Pastor‘s note: I want to share the full poem from Michael Dubois that I quoted in part in Sunday‘s sermon. Pam L. shared it with me.
I was providing examples I had run into of the people Jesus was talking about in the Beatitudes. I said that „blessed are those who are persecuted“ describes the killing of Alex Pretti — without mentioning his name by instead quoting the first two sentences of the poem.
But i also want to share something Jimmy Kimmel said. It was in the opening of his show. But it wasn‘t comedy. It was commentary, our sad political situation these days. It works, I believe, as a proper preface for the Dubois poem:
“Terrible things happen every day. Sad things happen, tragedies, cruelty, injustice, et cetera. And in most situations, it’s just a bad part of life.
But what do you do when something terrible happens and a big group of people, including those who are running our country, tells you it didn’t? They tell you you are not seeing what you clearly see. Are you supposed to just accept it? Move on? Go about your day? What do we do?”
—Jimmy Kimmel
Implied in Kimmel‘s statement is that the first kind of tragedy seem to happen „incomprehensively but unavoidably as part of life“ — and completely out of our control.
The insult to injury of the second kind of tragedy Kimmel was talking about is not just that our government is lying to us, but why they are lying to us: it is a tragedy they wish to deny because it was totally avoidable and of the government‘s causing.
I am wary of hagiography, but to recognize Pretti put himself in harms way to protect another….
IF THEY CALL ME A DOMESTIC TERRORIST
If they gun me down
in my own street someday
may my crime be compassion.
May the record show
from every angle
that I was helping a woman up
after they pushed her to the ground,
that not even their weapons
could stop me from extending my hand
to those in need,
that I was a walking example of
the best my elders taught me
that everyone is equal and worthy of defending.
If they tell the nation,
from the highest podium,
that I was a domestic terrorist,
let it be known
that my radical act
was believing the best in people
when they wanted nothing more than to divide us.
—Michael A DuBois
Thanks to Kimmel and Dubois and anyone and everyone else who are trying to help us to see how things really are, that truth lies dead in the street.
In faith and courage,
Michael
