After witnessing the largest recorded public outcry against injustice in the history of mankind, my dearest friend wrote a text with a single word – “Inconsequential”! Feeling the stress and duress of a constant barrage of negativity, his statement reflects what many have come to feel during these extremely trying times. Tainted by war, threats of war, one global crisis after another, rising consumer prices, job loss and unemployment, homelessness and housing shortages (millions of worldwide refugees and millions sleeping on the streets in every major US city), historic farm and personal bankruptcy filings, food shortages and children suffering from malnutrition and starvation (more than 1 million dead in African countries since January 6 2026), one pandemic after the other, health care crisis and rising medical costs, secret police killing and incarcerating civilians in concentration camps, an orchestrated attack on truth and a distortion and destruction of historical facts, and the rise of human hatred and the normalization of bigotry and racism have all been unleashed in a relentless daily throng. Little wonder this climate has created despair among the masses resulting in millions taking to the streets in the largest public outcry ever staged.
Having witnessed 28,105 sunrises, I rose this morning with my friend’s statement haunting me along with the lyrics of Master Songwriter and vocalist Gregory Porter’s song “No Love Dying” playing in my mind’s ear (“There will be no love that’s dying here…”). I am no cleric or celebrated author occupying this space at this time in history, but I dare be compelled to share these thoughts and reflections with family and a few friends and acquaintances in the hopes that something written can provide some relief and shed some light during this time of darkness. Scripture says that “At my best, I am but a filthy rag”!
I look back over my life for reference and perspective. I have been blessed to have known and shared time with all my grandparents and to be raised by a loving mother and father. When talking about my life as a black man in American, throw away the glaring stereotypes permeating the common discourse and vernacular. I’ve never known hunger, homelessness, childhood abuse, abandonment nor faced any adversity without family support, encouragement and reinforcement of spiritualism. I have seen success and shared in the bounty gain through struggle and sacrifices before me and benefited my entire life. In my father’s house “Men were Men and Women were Women and my mother was always to be honored and respected.” We gathered at the dinner table daily; worshipped together; played together; went on vacations and my brother and I never went in need of anything significant. I was a freshman in college before I discovered I had lived beneath the “poverty line.:
Enlisted after the bombing of Pearl Harbour (before I was born) my father served the segregated US Army during World War II and following Armistead my mother served the civilian Civil Defense Corp as a volunteer helping to keep citizens alert to potential bombing attacks following the war by conducting bomb shelter drills and air raid safety procedures.
My earliest memories of television are news reels featuring the Nazi War Crimes Trials highlighting the atrocities at Nuremberg and Austwick. Giving birth to the Atomic Age, the dropping of atomic bombs on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was constantly shown as well. Commentators never emphasized that 25% of the world’s population died in that war and that more civilians were murdered than combatants.
The Legend of the Sankofa teaches us to look back from whence we have come to help us navigate our present course. As a member of this current society, I witnessed the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, the murders of Emmit Till, Sherner, Goodman, and Chaney, Martin Luther King, Jr., A.D. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Muammar Gaddafi, Anwar Sadat, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Mohamedou Diallo, Medgar Evers, Steven Biko, as the urban bombing assault on The Religious Group MOVE in Philadelphia by the police. The list of murders and assaults on public figures I have witnessed over seven decades is too massive and countless to list. The point being established is horror ain’t nothing new!
Our fathers were told that WWII would end all wars and never again would life be squandered in aimless acts of carnage. However, in my lifetime I have seen countless wars and scrummages claim millions of lives: Korean Conflict, Biafran War, Vietnam, War in Iraq, genocide in Gaza and Palestine, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Sudan Civil War, and The Cuban Rebellion just to name a few witnessed by my generation, The fact of the matter is that during my lifetime there has always been military action somewhere claiming lives.
So, I fully understand the exasperation causing many to abandon any hope of change or any quantum attempt for mankind to seek righteousness. History records an incident in the life of Frederick Douglas when he was overcome by despair not achieving the goals of his lifelong struggle. A century later Martin Luther King, Jr., would encounter the same despair. Sojourner Truth sent Douglas a letter and asked him to exam for himself the answer to one question,
Douglas went on to champion his cause, and King delivered his sermon at Riverside Church thirty days before his assassination.
So, it is not uncommon for those who live straddling the fence or simply choosing not to believe in the Supreme Being to find themselves lost in this quagmire of scum and villainy. However, I have come too far to abandon the God of my father’s fathers. I hear them shouting “Whenever 10 million people can say,
“Father, I stretch my hand to thee, no other help I know. If thou withdraw thy self from me O’ whether shall I go!
Something has got to change”.
I know what it means to be shot at, threatened, extorted, betrayed and vilified, but when I was old enough to understand, my mother taught me how to “watch, fight and pray”! That has always been my salvation.
Eight years ago this May, I sat with my wife and daughter in the maternity ward at St. Joseph’s Hospital awaiting the glorious birth of our grandson. During the monitoring of the heart beats, the medical team detected an abnormality. Keisha (I love her like she is my own daughter to this day) my daughter’s doctor rushed into the room and prepared my daughter to be taken immediately to the delivery room. She said clearly, “God has done what HE needs to do, but now it’s time for me to do my job. The baby has wrapped himself in the umbilical cord and I’m going in to get him!”
Just like Kiesha, it was time for me to do my job. I began to pray. I did not ask to speak to the president, judge, attorney or chief of the hospital staff, but I called on Jesus! Ten minutes later, my daughter held her healthy son for the first time!
So, when I am told “Inconsequential”, as if Man is in charge of destiny, I choose a different lexicon. I choose Almighty, Omnipotent, Everlasting, and God of God and King of Kings. I choose to believe that when 10 million or just 3 or more gather in His name and humble themselves before the throne of grace and mercy then He Shall Heal the Land!
GOD IS NOT DEAD!!
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