It's Easy. It's Hard. - Kenneth Tanner

It’s easy to pose with a Bible in front of a church. It’s hard to allow yourself to be encountered by the Living God that walks its pages.

It’s easy to burn down a Muslim family’s small restaurant in Minneapolis. It’s hard to build a business over decades with your children and see it go up in flames overnight.

It’s easy to break a window. It’s hard to put yourself between a BIPOC protester and the shields and batons of a tone-deaf state.

It’s easy to circle the wagons and deny that many police departments have serious deficits in training and tactics, to pretend that police brutality is not a real and present danger. It’s hard to take off the tactical gear, like Sheriff Chris Swanson did, admit there are problems, and march with protesters and stand with protesters for change.

It’s easy to denounce racism in another. It’s hard to discover and confess racism in myself, to have the courage to name racism in the structures of my society, to put anti-racism into practice.

It’s easy to paint all law enforcement with the brush of Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane. It’s hard to put on the uniform with a genuine desire to serve and protect, and feel many judging your vocation by its worst actors.

It’s easy to violently clear a street of peaceful protesters for a photo-op. It’s hard to sit down and listen to what’s animating their protest.

It’s easy to Tweet a James Baldwin quote or post a meme by Austin Channing Brown. It’s hard to read their books and sit with their ideas (like a book requires you to do) and ponder fundamental change in yourself and in society.

It’s easy to sow chaos and confusion, to manipulate a moment of crisis in order to promote divisiveness and destruction. It’s hard to bring people to a table and get them to recognize what together ails them and how they might transcend the crisis to achieve a just mercy.

It’s easy to say and do what your tribe expects you to say and do. It’s hard to go against your tribe for the sake of others and for the sake of your tribe.

It’s easy to get tired of hearing about racism. It’s hard to keep experiencing racism.

It’s easy to join a riot. It’s hard to restrain your community for hundreds of years while they are oppressed and murdered.

It’s easy to burn it all down. It’s hard to build it back up.

It’s easy to issue a statement. It’s hard to live the words.

It’s easy to hate. It’s so very, very hard to love.

Comments

[Mike]

Thank you