I Am Tired
When I received the email that it was time for me to submit another Mosaic article, I opened up my Microsoft Word document and stared at the white, blank screen. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about. I thought about writing about lament in our churches or following the tradition of the imprecatory psalms. Yet none of the ideas, though they may have been relevant, measured up to where I am spiritually and missionally today.
While I was staring at the screen, my dad texted me in the family group chat, asking how I was doing. I responded with the usual answer, “I am good. How are you?” His response shocked me. He said, “[I am] OK, just trying to cope with [the] events which occurred in the last [few] days here in America.” The reason this shocked me was that my dad rarely ever expresses any type of emotions towards anything, except for laughing at something funny. My dad, being a former lieutenant in the Haitian army, had always been, from my observation, a strict, no nonsense, dispassionate person. So when he shared just a glimpse of what was happening internally, I was thankful just to get closer to him on a heart level. As a result of this, while staring at my blank Word document, I responded to him, revising my original answer by saying, “I am tired.”
I am an educated, spiritual, and successful Black man. And I am tired. I am tired of finding educated words, urban words, metaphors, and other ways to help White people acknowledge and comprehend what Blacks have been living through for over 401 years. I am tired of White people not making the “Black issue” their issue or an American issue. I am tired of trying to explain what “Black Lives Matter” means. I am tired of hearing that “Jesus loves” me and that we are one body. I am tired of racial unity meetings and worship services. I am tired of serving as a racial reconciliation consultant. I am tired of hearing “all lives matter” and “blue lives matter.” I am tired of thinking positive and being a giver of hope and life. I am tired of sitting with my precious Black friends as they process their trauma born out of our racial disparities. I am tired of praying. I am tired of my mother calling me, reminding me that the cops do not care about how many degrees I have or the ministries I am a part of. I am tired of my mother fearing for her son, daughter, and now her grandkids. I am tired of asking God to allow me to be close enough to step in front of a police bullet should one be directed to one of my children. I am tired of hearing Black people say, “I can’t breathe.” I am tired of being tired.
So while I sat there in my hotel room in Virginia, taking a break from my life and my work in Philadelphia, I wondered what I could write that may be helpful and supportive to the predominantly (White) Christian leaders who may read this article. And the truth is, I am tired of doing that too. So, I am going to help myself and let everyone know that I am tired. In the words of many of Black ancestors who lived through slavery, Jim Crow, and even through this racial crisis, “I’s is tired.”
In the next couple of articles, I will probably write on the subject of creating spaces for lamenting in our churches and do a four- or five-part series on discovering one’s purpose. But until then, dear brothers and sisters, do you love me enough for me – while using this article to occupy your mental, emotional, and spiritual space – to just be tired?
