Protect the Dream
One question was asked of a father as he consoled his two children, who attend the Islamic Center of San Diego, where two teenagers allegedly terrorized the center, which is also a school, killing three adults: Why did this happen?
The news report did not capture the parent’s response. I imagine it is a deeper conversation with complicated layers measured with truth-telling, love, gentleness, and faith. It is not a conversation any parent should have to prepare for. Yet, in our society, this question is prevalent and too often directly impacts our children, the most innocent and vulnerable among us.
The tragic circumstances underlying the question of “Why?” are not new — historically in America or in recent years across our nation. There should not be a normalizing of murder, Islamophobia, racism, or any act of bigotry. Tragically, numerous headlines of domestic terrorism and hate crimes targeting faith communities, schools, universities, and other sacred spaces have established a norm of fearful expectations from the cradle to college and beyond.
The sincere question raised by the children is not one for their father to answer alone. The question belongs to each of us. If we are restless — agonized and righteously outraged by America’s culture of violence, the tragedy of stolen childhoods, the failure to pass sensible gun regulation laws, and the perpetuation of racism — we must remain persistent in our work to root out systems of oppression. We must not grow weary in our messages of love, inclusivity, and radical hospitality.
We must remove the othering language that threatens to pit us against each other under the guise of false scarcity, blatant classism, and racist inspired executive orders and Supreme Court repeals. We must sound the alarm when our neighbors are targeted because of citizen status, religion, race, gender, orientation, or any discriminatory act, turning back the hands of time, mocking progress for the greater good. We must be the vessel of love that personifies God’s audacious agape, liberating love.
As followers of a liberating God, we must commit to honoring the sanctity of life for all and be unapologetic stewards of love, peace, and justice in the world. We owe it to our children right now and to generations unborn. We owe it to our ancestors who carried blood-stained banners and sacrificed the unimaginable for freedom to ring from every valley and mountaintop for us all. Are we the generation to defer mountaintop dreams? Some will threaten that hope, but we must protect it.
Take action with Community Renewal Society (CRS). Join us for our May 27 Online Mobilization for Public Safety alongside our member congregations, coalition partners, faith leaders, and community activists committed to justice. Endorse our Statement of Principles on Public Safety Toward FlourishingCommunities and support our established platforms dedicated to eradicating racism and socioeconomic inequities.
We grieve with the Islamic Center of San Diego and communities across our nation and world, bereaved due to the unrest of war, genocide, Islamophobia, state-sanctioned violence, and a culture of racism and violence we must decry.
Silence is not becoming. It threatens to be dehumanizing and fatal. We can choose to break the silence against Islamophobia and all acts of racism and bigotry now or answer the pervasive question from babies who have survived another mass shooting: Why did this happen? Or even still — Why did we allow this to happen - again and again?
Register now to receive updates and reminders. More details to come.
Scriptural Meditations:
ACCOUNTABILITY — Matthew 23:23
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.”
ANOINTED ACTION — Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”
Restless,
Rev. Dr. Waltrina N. Middleton
Executive Director
And the staff of Community Renewal Society