Today I am sad.

Today I am thinking of all the parents of Black children, especially boys. I am thinking of the parents having to explain somehow that this culture makes their beloved children targets.

That the world is not safe.

That the people who are “supposed” to keep all of us safe are some of the most unsafe people for Black boys, teens, and men.

Today I am thinking of the violence in Gaza, what people are calling a “war.” The deaths, the desperation, the wrenching realities of imperialism.

Today I am thinking of Robin Williams, and all those who do not make it without taking their own lives.

We all die, of course. We all die. And yet where is justice? Where is love? Where is hope?

For me, today, I think of Our Lady, Queen of Sorrows. The Lady I aspected in the ceremony I described in the post “Mary, Mother of God.” She Who holds the pains and groanings of the world as sorrows.

Today, my outrage is tempered by grief.

Mourning for the losses of the world.

Mourning for the brokenness, the mutilation of the world.

Mourning for the ways in which our hearts are so twisted that we kill each other in cold blood.

Aie, it is a hard day.
Yet, as my friend Cyndi Simpson reminds me, there is still Paradise in this world. It will show its face to me again.