Within the Lengthy Shadow of But One other Dying — Church Anew

Rev. Dr. Kelly Sherman Conroy

Affiliate Pastor, All Nations Indian Church

Unique put up from Fb

A girl, a spouse, a mom died in the present day.

Her identify was Renee Nicole Good.

She was 37 years outdated.

Say her identify. Sit with it. Let it land.

What I witnessed in the present day was not simply grief for one individual, however the resurfacing of deep and acquainted wounds. Folks arrived carrying shock, anger, and worry that lives within the physique lengthy earlier than it reaches phrases. Tears fell between strangers who acknowledged the identical ache in each other. For a lot of, in the present day reopened the trauma, the uncertainty, the reminiscence that life will be taken and the system will maintain transferring as if nothing sacred was damaged.

This was not an summary second or a political speaking level. This was a human life misplaced, and the neighborhood felt it instantly. Our bodies reacted earlier than minds may catch up. Folks had been shaking. Folks had been offended. Folks had been making an attempt to breathe by way of reminiscences that got here speeding again with out warning.

I need to be very clear: what occurred in the present day in Minneapolis was the lethal attain of a system that has normalized hurt within the identify of enforcement. ICE doesn’t function in a vacuum. It strikes by way of communities already carrying generational trauma, and when a life is taken, the wound spreads far past the second itself.

I prayed in the present day, not lengthy prayers, not polished ones. Simply sufficient to assist folks floor, to remind them they weren’t alone, to talk dignity again into an area that had simply witnessed loss of life. What folks wanted most was somebody to pay attention. Somebody to face with them with out speeding them by way of their grief or worry. We can not sit and wait. We can not inform folks to relax whereas their our bodies are remembering previous violence. We can not deal with this as one thing that may go if we simply maintain our heads down. Silence, delay, and distance aren’t impartial. They’re decisions.

So I pray this out loud and with out apology:

Creator God,

We are available rage and grief as a result of one other life has been taken by a system that chooses drive over humanity. We identify the reality plainly: what occurred was violence. Not safety. Not justice. Violence.

Maintain shut the household of Renee Nicole Good. Wrap them in a love fierce sufficient to resist this loss.

We condemn methods that criminalize survival and deal with folks as disposable. Hassle the conscience of those that design and defend this hurt.

Give us braveness that prices one thing. Braveness to talk, to guard, to interrupt violence.

No extra lives taken within the identify of enforcement. No extra households shattered. No extra silence.

Renee Nicole Good, you mattered.

Your life mattered.

And we is not going to fake in any other case. AMEN

If this makes you uncomfortable, good. Let that discomfort transfer you towards motion, towards solidarity, towards reality. This isn’t a second to look away.