Everything Matters,

George

you’re dying. they’re killing you right before us all.

how many more thoughts did you have to think?

how many more dreams did you watch whither while beneath the treacherous surface of the body that held you down?

..until your last thought.. your last dream..your last breath…

I’m sorry.

sorry that this broken land never seems to be ready for people like you, like me.

sorry that this world could not read into the cries of your posture or the mournings of your history.

I’m sorry that you weren’t allowed to be enough, to be you.

but you are enough.

hear me, please as our two worlds shift toward one another; until your heaven meets my earth, hear me.

you are enough.

for you’ve recently entered into a land that has been confirming this since you left the home that is our Father’s merciful protection.

you’ve been enough since He decided you were worthy of death and worthy of resurrection, and of the hope lying within the newness of an adoption that claimed you as His.

you are enough because He formed you from everything this synthetic world perpetually rejects.

He called you..away, and then back.

so tell me please, now that you’ve heard, how’s home?

did you hear them singing as your flesh suffered?

were you able to hear the sweet words that the Father has been singing over you since He lead you to continue on through your realm-shattering journey?

have you yet transformed from brokenness + pieces into joy in its fullest capacity?

have you yet said hello to the others?

Cicely

It’s dedication day.

Another daughter gone to the end of the race she ran so beautifully.

So we send up praises towards the highest heavens unto the Maker who gifted us all with such brilliance.

We still hear the songs she sang.

We’ve kept record of the shouts she bore and the tears she cried into the hands of the One who carried her through.

And so we will choose to carry on joyfully,

As children satisfied.

For we’ve been taught how to run despite trial and how to persevere despite pain.

96 years she ran even if first hidden.

She leapt and dodged unheard and unseen so to reveal all she’d come to know to the ones left outside of the grace reaching out for her.

She rebuked. She relieved.

She prospered before the Light of lights until the flame she tended to asked to return home.

So we rid ourselves of any sorrow concerning her passing on,

And let gratefulness fill the rooms we house.

For we’ve been taught,

and we’ve tested.

And we will embrace the levels she’s led and left us to.

To soar, because she ran.

Elijah

Memories as cold and dark as the night that took your life.

Cold like the terrorist hands invading the innocence of your body.

Dark like the hate garden growing within lost vessels finding significance in their badges.

You were young.

Too young to fully understand how a man once your age could look at you and hate himself enough to take a life still in the making.

Still too fresh…

Chadwick

For the cape-less hero who’s own suffering painted stars in foreign skies of bleakness and doom. Your light illuminates within each soul stirred at the sight of your humble interior. We see you. And as your name scatters through a rumbling world, one is only left to ask how? How you stood so firmly between two hateful extremes while remaining only tarnished by love? How you underwent such an internal war as your health withered away to the sound of trembling walls and a cracking exterior? You wouldn’t allow us to see you broken. For this, I want to be grateful but I know your true strength rested in weaker moments. The moment you lost sight as your eyes were filled with painful memories of what was. The moments before you began to see yourself differently. I know your true strength remains within the hearts of those your love-light touched. Not necessarily the stories you told, but within the peace whispered into the air as you refused to be molded by hands unaccepting towards you. We sang freedom songs and gave thanks to the Son as your arms moved towards your chest once more. We felt safer. We felt heard. We felt seen. The sweet nature of the Father manifesting within yet another son. Though not created or able to save, you called into each present moment the remembrance of the salvation made available by the One who’s touch lead us to you. Or rather you to us, and then back home again.

I pray you knew peace.

I pray He knew the you we weren’t able to fully know.

Sleep sweet brother,

And rest easy friend.

This world was not made to keep you.

Ahmaud—

Justice for wrongdoings. Weeping for lives lost and those losing. The internal dissonance of social soldiers riding the American wave. Waves raging on as thunderclap-bullets disturb the beauty of difference and bravery. To be brave or to be different? —to be bravely different.

It’s to resist the internal commotion in our souls that tell us to slow down, to be still, to assimilate…No. It’s to rest in the greater though less admirable understanding that in our effort to be brave the American way, we forsake ourselves.

In our unrest, our gracious God reminds us to be still. to be still, unlike the roar waging war on our souls. to be still in reference to the Lamb spotless and unashamed He died so not to leave us behind. In the past, we grew weary in our waiting and desperate in our aching.

“Remember not the former things.“

Ahmaud was 25 and knew then what we choose to now. —that this roar cannot be kept silent in times when our cries carry much weight.

For it is all consuming to cry the tears of those fallen too soon.

A premature uprising. A reckless longing. A newfound and remodeled hope in the very Christ claiming our skin has His own.

Jesus, take the pain away.

This night’s new morning found in a runner smile. Justice is served.

Where can we wait for the next gavel to strike?

Jesus, take the pain away.

“Here, here.” “Here, here.”

There! —the new world’s order awaits the coming King.

Jesus, take the pain away.

He was as 25 as I am now.

Where can we wait for this life to fully except the skin of land laborers well-favored, holy, and acceptable in and through all things turned good?

Jesus, take the pain away.

Can I finally tell my brother he’s safer now that justice is equivalent to time spent behind bars walking, living, breathing the same air breathed by both the life finally accounted for and the Maker of and behind all things?

Jesus, take the pain away.

Where do I stand in line to state my unrest in nights spent waiting and wandering through time, trying to claim it as my own in hopes of handing it back to us all?

Jesus, take the pain away.

How many more lives must die for their hearts to break like mamas and daddies and nanas everywhere living the same pre-narrative, dreamless nightmare?

And how much more must He claim His love for me for you to finally see my skin made holy? —only this time on the cross, in the wound in His side, on the crown on His head, in the same breath given away for the doubt in your soul?

Jesus, He’ll take the pain away.