6/26
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| word on the street is... |
A day immersed in Presbyterian world. My primary goal is to get a strong and clear word affirming black lives matter and a commitment to study our own history of our church’s support explicit and implicit for the institution of chattel slavery and white supremacy. We have learned that a breakaway group from an official Assembly Committee is working on this issue so we are meeting with them to merge our work a work out floor strategy. (Virtual as that floor is…) We succeed in bringing our work together.
Late afternoon, I get with our New York City delegation. Even though I’ve been able to have an engaged and creative experience, I’m sorry that at this Assembly, most of my colleagues have not. Missing are lunches and hallway caucuses and hotel room strategy sessions and hotel bar recaps and nightcaps debriefings. Exhibit halls filled with swag. Dinners out in new cities. Alumni meetings and reunions with old friends. But we carry on.
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| Trump = plague |
On walk though the park, life continues to open up. On the way into Central Park I see chalked “Trump = plague.” I like that one. As I enter the Park, I encounter a graduation party with grads from several different schools with multicolor robes and caps, a wedding with a (quite) pregnant bride in white and a birthday party.
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| ZOOM concert |
My day ends with my concert,My friend from Seattle has lost her car key stand is stuck on a (beautiful) island. So my friend Steve will sing more. I especially want him sing his song “Resistance is Holy.” I’m excited to have my friend Ilka join us love from Juarez where she works with migrants at the Hope Border Institute. She is wearing a shirt saying “ Somos todos migrants,”i.e., “We are all migrants.” I love that she choose to live in Juarez instead of El Paso. With a deep love of Mexico. Having her live from Juarez makes me feel closer to a crazy city I have loved for many years. I sing my new song worked out through my Mondays at the Jack Hardy Song Exchange.
I finish with “How Long” (concert link: https://www.facebook.com/robert.l.brashear/videos/10158203257948361/)
For the second time this week
I hear the sound of marching feet
Flowing down the street
Outside my window.
“Black lives matter, peaceful protest
I hear the sound resound
“No justice, no peace
If we don’t get it shut to down”
How long, O Lord, how long?
How many times must we sing the same song
How long til we begin
To make amends for the sin
That’s been wrong all along
From the beginning.
This time feels different, it was there for all to see
As a black man’s life was taken by a brutal knee
I truly do believe we must do more than grieve
To hear the words again “ I cannot breathe”
A choke holds take your life
By taking away your breath
And in the same way
The virus causes death.
It’s occurred to me has it occurred you
That race hate grows like a virus too.
The question is to me
Who am I supposed to be?
What do I say, who do I say it to?
It’s very clear to me, it should be plain to see
This one’s on me and it’s on you.
So I’llc all out the man who demands law and order over all
And the ones who stand with him in the congress hall
And I’ll sing for the ones who take a brave knee
While the President is silent and black bodies breathe
And I’ll give it to you straight
Before its too late
It will take strong love to turn back this hate
And it feels like
That long hard rain’s finally starting to fall
How long….
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