Quiet City // Uprising

March 19, 2020 // Quiet City
This is the first in a series I'm calling "Stay at Home free writes." This is simply to help me process in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So this is what it feels like at the end of the world. Or at least, the end of something. Closing, retreating, staying home. Asked to turn inward while others must remain outward, helping and saving.

Today, I heard Nancy Ives, the principal cellist of the Oregon Symphony perform Bach's prelude to Cello Suite no. 3. There was no audience. Just her and the host of Portland's All Classical radio station. It was somber and brought me to tears.

I felt sneaky driving to Home Depot to buy dirt and jasmine to plant. Something to watch grow while so much dies around me.

I also watch my boys grow, (mostly) oblivious to why they have to stay home so much. How will this time shape them? How will I allow this time to shape me?

I go back and forth between feeling like the world is ending and having hope. One thing I know for sure, I can still have hope even if the world is ending.

June 7, 2020 // Uprising

Pandemic has pressed America to the ground, revealing deep wounds. Systems of justice have been revealed to be broken  untrustworthy yet again. We see yet another white man wearing a badge of justice squash his black brother to death underneath his knee. When we see injustice flourish within a system that is meant to protect, we are anguished.

"And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of justice--wickedness was there, in the place of righteousness--wickedness was there. I thought in my heart, 'God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed.' I also thought, 'As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.' Ecc. 3:16-18

We humans, created in the image of God, are also not much different from the animals. We dehumanize again and again and again. The line between good and evil runs right through every one of us. And these are the hands that built America.

I know what I need to do. Learn, educate myself, stay humble and repentant, eyes on the Lord. He is the one who paves a way for a New and Better Way. It is narrow and pierces like an arrow, calling out the oppressor and healing the oppressed. 

I lament. Praying the words of Solomon, " I saw the tears of the oppressed--and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors--and they have no comforter. And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun." Ecc. 4:1-3

I am awakened to the prophesies of Isaiah. "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants?" Isaiah 53:7-8. And on and on. Christ became the oppressed to set the oppressed free. No system here on earth will be able to fullfill what He did.

May God humble us as we lay in the streets for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, stepping into the reality that was George Floyd. May He bring us to our knees, showing us that His blood will redeem our blood-stained soil one glorious day.

Credits for photo 1: painting by Edward Hopper

Credits for photo 2: Scott Listfield