COVID-19 and racism.
To be sure, we continue to reel from both. As I type this the U.S. is seeing a resurgence of corona virus cases and our streets – still filled with mostly peaceful protestors – demand justice for those murdered at the hands of “bad cops.”
What is clear about both is that these are structural and systemic issues.
The national response to the virus has been dreadful and thus deadly. 114,000 deaths – and growing.
Years of denial and outright hostility to police reform work has engulfed us in the current pandemic of police brutality. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this timeline Black deaths caused by police.
Couple these crises with the current administration’s abject failure in leadership and you have a moment ripe for change from the bottom up.
We know it’s not going to happen by our current national leadership. Nor can it, really. This is our work to do. Is this the transformational moment we need? I hope so. More than that, I’m joining others in acting so it is so.
That’s how lasting and structural change happens: a critical mass rises up to lament injustice and work, together, toward a more perfect union.
In this season of Pentecost, may the Holy Spirit guide us boldly forward toward greater justice for all God’s children. I sense the work is afoot already.
There’s a prayer I like that encompasses this well. I hope it inspires you, too.
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
by Diarmuid O’Murchu, MSCCome Holy Spirit, breathe down upon our troubled world.
Shake the tired foundations of our crumbling institutions.
Break the rules that keep you out of all our sacred spaces,
and from the dust and rubble, gather up the seedlings of a new creation.Come Holy Spirit, enflame once more the dying embers of our weariness.
Shake us out of our complacency. Whisper our names once more,
and scatter your gifts of grace with wild abandon.
Break open the prisons of our inner being,
and let your raging justice be our sign of liberty.
Come Holy Spirit and lead us to places we would rather not go.
Expand the horizons of our limited imaginations.
Awaken in our souls dangerous dreams for new tomorrow,
and rekindle in our hearts the fire of prophetic enthusiasm.Come Holy Spirit, whose justice outwits international conspiracy,
whose light outshines religious bigotry,
whose peace can halt our patriarchal hunger for dominance and control,
whose promise invigorates our every effort:
to create a new heaven and a new earth, now and forever.Amen.
Ryan J. Hoffmann 
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