Hi all, 

This was a week where tragedies piled up. The twin scourges of racism and gun violence visited a grocery store in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, Korean-American businesses in Dallas, and a Taiwanese-American church in Southern California. Words are few and feel insufficient, but we mourn and pray and invite you to do the same. We hope some of these resources below will help you to continue to seek understanding, justice, and shalom. And may the God of all comfort be with us. 

Jonathan’s recommendations:  

• The most just, loving and kind response to the Buffalo massacre, especially for those outside the Black community, is corporate, specific grief. To mourn with us over the reality that white supremacy and racial hatred destroyed the lives of at least 13 families. To sit with the tears and testimonies of the Whitfields in this video and grieve the loss of a pillar of their Black family because of white supremacy and racial violence. If we cannot corporately grieve the racist destruction of a Black body formed in the womb by God — just like a white body formed in the image of God – then repentance, reconciliation, and repair will never be possible on this side of heaven. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy. Have mercy on we who are murdered doing daily tasks and live in fear of being gunned down by those who refuse to see us as human. May you mourn with us today, tomorrow and always.