Issue 223 - Life, Death and Race
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June 2020
“We wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”
– 2 Peter 3:13 (NRSV)
Judging by recent events, we live in a world where anger and fear are at home, where suspicion and malice have taken up residence. Righteousness - or justice (the same word in the original Greek of the New Testament) – still struggles to find its place in our society.
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“How long, O Lord?” is a cry that echoes throughout the Psalms. “How long must your servant endure?” (Ps. 119:84). “How long, O Lord?” – this cry of anguish appears in at least 10 different psalms, repeated four times in just the first two verses of Psalm 13.
“How long, O Lord?” is the cry of so many hearts, as we hear, yet again, of another black American killed in police custody.
How long, O Lord? Eight minutes and forty-six seconds the police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck, hands in his pockets, as Floyd called out repeatedly, “I can’t breathe.” The only reason police were called was because Mr. Floyd was reported to have presented a counterfeit $20 bill to a cashier. As the store owner himself later told reporters, Mr. Floyd may not even have been aware that the bill was counterfeit.
How long, O Lord? Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile – how long does this list have to become before the powers that be acknowledge there is a serious problem? Before comfortable, complacent white Americans like me acknowledge that black Americans encounter a very different reality than I do every day?
How long, O Lord, must anger and fear rule the day? In Ohio earlier this month, a nine-year-old white girl, with her mother’s permission, drew “Black Lives Matter” in chalk on the street in front of her house.
A neighbor called 911 to report “vandalism and people screaming in the street.” When did neighbors stop talking with neighbors and start calling the police on them instead?
How long, O Lord? Why has it taken me so long to learn about the repeated injustices suffered by black Americans? Yes, I knew about segregated schools and Jim Crow laws, but it was only this month that I learned that the GI Bill, which offered so much financial assistance to American veterans after World War II, was
intentionally designed to restrict black veterans’ access to benefits that were readily available to white veterans.
How long, O Lord? The answer, at least in part, lies in our own hands and hearts.
-- Bill
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Twenty-six hundred years ago, someone saw a man die and that sight changed the world even up to today.
As the story* goes, Gautama Siddhartha, a 6
th Century BCE prince born into luxury and exclusion, happened upon an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a wise man. It was the visual of a man dying that awoke Gautama to the truths of life. He then went away and meditated under a
Bodhi tree until he understood the deep meaning of these truths. From then on, he was known as Buddha, meaning “the enlightened one.”
Recently we saw a dying man. The visual of George Floyd, restrained for 8 minutes and 46 seconds as he gasped his last breath, has had an impact not only in our nation but all over the world. Floyd’s death matters.
Buddha, now enlightened, understood the Four Noble Truths: all of life is suffering; the cause of suffering is desire and inordinate attachments; to get rid of suffering is to get rid of attachments; the way to freedom is the Noble Eightfold Path: right understanding of the Four Noble Truths, right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
The death of George Floyd has brought many people to consider his life, their own lives, and the life of our nation. How many more people need to needlessly die? What is the right path today to end suffering?
Death changes things. In the story of one man’s path to enlightenment, the dead man that Gautama Siddhartha saw, led to the development of the Buddhist teaching that has guided millions of people for thousands of years. How can our lives be different following the death of George Floyd?
--Jan
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*The story of Buddha told above is as I remember from long ago when I studied World Religions.
This article can provide a closer look into the tenants of Buddha's philosophy.
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The first episode of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man
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Recent Issues
Issue 221 - Delight
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Copyright (c) 2020 Soul Windows Ministries
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Sincerely,
Bill Howden and Jan Davis
Soul Windows Ministries
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