Last week I started to write a blog about Ferguson, Missouri, and the impact the Michael Brown shooting was having on the community there. Then I thought better of it.
The media was saturated with coverage and besides, who was I to comment on events a 1000 miles away?
That dilemma was clarified for me this week when a grand jury on Staten Island declined to bring charges against a New York City police officer involved in the choking death of a street vendor, Eric Garner, whom he was attempting to arrest on a minor violation.
Last night in Manhattan the streets were clogged with outraged protesters who thought the officer should have stood trial. I could hear the crowd in Herald Square near my apartment chanting. “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Garner’s final words.
No matter how you viewed the case those chants were profoundly unnerving. I sat at my window for a long time and thought about it.
Race is the third rail of American life. In my own lifetime I’ve seen incredible changes. But there is still that gulf, that breach that separates us, where one side simply can’t understand the other.
Incidents like the deaths of Brown and Garner seem to only articulate that divide, even widen it, and hope seems to die a little bit.
I’m having trouble finding a “Guideposts ending” to these events. I mentioned this to a colleague this morning who works with OurPayer, one of our outreach programs where thousands of volunteers pray for millions in need.
“You know,” he said, “a lot of prayer requests have come in for the people of Ferguson. That’s unusual. Prayer requests are usually more personal but this is different. People are struggling to find answers.” Well, at least I’m not alone.
Then today I had lunch with a man who was clinically dead of an aortic aneurysm a year ago. I don’t remember how many times his heart stopped beating. It was a lot. Yet there he was, sitting in front of me, alive and well.
“Would you say you had a near-death experience?”
He thought for a moment. “No,” he said, “I didn’t see the light everyone talks about. I didn’t see dead relatives. But when I finally woke up five days later I knew I’d been visited by my Higher Power.
"I was filled with a single compelling thought,” he continued, “one I’d never really considered: Do not judge. It was unmistakable. I’ve tried to live my life by that thought ever since, and I am a changed man.”
I wondered if it was a message for me too, for everyone trying to find answers. Can you have justice without judgment? I’m not sure. But maybe we can have a conversation.
