Vocation

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Last night when reality begin to sink in, I thought of this quote. I lost hope around 2 AM, I spent all Wednesday morning hoping to find it. I thought about the country we had just created, the path we had placed it on. More importantly, I thought about my little cousins Jay and Jordyn. I thought about my God brothers, Aiden, Liam and Ethan. I thought about my beautiful Kendra, who only sees the good in life. I thought about the 5 children I teach every Sunday at Marsh Chapel. I was overwhelmed with the reality that we had failed them.

We were blinded by the hope that Barack Obama gave us. The belief in better that he made reality for 8 years. We didn’t do our job. I’m willing to live through this, I don’t have any other choice. But those brilliant and bright eyed children shouldn’t have to. They should feel what I’ve felt these past few years under the Obama administration. They should grow up knowing that bigotry and racism is not American culture, and if it was, it no longer is. Sadly, I’m not confident that is our reality.

Dr. King was right when he said that we’d remember the silence of our friends. I was willing to accept your silence in regards to the Black Lives Matter movement, maybe that was too complex for you to comprehend. I turned the other way when you didn’t acknowledge the murders of countless African American men. However, I thought this was a very clear decision. I thought this was rational. I thought you valued me. Clearly, I was wrong. I called you friend, some of you I expressed love towards, and when I needed you to speak you fell silent. You hid in the ambiguity of Hillary’s deleted emails, you clung on to the tradition that said, women can’t be president and that I can never forget.

I sat for hours thinking, what do we now? I  realized we can’t lose hope. We have to keep going. Not for us but for those names I mentioned earlier and countless more like them. Black, White, Latino, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, we have to let them know that we are better than this. It will be harder than we’ve ever known it to be, but we will get it done.

I pray that we all stay strong, but more importantly that we stay hopeful.

Take Care,

Devin Harvin

I ended my thoughts by saying the Lord’s Prayer, it is a reminder that my strength is found in someone that is not bound to earthly means.