After a federal agent murdered Renee Good I wrote about normalcy as resistance and making a pledge to normalcy. This morning, the morning after federal agents murdered Alex Pretti, I wrote this to myself:

Lord,… 
Lord,…
	The silence shatters my words. I have no words. 
	I can only remember and say their names.
		For Renee,
		For Chongly "Scott",
		For Liam,
		For Alex,
		For all those whose names I do not know. 

Then comes the hard part -
	Those whose names chap my lips and bitter my tongue,
	Those whose names I do not want to speak, refuse to speak.
		What happened to you?
		I know what happened to them, I saw what you did.
		But what happened to you?
			You who wear masks on the street;
			You who mask the truth with your lies;
			You who efface human dignity 
				and deface the divine image:
					What happened to you?
	I will call you by name. Anathema! There, I said it.

Lord, I have words for them.
	“Let them be like the snail that melts away” (Ps 58:8);
		“Let them be wiped out of the book of life” (Ps 69:30); 
			“Root out [their] name[s] from the earth” (Ps 109:14).
Lord, hear my prayer.

Oh, bitter tongue and chapped lips!
I taste no sweetness in my prayer.

O Lord, what has happened to me? 
	When did I too put on the mask?

That is not the normalcy I want for my life, the normalcy I want to bring to my relationships, the normalcy I want to offer the world. But it’s where I am this morning.

A dear friend and mentor said, about what I wrote, “It strikes at the Soul of helplessness.” That’s it, that describes how I feel. I feel helpless and powerless. And what I can do and what I do seem so inadequate. Maybe you feel that too. That’s the point.

The masks and tactical gear were never about immigration. They are for the purpose of intimidation and creating fear. The lies were never about deception or cheating. They are a bully bragging about what he or she can do and get away with. Both are intended to create a sense of helplessness and powerlessness.

The danger is that my sense of helplessness and powerlessness get expressed as violence against myself and others. God knows we don’t need more violence. That’s why the teachers of nonviolence have always asked us to begin with our own inner violence, to begin with the work of inner disarmament. (Dear, Thomas Merton, Peacemaker, 18). That’s where I am this morning.

Inner disarmament is not a goal to be achieved. It’s a daily practice, a direction for our lives, a step into normalcy. Care to join me on a walk?

____________________
Image Credit: By R4vi – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.