My Sentiments as a Prayer

Dear Lord:

You gifted me with words
With words I come before you
With words I bow down
With words I confess my life askew.

When my soul is tormented 
When my spirit is vexed 
When my deepest longings are in disarray
I use words to say I’m much more than just perplexed.

When the wheels of justice grind slow
When the chains of death take my people
When hope is dashed upon the rocks
Sometimes I go to that place beneath the steeple.

I do not all of the time come with words
Sometimes I do not know what to say
With groans understood only by you
Is all I can find to pray.

“I Walked These Days” numbers 365
Blog posts with their words are 59
Prayers in the early morning come to 136
Sometimes they’re prose and sometimes they rhyme.

I’ve sat in many a zoom-like meetings
I’ve written many a first draft letters
My recommendations are even in the Justice Act
Sometimes my words bind me like fetters.

Only you know the focus of many a prayer 
Only you know the many unspoken words
Only you move in ways I do not know
Only you know the burdens our people bear.

Congress sits in places of power
USDA hides behind its doors
Perturb their hearts and shake their bones
And settle the long unanswered scores.

Come into this world I pray
Take off the racist chains
Remove the burdens of dreams deferred
While there is life within our bones.

And so this prayer
Has a lot of words
Beneath are so many groans
That reveal the ache hidden deep within our bones.

Still in You we do trust
Come what may and come what will
Even when you are silent
Even then our hearts will not be still.

Amen

Fatherhood, Peoplehood, Farmerhood

Most of my friends out there know that Charla and I have been involved in the Black Farmer Movement since 1994. Yes, that is strange, is it not, to read those words. I have been told, and with much respect to the teller, "I did not know there was such a thing as a black farmer." And I have been told that "those things do not happen in America." "Yes, there are, and yes, they do, still." So, in the early morning hours of today I felt compelled to connect a few dots and in the connections came these words. There is more to the story and an announcement will soon be released about future efforts on this page.

Father.

Holy Father.

Father.

Righteous Father.

May I call you by those names?

I read them in your Book today

And listened as He prayed

Before He walked to the gallows of shame.

He finished his work

Nothing did He shirk

Came to get it done

From early morn till setting of the sun.

Honored you along the way

Completed is what I hear Him say

Left it all to them and us

And now look at what we’ve made, one big fuss.

A big, grand ideal

To gather us all together

To place upon a seal

That in weary times the storms we would weather.

In days way back yonder

A woman arose up for her kin

Into his throne room she would go

Wondering how it would end.

“How can I bear to see

The disaster fall upon my people”

They are soon to be destroyed

Unless you answer my cry, how feeble.

I hear her cry and I read her words

I wonder what is the application

For today is also horrific

So I make this morning’s supplication.

For those ruined by grievous policy

That was made for us the whites 

Bear them up and give them strength

To hold on to their land their rights.

Give them courage and strength

To fight the righteous cause

To know of your love and grace

To change inequities of the laws.

I know my skin is white

That is the way I’ll always be

But my people are those whose skin is shades of brown

Until your face I see.

To hear their stories

“My blood is on this land”

How could I do anything but along with them

To take a righteous stand.

Father.

Holy Father.

Father.

Righteous Father.

Hear my cry for my people.

Dear God, Amen, and PS: Come Quickly

November 6, 2017

Dear God:

It is a dangerous world out there.  It is a treacherous place to live. Feelings of safety run the gamut from those who feel very safe to those who look over their shoulders at every turn.

We are bombarded by the left and the right and those supposedly in the middle, but who knows what is up and what is down and who can be trusted to the left and the right.

One more killing of innocent people, more than half of a church wiped out by a deranged white guy dressed in black with enough guns and rounds for a war. He had weapons of war and they had weapons fighting spiritual warfare. Someone was outnumbered. Someone or someones were not adequately prepped for the fight.

My soul grieves.  My heart is heavy.

We are picking sides as we always do.  The rhetoric is the same. 

If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.  The problem is not guns. The problem is mental health. Texas has the most liberal gun laws in the state. There are good people in the NRA, so leave us alone. The NRA owns America as one of the largest lobbies in the country.

We could go on and on, Lord, with the language of the day.

It is the same language that we used following Sandy Hook, Miami, Las Vegas, and now Sutherland Springs. There are more. Lots more. There are too many to list but you know them all. You know them all too well, and we only see through a glass dimly.

We pray. We say we will pray. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. The last time we prayed.  Before that we prayed.  Before that we prayed.  Praying is a thing we do, or at least we say that we do, but sometimes I think we say we do when what we actually do is say those words as a routine way of attempting to acknowledge the pain and suffering of others. I think is akin to “I’m thinking about you.” That is my cynical self speaking. Today is it loud.

Don’t get me wrong, Lord, I’m keen on praying.  You and I talk real often, and in fact that is what we are doing now as I try to grasp the magnitude of what is happening. Even as I pray those words, I realize that the magnitude of this thing is too big for me.  It is not, however, too big for you.

I have always thought that prayer without action is a waste of words.  The Spanish proverb is “pray, but keep hammering.”  The Russian, or maybe it is Scottish, or maybe it is from Randy Harris, is “pray and row for shore.”

Here in America we do a good job of praying, but we’re not good at rowing for shore.  We whine and complain and bemoan the carnage in the lives of people, but we do nothing beyond that.  Then, when carnage strikes again, we go through the same actions.

These are fighting words. America loves its guns.  America loves its 2^nd Amendment. We default to emotional language when somebody perceived to be from the left questions these things.

Yes, Lord, I think we love the 2^nd Amendment and our guns more than we care about people. People are curiously expendable, but guns and the 2^nd Amendment are here to stay.  Curiously enough that when that document was written, the guns of war that we have now were not available and a black person was considered 3/5s of a human. In every act of carnage on American soil, weapons of war have been used. How many AR-15s or other similar weapons are needed, how many rounds for them are needed, how many of whatever are needed to protect the family, to hunt wild animals?

No, we do not pray and row for shore.  We say our prayers and sit and wait for the current to take us to some place. We pray and leave matters the same. We pray and do nothing.

Sensible gun control, addressing mental illness, and figuring how to have fewer weapons of war in the hands of the mentally ill are serious issues.  If we cared about people as much as we care about our guns, then we’d do something.  If we were truly Pro-Life, we’d do something.  We are not Pro-Life, we are selectively Pro-Life.  We attempt to protect the lives of the unborn, and rightfully so, but we do not protect the lives of the party goers at the concert, those having a good time with friends in the bar, the children and their teachers at school, or the young and old worshippers in our churches. Three churches of late in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.  And even one has suggested that we have a system of checking in our pockets and all, like we do when we go to court or the airport. 

We’ll rally the troops.  We’ll say the right things about the deceased and the killer.  We’ll declare it a mental health problem. We’ll pray.

Until the next time.

Then we’ll do it all over again.

Until the next time.

Then we’ll do it all over again.

Until next time, I simply say amen.

PS: Come quickly.

Let Justice Ring: Let Us Pray and Think About Our Prayer

I wrote this poem in the early morning hours back in January.  Its irreverence and pleas for something different fit this day and this time, at least in my opinion. Please let me know what you think.

Let Us Pray and Think About Our Prayers
Waymon Hinson
January 31, 2017

Dear Gawd, Jehsuuus, Dad, Holy One of Israel, lots of salutations we say
To plead for His hearing when we pray.

Some are contrite, others demand
Get it together, you foolish man.

Some demean, others quiet
Looking blankly toward the blinding light.

With heads bowed low we generously pray
Who is to confess the meanings of what we say.

Some are prayers of the right
Preaching righteousness and vengeance with might.

Some are prayers of the left
We all are a mess, left bereft.

Prayers from the middle, let us pray
Words of conciliation, we hope, we say.

Civility is now here in this sanctuary, this room,
Waiting, waiting, waiting, our return to the tomb.

Some are prayers of hope
Com’on, man, don’t mope!

Longing for the day.
We have all gone astray.

Some are prayers beseeching those who’ve gone before
Kindly leave your offering at the door.

Let us pray, let us demand
Expect of God His slight of hand.

We are so feeble, so frail and so fickle
I think I’ll go buy a burger with my last nickel.

Amen, and yeah verily I say, “Amen!”

Dear God Let Me Dream

Dear God
Let me dream
Give my mind permission
To tell the stories
Held within for these many years.

Dear God

Let me dream
Prompt me to see in pictures
The many tales
Tucked deep inside unspeakable.

Dear God

Let me dream
Perturb me to hear the sounds
That of too many words
Silent within my soul.

Dear God

Let me dream
Encourage my soul to face
The dark the damp the demons
From which I run.

Dear God

Let me dream
Walk into those stories
The way you walked
Alongside Moses and Aaron.

Dear God

Let me dream
For I am a man of unclean lips
A faltering tongue
Buoy my spirit and tell the tales.

Dear God

Let me dream
Piece together the fragments
Lost and gone hopes and anticipations
Encourage my heart to live with outstretched arms.

Dear God

Let me dream
And recall the hopes and expectations
Of better days and more hopeful times
Teach me to say hello to dreams fulfilled.

Dear God

Let me dream
Allow my imagination to take wings
To see brighter days and more hopeful futures
For all of your children, all of Your children.

Dear God

Let me dream
Allow me to see what you see
When hurts are healed and hearts comforted
Equality equity generosity near and far.

Dear God

Let me dream
Give me holy permission to relish
Hopes realized and wishes fulfilled
Justice and mercy arrived and welcomed.

Dear God

Let me dream
And replenish and restore this frail human being
Until night turns into morning
When sorrow turns into laughter.

Dear God

Let me dream
Bring upon us love and mercy
Grace and peace at every turn
When we all see all of us the way you see us.

Dear God
Let me dream

The Prayer of a Troubled Bystander

This is a personal peek into my inner world. It may resonate or it may offend. Feel free to leave comments.

 

Dear God:

You have observed my quietness of late, no doubt. You have listened to my inner struggles and angst and torment.  You have heard my unarticulated cries of grief and pain.  You have known of my inability to place things in their proper order. Yes, you have known the roads I have trod.

I am not alone in this struggle. Many, many more are dismayed, troubled, tormented, and, yes, even terrorized, by these last few months.  Neither they nor I have much hope for anything better in the days ahead.  In fact, my suspicions are that things will worsen.

I am a divided man down to the deepest parts of me. While I know that in the olden days, a piece of humanity was seen through the eyes of Hebraic holism, and no one part was separated out from another part, though in the psalms we see much emotion, pain, grief, and rage alongside hope, trust, faith, reverence. In my own self, I am able to pinpoint various parts of me that think, feel, and see things differently and maybe even connectedly. I am angry, sad, worried, perplexed, troubled, and full of doubt.

On the one hand there is the adage that you are in control, that “God is in control.” That comes out from the left and the right. Lest I overly offend you, we have talked before about this.  You were in control but where were you during the decimation of First Nations people? Where were you during the middle passage? Where were you when the chains, whips, lashes, inhumanity, and ownership were perpetrated upon brown people? Where were you during the Holocaust? Where were you during the horrors of Jim Crow? Where are you now?

Have you indeed chosen this particular administration, or is it that you have chosen governments in general to rule the people? Where were you when Nero was raging upon believers, and using them as torches to light the night? I do not do one-liners well, and that is one of my faults, that even when the one-liners have truth in them, I am prone to detect how the one-liners are used by whom and upon whom. I do not ask for easy answers, nor do I want them from those who are other places than me. I do not want to be patronized by folks who feign knowing more than the rest of us. 

Things these days trouble many of us.  I suspect that there are folks who voted for the Republican candidate who are equally as troubled as those of us who voted for the Democratic candidate. I do not know. I only suspect. No one is telling me those troubles.

Knowing that we have elected a man who disparages the physically challenged, who insults women, Hispanics, and Blacks, and who calls for policies that insult LGBTQ persons, one who overtly and covertly admires all things white and male, is deeply troubling. That he is now appointing amongst his cabinet those with racist ties and ideologies that mirror the worst of humanity. That the world is listening and watching, that other nations are already developing their plans, that we have lost esteem in the global community, is difficult to swallow.

Against all of these things and more, to know that some 81% of Christian evangelicals voted for him is even more astonishing.  We voted overwhelmingly for a man whose values are diametrically opposed to those of the Christian faith. I do not know exactly where to put that.  That leaders of the Christian right and apparently leaders of at least one foreign country, one which has been the enemy of American for decades, even centuries, applaud his election.

That children of all colors, and parents of all colors, tremble for the safety of their children. That racial epithets abound, rude words on walls of schools, cards sent to children, teachers who speak inflammatory language, and other things that send a clear message, unless you are white, you are not safe. That these are not just isolated events is deeply troubling.

On the streets in our cities, night after night, people are protesting, and for the most part those protests are calm and intense. At other times they devolve into violence and destruction. I am not in those crowds, but my heart is with them. They as individuals and as communities are speaking their minds. I wonder who is listening.

So, Jehovah, I am troubled. I know only one place to turn.  You have always been steadfast. Looking backwards is more likely to make sense than the present, and certainly the future holds much anxiety and worry.

I just want to know that you are here and that you hear and that you will respond on behalf of our people.  I just want to know that what breaks our hearts also breaks your heart. If that is so, then I am ok. I think we will all be ok if we know that your heart is broken when your people are threatened and scared.

Amen

Need for a Resurrection Rant

This morning before the sun came up, I was reading and pondering a variety of things. The biblical text spoke to resurrection, the book of African American prayers pleaded with God to save them from White Christians (the prayer was written in 1829), and Thomas Merton spoke of love. So here are my meandering thoughts with no punctuations, so with apologies for those who are inclined to edit.  Yes, myself included.

And, if resurrection is a theme, my black people are in need of a resurrection from the deaths and traumas and brutality of lost years and anxious nights lived out of fear and anxiety and worry that my white people would come bearing guns and machine guns with big cars and big lights to take their house and their land and all that they had fought for away from them and give it to someone else or perhaps sell it on the auction block like the powerful men with whips and guns and chains had done with their ancestors years ago because the years had passed but the realities of it had not passed, and now we wonder why Kolin K protested. He is calling out this country and its powerful citizens to unite to eradicate injustices and police brutality. I know people who have experienced brutality. It is ugly and it is more animalistic than it is human because those who do so do so out of imagined good intentions or malevolent intentions and out of intentions of putting the land in the hands of those who can do the best with it, and those people that they deem could do the best with it look curiously enough like them. Smell like them. Dress like them. They may even go to the same church. They are friends. They know what’s going to happen because of the off-the-record conversations and decisions. That is brutality. Saw it too often in Kansas, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and the list of states goes on and on.

We all need a resurrection. First, though, we need to die to our old, racist ways of considering ourselves and our places in the world. Can’t rise without being dead and can’t be dead and resurrected without being buried. Can’t be dead and buried without no life in this human psyche carcass. Only the Holy One of Israel can resurrect us as individuals and a society from the deadness that creeps into our pores when we treat other children of God in ways that are sure to make Him unhappy. 

So, this morning I am also thinking about Romans 6, and death burial and resurrection of Jesus and how the believer metaphorically and physically does the same thing and how even those of us whose theology is different can arise from the swamps of our own self-imposed and societally-imposed disregard for people and from the stench of that emotional and relational exile from people also loved by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and you and me.