Dear White Brothers and Sisters...

I can't sleep. I can't think straight. I'm angry. I'm confused. I'm heartbroken. I'm sick to my stomach. I'm in tears. I'm so sad.

How are more precious lives traded in for hashtags?

How can this keep happening?

And how can people, white people, continue to justify? Continue to argue? Continue to ignorantly blame? Continue to respond completely insensitively?

I can't bring myself to watch the videos. They will haunt me. I can't watch violence in movies, and I definitely can't handle watching actual lives be taken. But the thing is, I don't need to in order to know these men, these image bearers of God, were murdered. I have read enough to know they were brutally executed. And I remain confused as to how people explain away these horrific accounts, even after given the visual. I'm so confused as to how some of the people who swear to protect, get away with taking life in such a cruel and unjust way. 

When will we, collectively as humans, see each other with dignity and respect and love simply because we are all humans? 

But more importantly, when will we, collectively as the Church, rise up for and stand with people who experience injustice and oppression because we all bear the image of God and God hates injustice? 

Why can't we simply sit and mourn with those who mourn and grieve with those who grieve?

Why in the world do people think it is in any way acceptable to look at someone mourning, especially online, and question their mourning? Or carelessly add they should be outraged and mourning the many shot in a certain city or the many aborted in our nation? How in the world does that seem okay? 

It is well past time for people, white people, to stop talking. Stop talking and listen.

Listen to the cries.

Listen to the injustices.

Listen to the heartaches.

Listen to the fears.

Listen to the pain.

Listen to the realities of life unlike your own.

Stop trying to argue. Strop trying to pit one tragedy against another. Stop trying to justify a life ending. And please stop saying all lives matter. Please. Stop talking. And listen. 

And just maybe your listening will bring you to see your need to repent some sin you never realized you were harboring.

Maybe your listening will bring about new friendships and new understandings..

Maybe your listening will draw you nearer to your neighbor and nearer to Jesus.

Maybe your listening will allow you to start mourning and grieving and lamenting.

Maybe your listening will eventually lead to action, action that will help end systemic racism and help foster racial reconciliation.

​Maybe your listening will show people the real Jesus more than your talking ever could. 

May this insanity end with our generation. May we be a generation known for unity and justice, love and peace, May we begin to listen more than speak, lament more than argue, and love people more than getting the facts. May we be a generation that changes lives and laws because we began to weep with those who weep.