mourning Tyshawn Lee

Image from The Chicago Tribune

[Image description: Tyshawn Lee, a 9-year-old African American boy, smiles at the camera.

He is wearing a blue collared shirt, a blue tie, a blue vest, and is sitting in front of a gray background.]

Yesterday, a nine-year-old boy named Tyshawn Lee was shot and killed in the Chicago neighborhood of Auburn-Gresham. I had been planning on student teaching in that neighborhood this spring, until plans fell through with the school (today, actually). This closeness causes me to mourn and to want to take action, but my distance leaves me clueless as to what action I should take. That's what this post is about.

This goes without saying, but needs to be said: this makes me sad. Heartbroken. I need to set aside any hope of being able to do anything about this situation because this murdered son's death speaks the same truth that Jesus's death speaks: "It is finished." This child is gone, and what more is there to do than to mourn?

I see this child, and I see others like him, and I see what is too often reduced to "black-on-black violence." And I am learning more and more just how inaccurate and dismissive that label is. I see that this is a community issue, a city-wide issue, a historically-precedented societal issue.

When I look at Jesus on the cross, I know that my hands did not hold the whips or the hammers or the nails, yet his crucifixion is the result of individual and systematized hatred, the same hatred that exists in our systems, that all too often appears in me. And although I wasn't there, I've played my part in killing Christ. Lord, have mercy.

When I look at this child, I know that my hands did not hold the gun, yet his murder is the result of individual and systematized hatred, that same hatred that existed in the systems that crucified Jesus, that all too often appears in me. And although I wasn't there, I've played my part in killing this child and all like him.

Lord, have mercy!

Image from the Chicago Tribune

[Image Description: a woman stands at an intersection 

holding a sign that says "Stop Murdering Our Children"]

Somehow I receive mercy, I receive grace, and I think "What am I to do with this?" Although I often don't know what an appropriate response is, I know that blaming this child or his family or his community would be snuffing out this grace I've been given.

And you know what, blaming those in power, or those who don't care, or those who don't understand would also be snuffing out grace. There are no easy scapegoats like police officers or politicians here. In fact, it is police officers and politicians who are being called upon to help. The killer in this case--an obvious and deserving target for blame--has likely been victimized by the prison industrial complex, by economic disenfranchisement, by everything being fought against by the Black Lives Matter movement.

The person (or people) who pulled the trigger is (are) fully to blame, but it's all tied together. We are all implicated. We've all inherited generational and systemic sin. Now what are we going to do about it? What does repentance look like?

This looks different for everyone. For me, I've been walked down a path for the last three years that leads towards teaching in the neighborhoods most affected by these crimes and these deaths. And I often don't know how to articulate why. I don't think anyone fully knows their own motives.

Part of my motivation, clearly, is that I'd like to think I can contribute in some way to making things like this happen less. Then I hear arguments in my head about how that I'm trapped in the white-teacher-savior mentality, and I'm reminded to guard my mind and my heart from that mentality whenever it appears, and I remember that to teach is to listen, and that maybe that's the most I can offer to these kids.

Jesus chastised Martha--who was focused on solutions, who was focused on tangibly serving him, who knew what she had to do--and praised Mary--who didn't know what she could do or what she could give rather than sit down and give her full attention to this would-be crucified King. (Luke 10:38-42)

Maybe my motivation is (or should be) less about what I think I can give these communities and more about what they can give me; no, not just what they can give me, but how they can fundamentally change me and shape me.

And when Jesus shapes our souls, Heaven meets earth, ever so briefly.