Thank God That Is Happening In #Ferguson and Not Here

Noticing #Ferguson

It’s so profoundly important that we, living elsewhere in the U.S., don’t squelch the concern in our souls by saying, “Thank God that is happening in Ferguson, Missouri and not here.”

Don’t you agree it is tragically easy–in the jumble of to-do lists, multi-tasking, and smart phone notifications–to dismiss what is happening in Ferguson as just another CNN ticker tape at the bottom of our TV screen or just another link on the margins of our internet browser? To remove ourselves from a story that’s not centered in our own community, to go on with our weeding of the garden or picking up of the dry cleaning with a scary kind of casual-ness?

Sometimes I have to take a minute and focus. To intentionally pause and listen and humanize these strangers caught up in the headlines. To struggle with our neighbors in Ferguson, to face the grief and loss of real people each uniquely loved by their parents, siblings, and friends…people I might enjoy as friends if we found ourselves clumped into the same corner of life together.

If we allow geographical distance to detach ourselves from their journey; if we choose to avert our eyes and remain silent, we will only be subtly inviting these tragedies to continue to happen…and making room for the next injustice to explode into our own communities.

Please take a second with me to focus your care today, to read the stories coming out of Ferguson, to join me in conversations with our children, to speak out against racist commentary in our local dialogues, and to find whatever natural ways are available to us to put a stake in the ground for justice. What do you say? Will you join me in doubling down mentally–in raising our attentiveness–so that we do not risk becoming people whose nobility and compassion get drowned out by small enemies like busyness and comfortable distractions?

How much more good might happen if we, even us on the other side of the country, transferred the people of #Ferguson from the sidebars and ticker tape at the bottom of our lives and onto the screens of our awareness?

(Picture from my friend, our best man, and PICO community organizer, Wes Lathrop.)