for love being justice in every thought, word and deed listening to a litany from the Reverend Dr Yolanda Pierce, the first woman to be appointed as Howard University’s Dean in the Divinity School’s 150-year history, a litany of healing feeling to me like those cleansing waters of justice…

…”Let us mourn black and brown men and women, those killed extrajudicially every 28 hours.

Let us lament the loss of a man, dead at the hands of a police officer who described him as a demon.

Let us weep at a criminal justice system, which is neither blind nor just.

Let us call for the mourning men and the wailing women, those willing to rend their garments of privilege and ease, and sit in the ashes of this nation’s original sin.

Let us be silent when we don’t know what to say.

Let us be humble and listen to the pain, rage, and grief pouring from the lips of our neighbors and friends.

Let us decrease, so that our brothers and sisters who live on the underside of history may increase.

Let us pray with our eyes open and our feet firmly planted on the ground.

Let us listen to the shattering glass and let us smell the purifying fires, for it is the language of the unheard.

God, in your mercy…

Show me my own complicity in injustice.

Convict me for my indifference.

Forgive me when I have remained silent.

Equip me with a zeal for righteousness.

Never let me grow accustomed or acclimated to unrighteousness.”

yes, we have a long road to overturn generations and generations and generations of oppression and still i am inspired by a memory when i was eleven and standing in a sea of black people quietly singing we shall overcome as we mourned the death of another person working for justice,,,

let us take this moment to affirm our commitment to justice and a world where everyone feels safe and respected as a valued member of the family of earthlings and to act unceasingly to bring this to bear beginning with calling your senators to support the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act…