I’m sad today. I hadn’t planned on writing a new devotional for today, but I did. I had already written my devotional all about the parable of the week, I had it done two weeks ahead of time, but there is too much happening in my head and heart right now, so please pardon me as I’m a little bit raw with you.
500,000 deaths from Covid-19, Texans left without power and clean water and when they get those back they are slammed with thousands of dollars in utility bills, another non-conviction in a police-involved death of an unarmed man of color, people in leadership all pointing fingers at each other and not taking responsibility… and I’m weary.
I know that we are not a people good with numbers that are too large, and so to put into perspective the amount of people we’ve lost to Covid since this time last year here are some things that half a million deaths equate to. That’s 1 out of every 665 people in the US who have died. That’s the entire population of Atlanta or Kansas City being gone. If we rang our steeple bell in remembrance for everyone who has died once every other second, we would be continually ringing our bell for 11 and ½ days. This has been a catastrophic loss of life in the US.
Texas was hit with a winter blast that caused disastrous power failures throughout the state. This left thousands without power, heat, and eventually without clean water or even food from the store. Several people died, from hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning when they used gas powered generators indoors or gas grills or cars to stay warm. Whatever you think the cause of this crisis was, the leadership in Texas is simply pointing the finger all around: it’s ERCOT’s fault, it’s frozen wind turbines, it’s the Green New Deal… and no one is taking responsibility and trying to make a real change in case this kind of storm happens again.
Follow this up with Texans throughout the state being hit with $10,000+ electricity bills. A lot of them weren’t actually billed, but instead it was just directly withdrawn from their accounts, leaving them with negative balances, or an enormous credit bill. The fact that a company is charging people like this after they failed to provide proper power is insane, immoral, and inhuman.
The police who were involved in the death or Daniel Prude were not convicted this week. I want to make this INCREDIBLY CLEAR. This is unacceptable and I do not want your hot takes on why it’s ok that this man died! Daniel Prude’s brother called the police asking for help because Daniel was having a mental health episode. The police showed up and Daniel was naked walking down the street. They handcuffed him, put a mesh “spit mask” over his head, and when he protested they pinned him to the ground with their full body weight. When the paramedics arrived, he was dead. The medical examiner found that Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint”.
He was having a mental health crisis, the police were called, because there is no one else to call. They are not trained for mental health crises, but there isn’t a local or national mental health help line with agents who can be dispatched to help in situations like this, so they were called. I hope that someday there might be such a national agency, so that police can focus on doing their jobs of protecting and serving and people having crises can get the help they need from trained professionals. This is the same police department that pepper sprayed a 9 year old girl last month. Hear me again… a 9 year old girl. A 3rd or 4th grader. Pepper sprayed her. Unacceptable.
I could’ve written a devotional about any one of these things, really dove into the nuances and supported my stances with scripture, and some of you would have emailed me and said, “thanks so much! This has been on my heart too.” And some of you would’ve emailed and said, “you’re biased and need to check your sources,” as always happens when anyone writes anything at all anymore because, of course, everything is politicized and if you’re not on the same side as someone they have to discredit not just your opinion, but you as a whole.
But I chose to write about all of them, because all of them came to my attention (and I’m sure yours too) all in one week… and I (and you) are asked over and again to face all of this, hold it in your head and hearts, not to turn away, but continue to look this unjust, ugly world in its face and see all the scars and wounds, some of our own doing, and deal with it.
How? How do we deal with injustice, both perceived and real, in the world?
And it’s in this space that I believe I’ve been sitting for almost a year now, a space where I’m starting to see that there is no end to the work. The work is much, but the laborers are few. There is no respite from the labor. There is no dusting yourself off and kicking your feet up and saying, “job well done!” This is a fantasy that I’ve allowed myself to have. A belief that someday we’ll be able to say, “look, we did it! Everyone is happy and satisfied and we don’t have to fight against injustice and greed anymore.”
To be fully and completely cliché for a moment: for Christians, the destination is the journey. We have to be willing to tirelessly work in this world. Ceaselessly strive for a betterment that will never match up to the bar. This is our purpose on earth. To protect those who can’t protect themselves, to help serve the least and the lost, to find a problem, try and help it, find a problem, do what you can do, find a problem, lend a hand, knowing that there won’t be a day where no more problems exist. This is the goal, this is the end, this is the purpose.
We push a boulder up a hill, knowing that it will probably fall again. Knowing that even if we get there, there are more boulders to push. I am weary, but I can’t stop pushing. I am called to this unwinnable task by my God, who told me through prophets and Jesus to seek justice, to love my neighbor and enemy, to give food to the hungry, dress to the naked, drink to the thirsty, to welcome the immigrant, forgive the sinner, show mercy and grace to all, and to keep pushing towards the kingdom.
And so we push, we push for better pay for those working two jobs to stay afloat, we push for regulations to help keep people safe in dire circumstances, we push for justice and reform in situations where abuse of power has been shown, we push for safety nets for all people, we push for accountability of leaders, we push for the normalization of mental health issue and the affordability of care, we push for constant critique and improvement in our schools, our policing, our politics, our healthcare, our theology, our church, and ourselves. We push, because we must, because the boulder is crushing people and if we don’t push, they don’t make it. So push!
