In one America, an insurrectionist is granted permission by a judge to take a trip to Mexico with charges pending. In the other America, the National Guard is deployed in response to Black Lives Matter protesters organizing at the Lincoln Memorial. One group’s humanity is seen and validated, while the other group’s humanity is ignored and questioned.
Remember the sobering images of the U.S. Capitol building attacked and overrun by rioters and insurrectionists; those images can feel unfathomable unless we remember the breadth and depth of racialized violence in our nation’s history. History is about both the what and the why. Given the volumes of footage and visible evidence, it is difficult to refute what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. The deeper struggle will be understanding why it happened.
Preemptive Love Coalition’s board of directors announced on Jan. 4 that the organization’s founders, Jeremy and Jessica Courtney, would not be returning to the organization in any capacity, after an investigation into the Courtneys’ leadership.
Last January, over two dozen community members assembled near the large Martin Luther statue outside Luther Place Memorial Church in downtown Washington, D.C., for a morning of orchestrated silent prayer. Staggered six-feet apart in the sharp winter air, they were acutely aware that the Capitol was already abuzz with protesters waving Trump flags, holding signs invoking Jesus Christ, and outfitted in insignia from dangerous far-right organizations.
This year, to mark the one-year anniversary of Jan. 6, the church plans to hold a prayer service in reflection of the insurrection that took place less than two miles from their congregation at the U.S. Capitol building.
“We are hungry for renewal,” Valarie Kaur wrote in the January 2021 issue of Sojourners. “Sound government is necessary but not sufficient to heal and transition America. Only we the people can bring our communities together, tend to our wounds, and do the labor of reckoning, reimagining, and remaking our nation, block by block, heart to heart.”
”What Child Is This?” begs listeners to contemplate the common, investigate the ordinary, and marvel at the miracle of heaven’s majesty embodied in a vulnerable baby.
“O Come, O Come Emmanuel” begins as a plea of intercession on behalf of a people under oppressive captivity, but morphs into an exhortation to rejoice because the One who embodies God’s presence shall indeed come to those who’ve suffered.
While this prayer may sound overly sentimental in the face of great peril and challenge, love has the power to cast out fear and undergirds the very pursuit of justice and peace. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
Desmond Mpilo Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate whose moral might permeated South African society during apartheid's darkest hours and into the uncharted territory of new democracy, died on Sunday. He was 90.