Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, whose life and teachings set people free.
Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham? Can you tell me where he’s gone?
Most likely you have already started singing the tune, moving through the verses that mournfully and wistfully sing of Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the latter three assassinated within a span of 4 ½ years.
A flood of emotion washes over me and my eyes well up with tears every time I hear it. Every time. It was written the night of Robert Kennedy’s assassination and according to its composer, Dick Holler, took only ten minutes to write. He and his partner found former pop-star Dion to sing it and it was released a mere two months after Robert’s assassination.
He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good they die young. You know I just looked around and he’s gone.
I was in the third grade in that violent year of 1968. My mom woke me up the morning after Robert Kennedy was shot, just a few miles from our home in Pasadena. I learned of King’s assassination the morning after, as well, but this time at school when a classmate shared the news in our “Show and Tell” time that started every school day. For some reason, word did not reach me earlier, at home, where civil rights and social justice were part of my parents’ lives and filtered down to me. I first knew something was wrong with our country when I went on a young adult trip with my church to the south when I was five. Until Pasadena I barely knew any person of color. Small town Ohio, which raised me until I was seven, was not much for diversity. This early impediment slowly dissipated, and lament has taken its place.
Didn’t you love the things that they stood for? Didn’t they try to find some good for you and me? And we’ll be free. Someday soon, it’s gonna be one day.
The sun hasn’t risen on that day yet. Not sure when it ever it will. Anybody here seen someone like Abraham, Martin, John, and Bobby? Anyone? Any voice that stands for a world better than we know now? Anyone that sees the good in you and me and the person we may not agree with or like at all? And who in this world will set us free?
So, we sing. Sing songs of joy and sing songs of sorrow. Sing because it feels good and sing because we can do nothing else. Sing to be free and to free others. It’s what we do as those who follow Jesus but, I daresay, we haven’t sung enough.
It’s time to sing, then, and better to do it together so our voices can blend in harmony. Let’s start now, this weekend when we honor and remember Martin Luther King, Jr. Be prepared for some tears as we lament what might have been if he, and the others, had lived, for the people whose lives have been diminished and forever harmed by racism and white supremacy, for the songs we have sung and new ones we need to sing, asking where have the brave ones gone, and why is it we’re not yet free?
Oh, here I go again. I just put on the song for the umpteenth time and my body still quivers as the music builds. I am typing through tears and trying my best to keep singing.
Grace and peace,
Harry