Names

"What's their name?"

It's a common enough phrase at the ends of bible studies or small groups or any church community meetings where prayer requests are shared and taken. It was one of the first ways I learned to be unselfish, the taking down of names. So-and-so's second cousin who has a broken ankle is just the object of another sentence that I have to wait through before I can speak to my pain and grief and annoyance and ask for blessings. But Amelia's cousin Jeremy who works in landscaping and really can't afford to have to take the time off because of his broken ankle is a person, a living, breathing individual who I can pray for and who, if I have the means, I can assist and care for. Taking down a name is one of my earliest spiritual disciplines.

There is power in names. You're given one shortly after you enter this world and your name still exists after you've left it, buried somewhere in paperwork or engraved on a tombstone or held in the hearts of those who loved you. Naming someone in your prayers brings that power to the fore and calls God to accountability for this person. You connect to this person, even if it's the thinnest of threads, the most easily broken. It's not some girl who just had a baby-- it's Anna. You know Anna. Or you can imagine Anna. By naming her, you connect to her.

This is why we say their names. To humanize, to connect, to make just another black male killed by police an actual person in our minds. Keith Lamont Scott. Terence Crutcher. Two names on the litany that we should saying to ourselves every night, calling God to accountability for. Two more people who are never coming home again. Two more human lives lost among a system that has taught us to fear humans because the color of their skin, to speed up as we walk down the street or be too quick on the trigger rather than seeing the person who owns that skin. How long does the litany need to be? How many names? How many people?

Pray with me, my brothers and sisters. Pray in earnest. Say their names and call their memories up before the Almighty. Because when you do, when you come to God with prayers for these people, for this nation, for these times, when you say their name to make God accountable for the tragedy that we live in, participate in, benefit from, defend daily, I truly believe that God will move your heart. God will transform you.

God will let you know that you are accountable. You are meant to have kept your brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters. We have not done that. We have not done that.

When God changes you, when your heart is broken for these people, for their families, for their communities, come talk to me. Let's talk about police training. Let's talk about caring for our officers who mean to keep us safe. Let's talk about supporting police departments. Let's talk about building communities. Let's talk about the ways we can work on changing the human heart. To steal a phrase from a friend, let's together learn repentance and patience and grace so that we can reframe how we understand force and power and authority. Let's figure out which leaders are going to build bonds between people. Let's talk about the people who have been taken from us and let's treat every life like it belongs to a name rather than a number on a statistician's sheet.

Ask for their names. Preserve their lives. Live in this world with these people and love them deeply because they are people. Because they have names. Because they matter.