Be honest about what's breaking your heart

A boy named Ralph, questions about justice, and permissions given by an ancient sacred song

By the rivers of where we’ve been held in captivity—
there is where we sat down and cried
when we remembered Our Home.
There, by the river, we hung our harps
on the willow trees,
because our captors were taunting us, asking us to sing our cultural songs for them.
Our tormentors mocked us, saying,
“Sing us one those songs from your homeland!”

How can we sing the songs of our people here, on foreign soil?
In this dehumanizing place?
If I forget you, my Home, may my hands forget how to play music at all.
May I lose my ability to speak if I do not remember where I come from,
if I do not celebrate my heritage and Home as my greatest joy!

God, do you remember what our neighbor said that day when our captors came for us?
They said, “Destroy their lands! Destroy their sacred sites!
Take their Beloved place down to its foundations!”
Oh captors, you think you’re strong because you’ve stolen us,
but hear this: you are doomed to destruction.
Happy is the one who pays you back for what you've have done.
Happy is the one who ruins your future,
taking your children and throwing them over the cliffs.

Psalm 137, my own translation

Learning how to be honest about our grief is an essential practice for those seeking to pave a more beautiful way in the world.

We cannot know what’s beautiful until we’ve stayed with what’s broken.
We cannot imagine new futures until we’ve wrestled with our shadows, past and present.
We have to be honest about what’s not working before we can get real about new possibilities.

I woke up yesterday morning to the news of the gut-wrenching, though not fatal, shooting of Ralph Yarl. You’ve probably already read the story, but if you haven't, Ralph is a Black boy who while on an errand to pick up his younger siblings, accidentally knocked on the wrong door. Innocent mistake. From what I read, he was shot at least two times. He’s still alive, thank God, and recovering. But as you can imagine, the presumption of this child’s criminality on the part of the shooter reeks of of the same racism and toxic prejudice many of us have been resisting for years now.

What does one say in the wake of another tragedy? A tragedy that drums up anguish and fear in the lives of people everywhere who love and care for Black teenage boys? They are our sons and brothers and nephews and friends. We belong to each other, do we not? What do we do with this harm?

What does accountability look like? What is justice? Is it for the person who pulled the trigger to be jailed, fined and placed behind bars? Another life, or series of lives, ruined underneath the foot of a carceral system that is far more interested in punishment than in restoration, healing and care? Is this what justice looks like?

I’m not sure I can make that call. I’m not sure our “justice” system is designed to answer these questions, though it tries. I imagine, however, if Ralph was my son, my nephew, my brother, or my friend, I would want someone jailed, fined, and placed behind bars.

Happy is the one who pays you back for what you have done to us.

As I got lost reading Instagram hot takes, reflections, and calls to action related to this heartbreaking situation, I began leaning into this new practice I’m cultivating which is to ask, “God, where are you?”

“God, where are you in this?”

As a person of faith, it’s amazing to realize how little I actually pose this question. It’s been important for me lately to inquire about the presence of God in the midst of tragedy because, well, life is full of it. Life is so damn hard. There is painful, overwhelming and impossible shit around every corner. At the risk of sounding way too churchy, trying to hold it all together and respond intentionally to every situation is more than I can handle on my own. It’s more than I’ve been able to handle in community. So I’ve been cultivating a practice of leaning on the Divine Strength I’ve claimed to believe in for years.

God, do you remember…?

Waiting for responses to questions like, “God, where are you?” doesn’t always come easily. Depending on your experience of religion, spirituality, or faith it may be hard to imagine answers ever coming to this question.

But I have found some measure of comfort in the expression of Psalm 137.

I have found some measure of comfort in the fact that words like these—words of despair, disappointment, and of rage against one’s enemies—live on in a holy text about God.

For those who are unfamiliar, Psalm 137 is a psalm of lament. It’s the kind of poem you write when your heart is breaking. It’s the kind of song you sing when your whole body is crying out for justice. It’s a psalm that is so honest.

It’s honest about the agony of being torn from one’s safety.

It’s honest about the pain of walking away from something you once loved because it’s been weaponized against you.

It’s honest about the desire to see one’s enemies utterly destroyed.

It tells the truth. It doesn't give way to easy, spiritually bypassing answers. It doesn’t even end on a high note. It ends with a desire for retribution.

And you know what this teaches us?

Our heartache and disappointment are worthy of an empathetic listener. A listener who doesn’t demand that we feel better quickly. A listener who doesn’t tells us to temper our outrage. A listener who lets our grief stand. A listener, who for a time, lets our despair take up all the space in the room.

I just read online that young Ralph is home and recovering. I’m so glad about this. I also just read that the shooter is allegedly a man in his 80’s. I would be lying if I said I have no compassion for this man who made the tragic and harmful choice to shoot his neighbor, not to mention a child, in his community. I can only imagine how this will weigh on him in the days to come. Just as I can’t imagine the trauma and harm that will weigh on Ralph and his family as he heals. I wish we could collectively resist the temptation to make a political spectacle of it all…but…that is not our way it seems.

Psalm 137 draws up a lot for me that I don’t have time or space to dig into today, but thank you for holding these ancient words with me. I hope you too find permission to be unflinchingly honest about any despair, disappointment or outrage that has found its way to your doorstep. I feel like I say something to this effect every week, and I guess it’s just a huge lesson I’m learning.

So I commend it to you again: be honest friends. Don’t police your own heartbreak. You are worthy of telling the truth. I pray you find empathetic listeners to hold space for the magnitude of your story.

With love and shared humanity,

Bethaney