the both and

Mourning the deaths of black lives and mourning the deaths of police officers are not mutually exclusive.  We can grieve the loss of each life along with grieving the fear and the hostility that exists between people groups.  We can honor the lives, families, and professions of both at the same time while working for justice. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This afternoon, I went to the home of a friend who messaged me and asked me to come over to help her process an idea she has.  Ruby started by sharing the heavy burden she's had over this past week, and how she's been torn up, losing sleep, and so troubled by the events in our country over the past seven days. 

Through tears and passion, she shared a spiral of notes with a vision she's getting to organize a local event with the goal of bringing the community and law enforcement together to help the Cedar Valley demonstrate that we desire to know one another and live as good neighbors.  She wants officers to know that not everyone is against them.  She wants to show support and appreciate them.  She wants to bring the community and the police department together to meet one another, eat together, play together through games and activities, and to hear a few voices speak a vision of a unified community of individuals that are for one another. 

In the next breath, Ruby spoke about how afraid she is for her family.  Her husband is black, and she spoke about how sweet and loving he is, but how he is in such danger due to fear and assumptions.  She wants officers to know him  so that when he drives to work at 5:30 a.m. each morning, there's a friendly wave rather than suspicion.  She told me how she and her husband teach their children protocol for police interaction, but she still fears for them regardless of this. "We need to get to know one another, become familiar with one another."   

As I listened, the both/and was so clear.  Ruby was both for the lives and the work of law enforcement and for a day when she won't have to fear that her husband and children will be wrongly judged because of the color of their skin.  She even talked directly about not being an either/or but a both/and person.   

I too am thankful we have police officers in our towns and cities across our country. It would be terrible imagining our society without them. (except for on Union Rd. when I want to get home faster....lol).   I am thankful for the work they do, the danger they put themselves in daily, the difficulties they face, and the sacrifices they make to keep people from harm and to maintain a sense of safety and lawful order in our communities.  I have gone to events to support our police chief, I have loved cheering on Spencer, a police officer who comes to our neighborhood meetings and who used to be one of my youth group kids at church, and to see one of my past fifth grade students, Bryce, serve as an investigator.  We have many officers who go to our church.   They are individuals committed to faith, family, work, city, country.  I would mourn the loss of their lives if they would die in the line of duty or outside of duty.

At the same time, I can deeply grieve the loss of lives of black men, women, and children across our country through the centuries to today.  Lives cut short due to a whole number of tragedies and injustices, including but not limited to, being a victim of a shooting by a police officer.  

I can grieve the racist operating system that we developed when we packed black bodies in the bottom of ships to bring to our nation to enslave and then determined that they were only 3/5 a person.  This operating system has been internalized throughout our history and influences how we see and experience ourselves and our neighbors today.  

Our lives are lived out in individual relationships to be sure.  But I believe we do live them out as software within a hard drive that has always been broken.   I believe that in the complexity and confusion of our time, we really can be both/and people....honoring and loving black lives and police officers, grieving for black lives and police officers, and working with black, brown, and white lives, police officers and citizens, to rewire the hard drive.