Charlottesville

For this I will lament and wail; 
I will go barefoot and naked; 
I will make lamentation...
For her wound is incurable.
It has come to Judah; 
it has reached to the gate of my people, 
to Jerusalem. 

We told ourselves a story. We told ourselves that there are different kinds of people out there, and that some of those people are more human than others, more deserving of freedom, more deserving of property, more deserving of rights and privileges, more deserving of rest and happiness. More deserving of food. Of shelter. Of care. Of love. We told ourselves that story so that we could perpetuate slavery, so that we could benefit from the work of others without having to treat their work and their bodies as we believed our work and our bodies should be treated. We told ourselves this story so that we could dismiss those with a different heritage from us. This story sunk down deep into us, into ourselves, and we fought to defend it and the systems built on it because we could not imagine a world without this story. We could not imagine a world in which all humans were truly created equal, in which all were truly human. We did not want to love others as we loved ourselves because to love requires sacrifice. To love requires uncertainty. To love others as we love ourselves means discomfort and labor. And so we let this great wound fester so that we could maintain other comforts and we feign surprise when it erupts, wracking our body with convulsions and fever. 

Alas for those who devise wickedness 
and evil deeds on their beds! 
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them; 
houses, and take them away; 
they oppress householder and house, 
people and their inheritance. 

"Do not preach"--thus they preach--
"one should not preach of such things; 
disgrace will not overtake us."
Should this be said, O house of Jacob?
Is the LORD's patience exhausted?
Are these his doings? 
Do not my words do good 
to one who walks uprightly?
But you rise up against my people as an enemy;
you strip the robe from the peaceful,
from those who pass by trustingly
with no thought of war.

Arise and go; 
for this is no place to rest.

I would leave. I know I would if I could. I would take with me those who do not deserve the hate that is thrown at them, the danger to their lives, and we would go somewhere else, start something new, and leave these people to their own pain. I would deprive the world of communion with me, or at least take the offer, the promise of brotherhood and sisterhood from those who march with torches and do not understand the pain they cause, the pain they perpetuate, the pain they seek to enliven with their fear and their hatred. I would run from them, if I could, these people who forgot the dream that we the people dreamed, who forgot that we endeavored to form a more perfect union and instead desire to rip that union apart, more committed to the mistaken comforts of a misunderstood past than the mutual care, labors, and, yes, dangers of continuing to seek that better union. 

In the days to come
the mountain of the LORD's house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised up above the hills.
Peoples shall stream to it,
and many nations shall come...
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under 
their own fig tress,
and no one shall make them afraid;
for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.

The LORD is not just my God, my local deity whose powers can only reach my problems, whose concern only lies with my joy and sadness. The people of God learned as the centuries tripped onward that all peoples would come before the LORD and that when that happened, we would not stay as we are. Our instruments of hate would be turned into instruments of life. The death that our fear seeks would be out of our power and the life that our hearts yearn for will be given to us, to all of us, to every single person brought to the mountain of the LORD. No one will be able to rob another of the good inheritance promised to us. No one will be able to take our peace. When the LORD speaks, the LORD promises these things. When the LORD speaks, the LORD shows us the world as it was meant to be. There was never meant to be this fear, this hate, this death that we all hurtle towards, that we make, that we bring to each other. 

Hear what the LORD says: 
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD,
and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the LORD has a controversy with his people,
and he will contend with Israel. 

"Oh my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me! 
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, 
and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
and I sent before you Moses, 
Aaron, and Miriam.
...that you may know the saving acts of the LORD."

The mighty things of this Earth witness what we do. Our action and our inaction do not go unnoticed. But what can I do when my heart aches so? What can I do in the face of mobs of hate? Will words of condemnation reach them? Will they hear when a voice from on high tells them that the redemption that was won for them was won for all, that with every shout they erect barriers and create divisions that were never meant to be? How can I show them that to destroy the separation they make costs Something very dear, a price paid in our past for the renewing of our future? Do they know that in their fear they are driving away the peace we all long for? How do I make them see through their pain the pain they bring every one of us?  

"With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high? 
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?