All of yesterday my mind was raging, wondering what my response should be regarding the new deaths of two black men. Am I even allowed to have a response? Last night I lay in bed, my mind definitely not shutting off. How could it? The news had just flashed across my feed telling me of the deaths of even more people. Senseless deaths, because honestly, is death ever senseful?

I’m white. My husband is white. My children are white. Hell, our last name is White. We are as white as wonderbread. We don’t have colored friends. I never have. I live in rural New England: There are no blacks here. I’ve mourned that for all of my aware life. So no. I don’t understand all of the subtle cultural nuances and difficulties. I want to.

Someone tells me I’m not allowed to have an opinion because I’m white. Someone else tells me I don’t get it because I’m white. Someone else tells me that if I don’t speak up then I am part of the problem.  Someone else tells me I don’t have the right to speak up. Someone else says that I can’t mourn the murders of two black men and police officers. I don’t know the right things to say, I don’t know the right words to use.

The only thing I do know is that ALL LIVES MATTER (I know there are those who HATE that statement). I don’t say that as an excuse or a platitude, I’m not trying to justify the lives lost on any side.  I say that because it is the Gospel truth. Jesus does not care about the color of one’s skin: People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7

I know that police can step out of line and be bought and racist. I know police can step in the line of fire to protect those they have sworn to serve, without questioning the “worthiness” of that person’s skin color. I know people do things out of character when they are scared. I know that things can be set in motion that no one intended to have happen. I know people will kill others without a thought. I don’t know the numbers and statistics of deaths and murders, the ratios of blacks to whites. What I don’t know is a lot more than what I do. But I am trying.

I don’t know the fear of a mother with a dark skinned son, or a wife with a husband in blue. I do know the fear of a wife and mother though. I know the fear that someone may take the life of one of my children or my husband. I’m sure someone will say that I have no real idea of that fear because I sit in my white privilege castle, and maybe that’s true.

I also don’t know where mine or my children’s lives will be called to go. I don’t know if one of my children will swear to serve and protect, or serve as a missionary. I don’t know if a son or daughter in law of mine will be black. I don’t know if there is a precious little one somewhere with dark skin that Jesus is calling me to love and mother. But I do know that I want to be able to hold my head up and tell them they are loved, that their life is valued, that I didn’t just sit at war in myself about what to do, doing and saying nothing.

We are a society that does not value the inconvenient inconsequential life, the life that makes us uncomfortable. We place value only on what is valuable directly to us; on that, all sides are guilty. Life doesn’t matter in this world.

The lives of others don’t ever matter nearly as much as our own. No other cause holds more importance than our own. We champion our cause as the only important one, the only one that matters. That if we don’t address THIS cause first none of the others will matter.

Black lives matter. Unborn lives matter. White lives matter.
All lives matter.

This truth of equal value doesn’t lessen the value of it’s parts. A truth can’t ever lessen the truth of other truths, it can only bring about the commonality in all of them. LIFE MATTERS! I do know that every single life matters. I do know that until we are ALL willing to hold ALL life sacred it will keep on happening. Until we are willing to step outside of a culture bathed in blood, stand firm and say NO MORE,  we will continue to drown in it.

 

*Disclaimer: I will not entertain any derisive comments. I am not perfect, I’m sure I have said or viewed things wrongly. I only know that my heart is breaking, I am sick to my stomach at the amount of bloodshed that has occurred this week alone, and I have no answers or solutions.