GRADUATION
It’s June and we’ve had a difficult May, all of us. Word/Smith this month is about Graduation. Synthesizing what we’ve learned, and when possible, honoring our experience and celebrating the moments to come.
Perhaps during the heartbreaking events of the past month, it’s important to remember that graduation only and always comes at great cost. Only and always comes by giving something up—sometimes many somethings.
Our express purpose with Word/Smith is spreading light. That’s it. And as always, our plan is to put together a newsletter that opens hearts to goodness, joy and optimism.
U2, Songs of Experience, has a profoundly important lyric in the song ‘There is a Light’: “…and know that darkness always gathers around the light.”
It does.
So on a personal level, we offer prayers, sympathy and love to the friends and family of George Floyd. By all accounts, he was a man committed to spreading light. It is with deep sorrow we saw the darkness gather around his light and try to extinguish it.
From what his family and friends say, he would never have wanted explosive darkness done in his name. Remembering him with light, doing acts of kindness in his memory, opening our hearts to others opinions, values, unshared histories, every time we spread a bit of light, this is the way we honor Mr. Floyd, and an agonizing number of others we’ve lost to violence.
I also want to take a moment to send prayers to every good and honorable policeman. We saw evil done to Mr. Floyd by a man wearing a badge, a man we all should have been able to trust. And we watched as others stood around…and watched. We watched on live television a murder. They must be brought to justice.
And I honestly can’t know how crushingly hard it must be for a good cop to put on a uniform every day that has come to symbolize brutality for so many. Protect and Serve feels very far away. So I offer prayers for them, too, and for their family and friends. That they have level heads. Use kindness. Stay calm. Create safety. That they, like the people they are oath-sworn to serve, come home alive and well.
Many holy places have prayers for peace. For remembering those we have lost. Dropping into the sacred space the name of someone gone. Or someone we wish to remember.
I offer up on the page the nameless good cops. That they serve well, especially in communities different from their own.
And I offer up on the page the name of George Floyd.
May whatever deep holy reason brought you here to earth at this time, may your purpose here be honored with acts of light done in your memory.
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