I confess – I continue to be confounded and confused by current events each and every day.  Just when I think I can make sense of things, I am confronted with a reality which doesn’t conform to the conversation of our country.

I thought BLM was fighting against oppression and injustice, because they feel black lives suffer both oppression and injustice.  So imagine my surprise when I see black owned and minority businesses burned and looted in so many cities during the BLM demonstrations/riots, protests and takeovers.  I thought they said black lives mattered?

A young black man, nineteen year old Horace Lorenzo Anderson was killed on June 20th in the BLM “CHOP” occupied territory in Seattle, Washington.  Where are the demonstrations over his death?  Why aren’t his name and picture all over the news?  I thought BLM’s message is that black lives matter?  Doesn’t his life matter?  Who gets to decide?

I find it curious that the group, BLM, who says they are wanting to free people from oppression, are in fact enslaving people through oppression – oppressing people in order to accomplish their goal.

I don’t know when I’ve witnessed more tyranny, more rule by mob violence and more destruction of both public and private property than I have in the past month.

They say they are pleading the case of the oppressed and the voiceless.  How ironic that their method used to accomplish this goal is to oppress everyone who doesn’t support them and to silence every voice save their own, so there are no voices of dissent or voices of protest against their actions allowed to be heard.

Did you feel safer or freer before the protests began?  COVID-19 had us confined and afraid for our lives.  Then the protests/riots began.  We lost our freedom and our peace of mind to COVID-19.  Then, in this past month we lost our peace and our freedom all over again to BLM.

Many of our streets and public places are not safe while mob rule reigns.  We are not free to speak our minds.  Corporations and individuals are scrambling to fall in line and profess allegiance to BLM lest some harm should come to them, either physically, economically, socially (public perception of supporting them or not supporting them) or otherwise.  I think they are more afraid of BLM than of COVID-19.  (unfortunately a mask is even less protection against BLM than it is against COVID-19)

And so I watch the oppression of a people, of a country, silenced before my eyes. No one will speak out and say that arson and looting and vandalism and graffiti are wrong, not to mention illegal.  (unless you are burning or spray painting your own property, then I guess that’s your right)

The answer to oppression is not to oppress others.  The answer to injustice is not injustice.  If you desire freedom of speech for yourself then you cannot silence other voices, even if they are voices of difference or dissent.  But for now it appears the angry mob rules.  America is being bullied by burners, statue topplers and graffiti vandals.  No one has the courage to speak out against this destruction, oppression and injustice.

In Isaiah 1:16-17 we are told not to ignore wrong doing and mistreatment of other people. “Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!  Seek justice, encourage the oppressed.  Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”

We all want justice.  Justice, however, does not come amid chaos and confusion, death and destruction.  These words from Isaiah 11:3-9 describe what justice will look like when she comes.

“He will not judge by what He sees with His eyes, or decide by what He hears with His ears; but with righteousness He will judge the needy, with justice He will give decisions for the poor of the earth.   . . .   The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.  The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.  . . .  and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.  They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

what a beautiful picture of life lived in peace and in freedom; freedom from fear, freedom from violence, freedom from oppression – God’s perfect justice ushering in safety, peace and freedom for every living creature, even the animals!

When I feel discouraged and disappointed in what I witness around me, I will remember and hope in these words of Psalm 146:3-10,

“Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.  . . .  Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth,  . . .  the Lord, who remains faithful forever.  He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.  The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous.  The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but He frustrates the ways of the wicked.  The Lord reigns forever,  . . .   Praise the Lord.”

sincerely,        Grace Day