In 1963, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, yearned for a time when “we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” Dr. King knew that individual freedom was bound up in the freedom of all Americans. The same is true still today. Our lives are bound up with the lives of people of color; our freedom with their freedom.
We have spent the season of Lent exploring the spiritual work of resisting racism. The last practice required in our antiracist work is Carrying, taking up the cross of our neighbors of color, as Simon of Cyrene did for Jesus in the final moments before the crucifixion. Only as we join them together on the road to salvation, can we truly find our own.
This Lent, we have Asked for courage and grace to face the truth about racism in our country. We have Named and Interrupted our whiteness and white supremacy at work. And we have learned that it is only in Submitting and Carrying the pain with our neighbors that we can begin to be free at last.
