A Requiem of Reckoning: Collective Grief Impact

I woke up one morning this week with the word requiem in my heart. I had heard the word requiem before, but honestly didn’t know what it meant. It took me until around 11am that wednesday morning to unbusy myself to google the word, requiem . Requiem-in the catholic tradition means a mass response to the souls of the dead. 

And indeed the requiem is here. 

Requiem did not come to me by accident. It was planted there. Requiem has a reckoning. A reckoning of a sound. And I knew it to be a sign of how our 2020 unfolded. 

2020 did exactly what it was laid out to do, clarify. It brought us crises. Fear. Opportunity.  Opportunity to see clearly, the very thing, that the business of living has distracted us from. 2020 in the midst of all the confusion and chaos of this world brought us clarity. The earth has begun to travail from the underlying consciousness and our humanity had no choice, but to respond. This year has forced us to lose the distractions, quarantine, lean in and fine tune. Come face to face with ourselves and the world around us. This global pandemic crisis has been indeed an incitement of fear, but also opportunity. 

Opportunity to dismantle the status quo and dismember our traditions, as these patterns are no longer serving us. In our personhood, in our agencies, in our business, in our agenda, in our families, and  in our society. IT’S NO LONGER WORKING. IT’S NO LONGER WORKING. Our defenses are down and at this juncture no longer necessary. That season is gone. 

The change makers are here. And the change makers are you. 

Will you listen to the fire inside of you?

Do you see how the external has responded to our internal response. 

This is generations long of spiritual warfare coming to life in human form. Our protests and our rally cries are the Kubler-Ross grief and loss model come to life. It is our groaning, it is our anger, it is our pain. It is our public memorial as a community of every breath we have lost in this fight.  

Dear Black people-we have a right to be messy and complicated, incohesive and not monolithic. We do not have to have the same tactics in this movement to punch this agenda forward in all areas. We do not have to agree. this change is not on us. This is on the establishment who created this “the powers that be.” But I ask you to stand with me in this, if we gon be up in arms, let’s be up in arms for all our brothers and sisters, for all our family members-not only our sons. Lest us covet and protect all of us. 

Say her name was never a marketing plug. It was an intentional conscious effort to uplift the name of Sandra Bland and all the women whose names we may never know. And to protest I know now is an act of breathing for Eric and George, running for Ahmaud and saying Sandra and Breona’s name. 

Our grief here is on display. 

For all the world to see. 

And I want you to intentionally sound the alarm in your life. 

Your rally cry. Your protest. Learn it’s sound deep inside of yourself. It may never be on anyone’s front line. It may be in your local community, it may be in your family, it may be behind a computer screen, it may be in preservation. But do not feel forced or moved to activate. An activist carves a lane for change. And every agenda is different. Your activism begins inside of your heart. 

Your activism may be in your own patterns of belief. Your own behavior. Your own thought processes. 

You own these and you are not defenseless and let no one tell you so.

Do not feel a pressure to perform this grief. Don’t you subdue it. Don’t you drown it out. Your rally cry may be taking a day off to deal with your own grief. Going home to hold your sons and daughters closely. 

Your rally cry is the reckoning and the power.