Praying For Ferguson

  • Tuesday, November 25, 2014

You know, I've been praying a lot these days for folks who are suffering a silencer's toll, and I've been praying for my graduating guidance and wisdom to always lead me in the right direction as I move forward in my wonderful life.

My Ma-Maw, my Uncle Freddie and my Aunt Patti taught me long ago how the power of faith and prayer can help you have the courage to face anything in life if you just open your heart. My Grandmother Nonnie taught me to open my mind to all that is possible in life even if mine and others obstacles appear too difficult and too challenging. 

The one rule they all taught me, I've never broken;  to never waste my wishes and prayers on selfish things like the desire for money or stuff to arrive, in order to bring me an abundance of self-happiness or awareness.  

I was also taught the only way to true happiness is through unselfishness, managing your reactions to challenges and continuing to understand life's perspectives via self discovery and the recognition of other's less fortunate than you; always remembering to set aside my bad times, in favor of Jesus's prayer,  

"Lord take from me and give to them." 

It is news from Ferguson that underscores why Catholics fall to their knees as they ask for guidance, patience, hope and wisdom; so much violence in the world these days and yet I feel helpless. Only reacting by setting my alarm, by writing this post and by following through with another day.  

"Just justice, not violence y'all", said by a mother back in August who's eighteen year young, three week old son was gunned down in the streets of Ferguson. 

Justice cannot be something to regale, like a funny looking olive hanging on to a martini glass; injustice must be viewed via social temperance and outcry when something so horrible and senseless happens next door to you, lest we all expect to drown in our country's martini glass filled with fear and hate. 

Please say a prayer for the folks in Ferguson, for our leaders and for anyone else who has ever been pickled by the unjust hand of intolerance, impatience and fear. It might not seem that unusual anymore to turn on the TV and see yet another young black person maligned and shot dead for justice, or for street gang retribution, in the streets like road kill on Interstate 75, only to find out they might just have been at the wrong place, at the wrong time and might not be making the best decisions that day, but who most certainly was acting like other arrogant, full of hubris young folks can act.  

Please help this Ferguson family find peace as they move through this difficult time. Please help folks understand how hopelessness and mass incarceration of one group is effecting all of us, in untold ways. And how our over-reactions plus sensationalized collisions of media isn't helping anyone.  

It is those of us who see the fallibility of class marketing, generational tariffs, anti-trust laws not being enforced, and that the collusion of marketplaces have all of us running amuck, afraid and scared.  

"Michele, the idle mind is the devil's workshop," my grandmother Peterson always said, was working on overdrive that day back in August in Ferguson, when one man decided to take a boy's life, not once but six times.  

Please help folks understand why this feeling of injustice and our modern-day media attitude of, "look what I have and what y'all don't," is tearing at every fiber of American culture, regardless of skin tone, vernacular or intellect.  

Lord hear my prayer
Michele Peterson

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