I posted to our facebook yesterday and I would like to
continue the conversation basically because I felt the need. As my daughter
explained that they watched the streets of Baltimore
burn, she grasped for straws to truly understand what the fuss was about. It occurred
to me that as a parent, a marvelous job had been done at shielding and
protecting her from how ugly the world can truly be. We talked extensively
about the situation in Baltimore
and how years of oppression and abuse can cause people to boil over. Now this
isn’t at all an attempt to pardon the damages done. Or think that it was okay
to tear up local shops. The main point that we both came to was that anger
sparked the riots. There may have been some opportunist looking to get a free
TV, but the incident in large can be attributed to the lack relationship
between the police force and the community it was hired to protect.
As I explained that truthfully many African American adults
would gladly share one or more stories of when we had a “run-in” with the
police. I personally cannot think of one person African American male that hasn’t
had a “run-in” with the police, but I digress. As I explained my memories I
felt myself feeling the same feelings of anger, shame, and injustice that ended
with a group of cops spitting on my car while telling me to have a “nice”
night.
But even then I was calmed by the Holy Spirit and able to
remind my daughter that in anger we have lost more than we could ever gain. Loosing
our cool is what has caused us to say things that we can’t take back. Destroy
relationships that we can’t recover. Was it not anger that caused Moses his
ability to punch his ticket and enter the Promised Land he worked so hard to
get to? It goes to show us family…..We
can work so hard to make progress and burn it all down in a matter of minutes.
The bible tells us that we can be angry….But don’t act in anger. Instead use
the additional energy to fuel positive change and give God the glory when that
change happens!
