All Lives Matter to Me

It’s the early morning hours. The day before the memorial service for the Dallas police officers.

I awaken in a hotel room just outside the city. Photos of the five officers and two African-American young men who were killed appear in my mind. And tear at my heart.

I think of their families. The ones who’ve loved them and are left behind to grieve.

My heart breaks for the pain we cause each other, for the violence we resort to so easily to resolve our differences, to make our voices heard.

There is another choice.

But it’s harder. Because it involves letting go of our own agenda.

It means putting aside our pride and our judgments. And our preconceived notions about who is “right” and who is “wrong.”

It means being willing to see and listen to the other person.

And letting Christ’s love guide our steps.

That option seems so far away. Especially in the midst of the ongoing onslaught of hate-filled insults, of angry words and demeaning lies raging over social media and throughout this political campaign.

So I do the only thing I can do. I offer prayer. And ask where God is in this.

A familiar question pops up.

“Have you been with me all this time and still do not know me?”

It’s a question Jesus asked of his disciples along their journey together.

And this is the response that comes.

I am African-American. I am Mexican American. I am Native American. I am Muslim. I am Christian. I am Buddhist.

I am the police officer who risks his life every time he protects yours.

I am the youth calling for peaceful protests after his father is killed.

I am the man with knotted hair standing at the stoplight with his cardboard sign asking for help.

I am the undocumented little Guatemalan girl languishing with her mother in a Texas family detention center.

I am the young mother in Bolivia who abandoned her baby because she could not feed yet another child.

I am the 10-year-old boy stolen from his family and forced to become a soldier.

I am the Syrian who fled his home with his young son after their lives were threatened.

I am the family in sub-Saharan Africa unable to eat tonight because there is no food.

I am in you. I am in the neighbor next to you. And in the neighbor across the ocean whom you have yet to meet.

All lives matter to me. Because I am all life.

I am compassion. I am understanding. I am love without borders.

I am peace in a world that does not know peace because it does not know me.

I wait for you in the stillness. In the silence. There you will see me.

And know me for the first time.