An excellent message on grace, forgiveness and social change.
We talk a lot about race. There’s no short cut. We don’t need more talk. …. It would be a betrayal of everything Rev Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slips into a comfortable silence again. Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on to go back to business as usual. That’s what we so often do… to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudices that still infects our society. To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change. That’s how we lose our way again.
Justice grows out of recognition… of ourselves in each other… then my liberty depends on you being free too. History can’t be a sword to justify injustice. Or a shield against progress. It must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. How to break the cycle. A roadway for a better world. He knew that the path of grace involves an open mind, but more importantly an open heart.
~ President Barack Obama
from Eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney
Charleston, NC, June 26, 2015
2nd Row: Tywanza Saunders, Rev. Daniel Lee Simmons Sr., Rev. Sharonda Singleton, Myra Thompson CHARLESTON, S.C. — Nine people — three men and six women — were shot and killed during a prayer meeting Wednesday night at Emanuel A.M.E. church in Charleston, South Carolina.
