trouble is godly

I don't know how many times I have wept over these last days.

The TV news, Twitter, the online press, they are full of images of people treating people as less than. As subhuman, inhuman, ground to be walked upon, target practice, shouting rage, shooting range, things not treasure.

Amber Ruffin's everyday horror stories are jaw dropping for their  casual emotional devastation. Jaw dropping if you are white; nothing new if you're not. Cory Booker's gracious raw emotion as he tells of how he was advised to live as a teenager and his sadness that nothing has changed is heartbreaking.

Protesters hit the streets worldwide where COVID19 is still out and looking for lives to take, but they go anyway - because finally - finally? - in a Lockdown world, something breaks down the doors that have kept us all inside. Something beats the fear.
Something that happened to someone. George Floyd.

And in the wake of nine minutes in Minneapolis, too many of us have discovered we're all the same. And we won't take it when a white man in a uniform, or an Oval Office, or anywhere else, won't accept what the rest of us can plainly see.

In this country we were challenged to remember - to remember that those whom we had demonised in three years of Brexit madness were in fact our heroes.
And we are remembering.
We are remembering because an ordinary man in another country was accused of a tiny crime and lost his life for it at the hands of a police officer who decided he was judge, jury and executioner - all for being suspected of presenting a fake $20 bill.

If we came across it in Dickens, we'd be horrified at reading such cruelty in the past. We'd internally wonder if Dickens was guilty of over-egging the story and playing on our emotions. Kneeling on a man's neck? For nearly nine minutes? It's not possible. A policeman? How could he?

Rajiv Sidhu writes with passion about his personal experiences. I pick him out, but I could pick out a hundred people. A thousand. A hundred times a thousand. I wrote back to him and said - 'Keep the passion; it will get you in trouble. Trouble is godly'.

Trouble changes the world. And the world needs to be changed.

When the world has accepted that a white man in a uniform can do what he likes to a black man, (never mind the horror of what he can do to a black woman) any time, for so long, trouble is godly. When people like the way the world is because it's comfortable and they don't want to be uncomfortable - but have no idea that others live in fear of losing their lives just for going jogging, trouble is godly. When the rulers of the nations threaten those who seek change with force (or are simply silent about righteousness) trouble is godly.

The flames of Pentecost burned strangely this year. But they are bringing love and life to people who have not believed it possible. Trouble is godly.

Trouble is godly and silence kills.

The use of Pride flags & rainbows to celebrate the NHS during the COVID19 pandemic has caused a lot of LGBTQ people to question whether we should object to an appropriation of our symbol and a sidelining of our identity, or just let it be because we too want to support our medics and care workers. But LGBTQ people have been suffering in this time, just like usual. And silence has always been our enemy. It's the enemy of every minority.

As a gay man in the Church of England I get to sit in cosy rooms where great issues are debated and occasionally find the strength to make a little noise because I see people - on too regular a basis - who feel that the comfort of the majority should not be questioned by those of us who are different.

Let me tell you, it is not easy to speak out in a room full of bishops and theologians. It is not easy. But it is harder to stay silent when you know what the result of that silence is.

And now we see people really getting that there is justice for no-one if there is constant injustice for some, following George Floyd's public execution.
Does it take such a thing to make such a difference?
If it does, then we do not lose the moment. It is time to ramp up the noise. It is time to make all those cosy rooms a bit less comfortable. It is time to make sure all black lives matter, and with them (of course) that every human life matters - but especially the lives of the oppressed, the ignored, the unseen and the less than. Black lives matter. It is time to deal with all sorts of injustice.

And yet I cannot get louder without first acknowledging that I am so, so privileged. Even with all the horror stories we gay people have to tell - and there are very, very many - I walk down the street and never fear that the police will shoot me just because I look gay. It's my fortune or misfortune that I don't 'look' particularly gay. Whatever that means. I may suffer a quiet, thoughtless discrimination in my calling on a depressingly regular basis, but I don't worry that I'm going to be shot on my way home from Waitrose because I'm gay.

I pass for 'normal'.
Though who wants 'normal' when life has extraordinary on offer?

The story of change I seek to bring in my context is not the story of the oppressed in America or the protesters out across the world standing with them this weekend - and yet it is the same story because we all but sing different verses of the same song. We've sung it in different places, at different times, in different ways, now and again joining together in the same chorus, the same refrain.

We are all human. We are all loved. We are all valuable. We are all equal. We are all holy.

We are all made in the image of God, worth the blood of God, filled with the breath of God.
And I refuse to be silent when my brothers and sisters need me to stand and sing for them.

They are too valuable. Too human. Too holy.

So.

Noise is terrific.
Upheaval is necessary.
Righteousness is a gift not a right.
Gay is great.
Black is excellent.
Difference is beautiful.
Protest is powerful.
Fury is holy.
Song is healing.
People are people.
Trouble is godly.

Here goes.