Why Did He Come? – A Poem for Charleston, South Carolina
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By Sister Larretta Rivera Williams
The Sisters of Mercy join with people across the country in extending our deepest sympathy and prayers for the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, after the June 17 killing of nine church members during a prayer meeting.
This tragedy–and so many others like it–powerfully reminds us to face the racism so blatantly alive in our own society. It calls us not only to pray for those affected by this resulting violence, but to acknowledge the ways in which we are complicit in perpetuating hate speech, hate crime and other more subtle but equally damaging forms of racism.
Sister Larretta Rivera Williams shared this reflection on the shootings in verse:
Why Did He Come?
Emotions erupted my sleeping soul as pools of sadness filled chambers of my heart.
They say he came to shoot Black people.
Awakened by reports of violence at the historical Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina; fragments of grief pierced an unsettled stomach.
They say he came to shoot Black people.
Charleston, South Carolina…rich history, unique architecture, sweet grass basketry, and southern charm.
Historical beauty stained by slave trade, positioned in a state of Palmetto trees, Myrtle and Hilton Head; capitol dome shadowed by the State, American, and Confederate flags.
They say he came to shoot Black people.
Nine people killed while “keeping their minds fixed on Jesus.” Nine people lifting their eyes to the hills from “whence comes thy help. Thy help comes from the Lord.”
Old and young placing their hands too soon in the Master’s hand. Could this have been his sacred plan?
They say he came to shoot Black people.
A taste of plantation filled my mouth with the stinging salt of a mother’s tears. A gripping anguish like being ripped from a mother’s embrace to stand solo and sold on the slave stone.
My legs fell weak with the weight of a father’s sorrow caressing his child laid bruised, beaten, and bullet-bled.
They say he came to shoot Black people.
Some say, “It does not matter; the color of your skin.” It does matter if you have had to worry, hide, defend, or explain. Do you think the nine worried?
They say he came to shoot Black people.
Asphalt darkness bleeds through humanity. But an explosion of God’s glorious light is forever victorious!
Perhaps, in the midst of it all…hope…
They said, He came…
Please join us in praying both for the victims and their families, and in calling ourselves to examine the sin of racism and roots of violence. Please join us in acting in ways that show all lives matter to us. Please join us in being more vigilant and taking action to confront injustice in our communities that leads to violence, of facing and caring for members of our communities who are troubled, who do violence when untreated. Please join us in taking a critical look at our own actions, our own hearts and how we may be failing to face and remedy this reality in our everyday lives. View resources on dismantling racism and nonviolence.