I have written hundreds of words on the murder of George Floyd, and I don’t feel like I’m saying anything new or more worthy of attention than what’s already been written.
It is an injustice, it is heart-hollowingly awful, and I am so, so sorry that this happened, and that it is something that black people live with as a very real possibility in their own lives.
His criminal past does not justify his murder. His intoxication does not justify his murder. His maybe/maybe not knowingly counterfeit bill does not justify it, either.
I hope that I can help make this kind of thing an impossibility in the future, in the ways I raise my children, in the ways I listen and speak and vote and react.
Mostly, I can pray, and the prayer that gives me very clear direction on this is from St. Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.
Where there is doubt, let me sow faith.
Where there is despair, let me sow hope.
Where there is darkness, let me sow light.
And where there is sadness, let me sow joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console.
To be understood as to understand.
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
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