Dearest Family!
Dearest Family!As my grandmother and the folks who raised me in Lincolnville, SC would say, “these are troubling times.” These are the days that speak not only to our faith, but to the detail threads that make up the fabric of our personal beliefs. Do we believe the coronavirus is a man-made virus designed in a lab to kill off elderly folk around the world? Do we believe this is yet another attempt to kill Black people globally? Perhaps, this is a virus sent directly to earth from Big Daddy God, who is sitting up in heaven, sick, tired and mad with his children? Or perhaps just mad with those who get infected with the virus?
I am being bombarded with calls from my friends and family who want me to join them in conspiracy conversations about where, why, when, how this coronavirus landed in America on top of us. My response is always the same, “I do not know about any of this, all I know is there are things we MUST do NOW:
- Hold on to your faith in God that the inhabitants of planet earth will survive this global pandemic regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation, religion, geographic location, etc.
- Listen to scientific facts and take appropriate actions
- Do not think and act against sound scientific facts in order to prove your Black skin protects you from the virus
- Choose who you will have conversations with and what you will and will not talk about
- Guard your mind, heart and soul
- Stay at home and take care of you and your family
- Make sure the elderly, children and those who need us most are safe and have what they need
- Be kind to each other: Love your neighbor as you love yourself
- Do all that you can to support our health care professionals and first responders, including those who work in grocery stores, truck drivers and others who deliver food and goods, sanitation workers, law enforcers, those who are providing us with our essential goods, etc.
- Drink lots of water. Exercise. Rest. Stay connected to your church, mosque, synagogue, and/or spiritual circle throughout the week
- Mediate on God and His Abundance of Goodness in your life
- Stay in Prayer and be a Balm in Gilead in word and deed