Silence

I am not Trayvon Martin.

Neither are you.

No matter what your color, culture, or status in this life...

you are not him.

You are alive in fact.

I was once struck by something Wendell Berry wrote in one of his stories.  He wrote of how we not only shouldn't, but how we cannot speak for the dead.  

And, How is it honoring to speak as though we can relate to someone in their death?  How can any of us identify with someone who paid the final price of their life?

How is it respectful for any of us to insist we are that person?

This is one of my many confusions in the tumult of the last week.  

So many voices clamoring to be heard.  So much anger... disallusionment.  So many sparks giving way to greater flames of tragedy.  

Even in admitting my take on "I am Trayvon Martin", I shudder to think who might read that admission and misconstrue, misunderstand, misquote and mistake.

And all of this might give us pause.

I will not speak on this matter in public.

Even in private, my words for it are very few.

It is not because I do not think on it, wrestle with it, yearn for better things in all of it.

I do.

I am silent because I have learned that sometimes

we have to wait on wisdom.

In the waiting it is good to be

silent.

Maria