6/4/20

By Josh Rubin

Life is a long journey. And the struggle, la lucha, is long. The trail taken by those who flee their devastated homes is long, and may not end anytime soon. The heavy slog from captivity to slavery to justice is long, and never over, it seems.

And even what should be an easier trip, the one those of us with privilege take, from the realization, the gut-punch of perceived injustice before our eyes, to change, is more often one of shocking defeat and setbacks, that hurt us deeply despite our relative comfort. We see what is in our hands, and what is on our hands.

I am thinking of one of those astronomical moments when the sun or the moon lines up in such a way as to illuminate. Stonehenge, or whatever, perhaps some other artifact built by Mayans, that sets aglow clear lines of sight. In the last months, things have come into chilling focus. The pandemic lens focuses and burns away the just-so story of equal opportunity, as bodies beaten by injustice break down. The pain that makes it so hard for all of us to breathe finally chokes the airways of a man in Minneapolis, and we all gasp in pain for him.

And the righteous anger that rises brings those demons out that we have seen at our borders punishing those who journey, now deployed to crush hope from the aching hearts, to spray gas to punish the eyes of those of us already fighting tears.

But the light is there. They will never blind us to what we have seen. It is the same struggle, and it is against the same enemy. We are witnesses, and what we see we cannot unsee.